Granite is the root of a mountain whose upper body has gone — the range above it eroded away to rivers, glacial melt, long before anyone was here to grieve it. Every wall we see now is a kind of historical secret foundation, the part that stayed.

Conquistadors of the useless: conquerors of nothing, keepers of nothing, carrying nothing down but their own changed hands. The stone forgets every hand completely, and every day. The only reason it can be touched again for the first time.

Tuolumne, August 2026