in the grain

Dear L—,

I tried to photograph a wildflower for you on my way down the hill, but my phone couldn’t stand the drama of a low sun reaching through branches to pluck these petals out from a background already plunged in shade. The phone does not acknowledge the darkness of day, it wants everything evenly lit—“a bright and guilty place”—and so it cannot see the flower. Illumination always means passing through a darkness, doesn’t it?

As ever, —MG