CHASING SHEEP

Materiality Is One Thing, But Substance Is Another 

Some days I look through photographs I have taken and they seem to assume the form of an unruly herd of sheep.  I am the sheepdog driving them to a distant pen over the hill, but they are having none of it.  They spread out this way and that, bunching and straggling inexplicably while I dash and harry.  I snap at their heels because some instinct of mine wants order or direction but just when I seem to be getting somewhere a group breaks away and makes a run for it and that herd-shape and the sense of purpose that goes with it, is gone.  Faint dog whistles in my head drive me on then fade and I stop, puzzled.  What am I doing?  The sheep seem to know where they are going, after all.  Better maybe just to watch them.  Then a thought occurs: maybe the sheep are leading me…..?