Hello, this is Amorella. This is a photo I chose for today as one on how I typically see Richard. He imagines me as a slightly stormy red sunset on his conscious horizon. I get under his skin in a most literal way. His mind is my present existential existence. Like a clever cat he prods what he can of air, clouds, and light. He would rather see me as a form of beauty with a capital B; me as a Platonic-like though imaginary Form.

The photo was taken this spring of his own relatively small backyard woods in a small gully separating another short winding row of nineteen-nineties styled suburban housing behind him. Richard is a twentieth century nurtured man who was born during the great second world war. One grandmother worked in a munitions factory during the war while after the war another grandmother was a head chef in a well-known restaurant in the state capital. One grandfather was a milkman and worked for the same company for forty years, the other grandfather worked as a housepainter and state revenue officer. His mother was an elementary school teacher and his father a metallurgist with a fondness for hunting and fishing. He fought towards the end of the war in Europe and helped to liberate the Dachau concentration camp. I see all this scattered on the ground between the small trees in this backyard woods.

The small border of rocks was mostly hand-planted by Richard, a separation of a grassy lawn from the woods. People in this part of the county tend to think of themselves as civilized when they have a yard to tend to. The ground separation is mostly dead leaves from leaves of grass. Living leaves of grass cut too close to the ground from my point of view. The trees in the woods rise higher than the photograph shows. They might as well be limitless as far as I can see.

Richard has gained a little light on the woods in these twenty years, but he never expected this. He has no idea, you see, of human potential, and I venture, neither do you.

People look up and to see blue sky in sunlight and small starry lights in moonlight. Stone border walls are all they are. Yet some people talk about others who can’t see the forest for the trees. Others can’t get beyond the grammar. Others still see themselves single sentenced when they appear surrounded by paragraphs. Too many periods and not enough questions. That’s the problem I see with humans such as orndorff. Too many low walled rocks are separations in the mind. Orndorff is no exception with this low walling, and I venture, neither are you.

Amorella is always pressing, this is an example. It is a photograph of a small backyard woods plain and simple. I’d rather see myself as a small tree than a large plant. I’d rather walk on a path of wet rocks than mud. Each is who sheorhe is. This sense of being is how each person lives, this is how each dies. Green leaves to brown. The ground, the bottom line, is mostly dirt and roots. Nothing new under the sun as far as I can see.