I've been taking photos of moss with a homemade macro lens for a few years, and wanted to do something else with them. I found a beautiful poem called Clean Dirt, typeset it with the images, and made the 11" x 7" book by hand.
I was hoping to have the title debossed on the cover and spine, but after a lot of experimentation and failure decided to screenprint it in white instead.
Clean Dirt by August Arps
deep in the clean loamy. in the dark froth of top soil and odd moss - deep
in the tendrils of microscopic cosmologies; fecund and rampant with life -
the long reed holding the wind's note in it's throat
in the failing light, beneath the canopies...
you're gasping. you gasp
at the habit of
love's heart
and the little things, teeming
in the underneath.
where gnashing teeth are dead leaves.
and yellow is origami
in the dappling
of the sun.
and the peace.
