No one is on the street.

When the sun lights up the air before me it is alive with pollen and dust which settles into the cracks of the asphalt like a golden mend.

I find a log by the creek, eat a couple pieces of toast from a paper sack in my pocket, then paint the forest. The sun shifts the colors as I work. Green and gold trees emerge from black shadows.

When my hands are cold I pack up my paint and walk into the woods where some earnestness finds me in the early angled light. As if all my life my body wanted this one thing: to wake at dawn—to paint trees.

And all this time I’ve been making a nice breakfast instead.