Requiem

Padauk and walnut end grain in offset columns, with a horizontal break mid-field where the courses shift out of alignment. In raw wood the contrast was brutal — arterial red against cool gray-brown. Under finish, both species darkened and pulled toward each other until the surface became a single field of oxidized violet and carbon black. The pattern is still there, but you have to look for it. The board reads as something older than it is.