The subject of this sculpture is the tragic figure of Robert Oppenheimer, the brilliant physicist who oversaw the development of the atomic bomb. After its successful testing, Oppenheimer repeated a haunting phrase from the Bhagavad Gita, the ancient Hindu devotional text: "I am become death." By employing abstract shapes that can connote either the uplifting experience of self-realization through Zen meditation or the horror of nuclear holocaust, Lindquist conflates the symbolic tree of life with the tree of death. The multipart, columnar form includes a base of turned walnut surmounted by a large bell- or torpedo-shaped piece of elm. The ovoid pecan wood section balanced atop the elm can be interpreted ironically---either as a meditation pillow or the mushroom cloud of an atomic bomb. Literal meaning is augmented by the deliberate inclusion of elm, a species of tree decimated in the Northeast by disease. The tall form finally culminates in an ascending vessel whose irregular shape suggests a rising flame.