First Foreground
Stones hard as steel. Good for sitting on next to the stream. Space for the stream that must be there divides the two rocks. Water splashes, an apparent cascade filling the stream with water and air. Sun-dappled leaves reflect a healthy plant. The leaves are the color of what Crayola would call "spring green"--slightly yellow, mostly pale green with a luninescence that can only mean a sunny day. The ground smells of wood chips and decaying pine needles. Some dead twigs on the otherwise healthy plant may show signs of autumn or signs of insect infestation. Regardless of the reason, it is a sure sign of death--either temporary and serene or permanent and brutal. The insects ravaging beneath the surface of the bark, the plants scream silently in pain.
Second Foreground
A youngish pine attempts to grow in the midst of the shade. Its needles at the top reflect its struggle for life, for light. But the healthy part looks as soft as feathers. No wonder Native Americans and cowboys and Hansel and Gretl could sleep on a forest bed of such fluff. But surely by the time they fell to the forest floor they are brittle and prickly, like an old man's stubble who could not bring himself to shave one more day. His dead wife would have rebuked him. But now, what's the point? Birds fly overhead and occasionally chirp and chatter to each other, boasting the day's catch or ridiculing the students perched beneath them.
Background
Tall stems must support an unseen tree obscured by the boughs of the pine.
