Morning at Nohl Canyon, overlooking L.A. |
A mourning dove alights on the olive-beige fence |
With the skewed perspective of an easel, high clouds canvas the sky, white bristles loosed from my brush and gouached into place. |
Exhaust stains my vision, painting me in olive and beige. The dove blends into the fence like pencil lines at my touch. |
I smudge dryness with withered leaves, dehydrated succulents and ice plant. Dead palm fronds snake down the trunk of my paintbrush. |
I fingerpaint the landscape, smearing concrete riverbeds into the suburban palette of tract housing with the rain that never comes. |
It sketches me on thick, rough paper as I await the bath of colour, the bristling touch of brush and paint. I mute terra cotta, |
dry earth sloping down to the ravine below. |
Amrys O. Williams |