Backyard and Beyond

The root of the word book is the same as that of the word beech.

The late poet C. D. Wright’s posthumously published Casting Deep Shade is an “amble inscribed to beeches and co.”

Appropriately, this book itself is a lovely thing. The unusual trifold cover makes it highly inappropriate for subway reading, but there are plenty of other places to read. (This reminds me that I see many less e-readers on the trains now than I did when they were first being touted. Another e-gimmick gone to dust and toxicity.) The text block within is thus bare naked, showing all the parts of the binder’s craft. The pages here become heartwood, a creamy heartwood. Only after reading the book for a while did I notice that the boards were covered on the inside with wood grain-textured paper.

Pictured: a weeping variety of Fagus sylvantica, the European beech, highly favored as an ornamental on these shores. Next to this weeper is a stand-up tall one, and the nuts and husks it has piled on the path. The foot of another below. All in Green-Wood, local kingdom of the the threatened beech.