I hunt for old wood at Longleaf Lumber on an industrial back street in Cambridge. Planks lean up against the high warehouse walls, white oak, black walnut, yellow pine. Boards pulled from old barns, old floors, weather-worn, bug-chewed, time-beautied.
On a search for a slab for a front-hall table I’m making for a friend, one plank sat apart with a group of miscellaneous wood, unidentified. My brother, on the hunting mission with me, saw it first and pulled it from the pile. The folks at Longleaf weren’t sure what it was. There have been guesses: butternut, elm. I like the mystery, but tell me if you know.
The swirl plunging down the right looks like a braid, a spine. On the inside of a tree, one finds bone, a thick lash of plaited hair. I’ll say it again and again: so much below the surface! Everything with its secrets, aspects dazzling and unexpected, in this ongoing process of unearthing, of slowly, slowly, getting to know.
[The drawing: Making Love with Debi by Danica Phelps]