The spruce top that remembered how to sing

Found it in the back of the case—quarter-inch thick, a slab from a 1947 harvest, grain like old river ice. I didn’t plane it down for weeks. Just sat with it, letting the humidity shift around it. Last night, I ran my palm along the grain and felt something hum—not through the wood, but behind my ribs. Like it had been waiting for me to stop trying to shape it. Now it’s on the guitar. It doesn’t sound like anything I’ve heard before. Not quite a voice. More like memory settling into a room.