In my imagination, the bulldozer that was gouging the earth to get “fill” to build the highway that runs nearby still sits at the bottom of this turquoise pool. I like to think that when the ‘dozer struck the spring that provides the limestone-rich water that fills the hole it dug, the bulldozer operator had time only to scramble off the iron monster and get to safety before the water sealed its grave.

That’s probably not exactly how it happened, although the basics of that story are true: A quarry created to provide fill for widening Louisiana Highway 165 became ,a lake when the bulldozers struck an underground spring. Most likely it didn’t fill fast enough to strand any heavy equipment.

The first time I visited this place, it seemed a wound on Mother Earth that could not possibly heal. So I did the only thing I knew to do: I sought to draw out the barren beauty of the place–the rock, scoured soil, bare sand, layers of rock and soil exposed by the mighty blades–with my camera in the most gentle and loving way I knew.

Indeed, it has not healed. Mother Earth has made peace with her wound, and the peace is all the deeper and more healing for the signs of the wound that remain. Somehow, the vision of a bulldozer rusty quietly away at the bottom of the pool makes it speak all the more eloquently to me.