I can't see aspen trees without thinking of my dad. On our trip long ago to Colorado, there were aspens everywhere: slender, white trunked, quivering. He commented on them, made it clear he liked them. There are aspens all over, in Canada and here in Alaska, so I think often of Dad.

A while ago, I was up close to the leaves and was amazed to see—between stillness and quivering—that each one was inscribed with a circuit board, uniquely its own. I marveled at the wonders of creation, and my luck at stumbling on what surely must be the coding for their quiver, their delicate flat leaves, their tremulous climb skyward.

I pondered again the question of humans and their inventions: does the rhythmic throb of the pumping oil well—the result of its human design—inadvertantly imitate the beating of our own hearts. And the aspen leaf. Ah, the aspen leaf! What is to be made of that?