Walk through a park on the morning after a storm and you’ll find the grass strewn with branches, scattered glyphs tracing out the imbalance of the night. Finding one always feels like a gift to me — something fallen from above, a manna of sorts and in shape, just as miraculous. Plane trees in particular shed exquisite lines. Sometimes they double back on themselves or execute knotted angular turns, but mostly, there’s this latent grace and outwardness in the way they extend, like a dancer doing Balanchine hands. They reach — reach — beyond their edges with as much softness as strength.

​