A xylothek

...is a wooden library. As I looked at the images, I thought about an article I read this morning titled "None so blind as those too sophisticated to see" which looks at critical theory and its use in our approach to art. Then I thought about the way art is used over at wood s lot, a site that always gives a stirring look at the world. Of course that's where I came across the xylothek in the first place. Then I grabbed the OED and looked up give.

I then told H how I wish I had an image to give to this post. H left without a word and came back with a pair of snowshoes.


H proceeded to give me stories about the snowshoes. How his dad had bought them in the 1930s when he was 13. How he paid 50 cents for them. How he gave them to H when H was a boy. As I looked at one of the snowshoes through the viewfinder, I could see them both. Their parkas. The frosted hoods. The breaths. The circle of willow. The rabbit tracks. Fox tracks. Coyote tracks. The deer. The porcupine looking down from a branch. Watching them come and go.