One thing that’s so interesting about the Uncanny City is the blending of human-wrought structures into the Earth. Look at this, which is within walking distance of my place. I walked there today and took these photos:
Stone Spaces Beneath the Trees
What do you suppose it once was? Part of a basement? Note the steps in the upper left, coming down to a sheer dropoff. Landscape such as this intrigues me. Such scenes are all over Pittsburgh; all you have to do is turn your head! I’ve passed this place on my walks often, and have been wanting to take pictures of it for a long time.
"Gone are the hands which raised that mossy wall . . . " -- my poem "The Ruin"
“Earth is eating cars, fence posts,
Gutted cars, earth is calling in her little ones,
‘Come home, Come home!'”
— Philip Levine, “They Feed They Lion”
A Collaborative Corner
“Come with me, ladies and gentlemen who are in any wise weary of London: come with me; and those that tire at all of the world we know: for we have new worlds here.”
— Lord Dunsany, The Book of Wonder
Da Vinci instructed his art students to stare at the cracks in the walls until they saw whole worlds pouring out of them.
“Down in the grasses
Where the grasshoppers hop
And the katydids quarrel
And the flutter-moths flop–
Down in the grasses
Where the beetle goes “plop,”
An old withered fairy
Keeps a second-hand shop.”
— from “The Second-Hand Shop,” by Rowena Bennett
Grow Upward; Grow to the Right; Grow Upward!
“Many things were there, deep down, a rusty dagger, a broken sword blade, and he wandered on, staring at the secrets he discovered.
“‘Grandmother,’ he called. ‘See here. Here’s something under the grass,’ but the good old woman saw nothing at all except heather and whortleberries and the short sweet grass.”
— from “The Pixies’ Scarf,” by Alison Uttley
- To Do Today: Read “Flower in the Crannied Wall,” by Alfred, Lord Tennyson.
From “Summons,” by Robert Francis:
Keep me from going to sleep too soon.
Or if I go to sleep too soon
Come wake me up. Come any hour
Of night. Come whistling up the road.
Stomp on the porch. Bang on the door.
- For None Now Live Who Remember It
“This castle is on no man’s map. ‘Tis here today; ’tis gone tonight.”
— from “Where Hidden Treasure Lies,” by Sheila O’Neill
So one day this past spring, I think it was, I was out walking my aunt and uncle’s dog, and I came to a place beside a country road at the edge of town. It was nothing remarkable: a culvert, some fallen trees, an eroded ditch at the border of a field. But I saw it suddenly with the eyes of childhood memory. No, I had never played there; I was from the far side of town. But it was exactly the sort of place I would have played, and that would have been infinitely interesting to me: perhaps when it was flooded and frozen in the winter, and we might have ice-skated on it; perhaps when it was all muddy and soft and green in spring, alive with scents and squishes and half-buried treasures, with dusk falling and lights in the distance.
The corners of our land are enchanted, O Writers, Poets, Artists, and Musicians! Look to the mossy cracks! Look to the tumbled stones! The world breathes its stories, and we must listen.
Joe M says: 
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