On Lotta Lotass' Redwood (Ps. 96:12)

Snows still flurry here today. Seven days after the spring equinox.
Yet trees like these rise majestically above petty concerns and poverty. I am playing solitaire with a Redwood logger’s prayer book, a deck of picture postcards that were once sent by relatives and friends. Order is not immediately apparent in any well-shuffled deck. But when you begin meditating on playing cards - gathering, pressing, scanning, importing, retouching and cropping the motive - you eventually begin to distinguish the rank and file of each flake, unique people whom you never knew. And if you are lucky, a pile of sawdust will suddenly appear to mask what it would reveal.

Forgive me, for scratching xxu&rr at your portal for so long. Rubbing my twigs dry, day after day, I am still hoping to ignite a fire and release a seed to sow. Redwood cones call for extreme heat.