Blaze

The Trees Won't Notice

13 THE TREES WON’T NOTICE Trees have their own lives, branching out each season to catch and release light—pure light or light sifted through smoke, the edges gorgeous, the burning forest. The trees won’t notice how they touch us, how our whole world is named for one turn— universe—cosmic laughter raining steady till the river rises. To the painter standing half a brush-length away, this canvas becomes the world, ridges of true red crashing into violet devastating and creating continent, basin, range. The messy precision of making love in all its glory and beaver dam confusion purposeful, passionate, a matter of survival each chewed trunk living, then giving life beyond its own verso, recto leaves turning, the place where bark’s peeled back complexion freshly scrubbed the deliberate smear layer upon layer laid down wet as the free and unmerited favor of...well, maybe god maybe the edge of the not-yet imagined maybe the force of the made thing. ...