This isn’t the piece that’s supposed to be here.
This vision started with feeling crowded out,
Choked from light, loomed over from folks at work.
People who felt their mere presence, the force of their breathing
Would keep me from moving.
In my vision, when the jungle tried to grow over me, close up and starve me of light and water,
I focused on my roots.
Rather than fight the crowding, the attempts to force me into submission.
I pruned the area around me. Kept it clean and free from debris.
Made sure my roots found water and nutrients they needed.
If my roots were fed, my leaves could make use of the meager light they received.
I tried to paint overwhelming leaves.
I had an image of this piece being nothing but a jungle of leaves and a plant in the middle.
With a little me, a tiny speck, caring for the roots.
Urban walk, sidewalk planters
A trove of pictures of leaves, of plants, of vines.
They would be the foundation of the piece.
But somewhere along the way,
I killed off the crowd of leaves and vines and plants.
I didn’t let the crowding jungle stake the claim it had in my mind.
I sat and I painted palms.
Painted leaves with no basis in reality.
I created flowering things.
A landscape and vista of green as far as the eye can see.
The last touch,
almost didn’t add it until I saw the grey band that comes before the dawn.
The rising sun.