It began, as all things do, with a seed. Not a botanical seed, mind you, but a seed of obsession. A fascination with the silent language of wood. The way it remembers the sun, the rain, the weight of the earth. My name is Silas Blackwood, and I am, or rather, *was*, a Timbermonger. But the term is inadequate. It wasn’t simply about buying and selling timber. It was about *listening*.
The first log I ever truly *knew* was a fallen Douglas Fir, unearthed by a particularly violent winter storm. It wasn’t beautiful in a conventional sense. It was scarred, riddled with rot, and smelled of damp earth and something… older. When I touched it, a shiver ran through me, not of cold, but of recognition. I heard a voice, not spoken aloud, but imprinted within the grain. It told of ancient glaciers, of mammoth herds, of a time when the forest stretched unbroken to the horizon.
“The wood holds the memory of time,” the voice whispered. “And those who listen, truly listen, may yet understand.”
Not all timber is created equal. The vast majority is… lifeless. It’s simply a collection of cellulose and lignin, shaped by human hands. But exceptional timber… it possesses a resonance. I developed a series of rituals, born from observation and intuition, to discern this resonance.
First, the scent. Different woods possess unique aromatic signatures. Pine holds the scent of youthful vigor; Oak, the heavy, contemplative aroma of age. Cedar, the sharp tang of defiance. Then, the touch. The texture, the density, the way the grain flows. Finally, the sound. A sharp tap with a mallet reveals the timber’s inherent timbre. A good piece will sing. A bad one, will grate.
“Listen with your hands, Silas,” my grandfather, a legendary Timbermonger himself, would say. “The wood speaks in a language beyond words.”
This oak was salvaged from the heart of the Blackwood Estate, felled during a particularly brutal hurricane. Its grain is exceptionally dense, almost metallic in its hardness. It resonates with a deep, melancholic hum – a lament for lost grandeur. It was used in the construction of the Blackwood Observatory, and, according to local legend, is responsible for the unsettling stillness of the night skies.
This pine, found deep within the Redwood National Park, displays a breathtaking spiral grain pattern, resembling a coiled serpent. It’s said to possess hypnotic properties, and I only handled it under strict conditions – a blindfold and a calming draught of juniper wine.
My work wasn’t about creating something new. It was about preserving what already existed. Each piece of timber I acquired was destined for a single purpose: to be transformed, shaped, and ultimately, to *return* to the earth. I never sold my timber. It was always destined for a project, a creation, a moment of beauty or utility. The most important thing was that it was remembered.
I believe, ultimately, that all things return to the wood. That we are, at our core, simply complex arrangements of cellulose and lignin, waiting for the cycle to begin anew.