I stare through plate glass with a painter's eye. br Horizon's treeline holds me rapt; br drawn to a small clearing between walls of trees: br focal point: a huge denuded oak with widespread skeletal branches. br It holds the center of the empty space, heart of the vanishing point. br & to its left & just behind stands a small cedar one-third its height br green & vital: an apt companion whose lush branches br contrast with oak's stark nakedness. br br An artist might create a world more ideal br than that presented by picture window's frame: br Each side's tree line would carry the eye br inexorably to that single point, that naked tree br shivering in February's chilling winds. br In his rendition, strip mall in the foreground br would surrender to rolling hills of trees & shrubs; br highway become a winding path up the hill br all so the eye might hold its focus on central oak, br creating some idyllic scene, imaginal & Edenic... br br My eye would choose to leave those jarring structures, br for both exist in eye's truth in the same frame. br It is their relation to one another that reveals secrets: br fractal branches spun by chaos, order's hidden tool br standing against man's harsh cold lines of concrete, glass & steel. br & what of smaller lives the picture can't reveal? br Distance denies each blade of grass, creating flowing fields br all trompe l'oeil, all illusion, seamless sea of verdancy br really millions of grasses & weeds & underbrush all living br against the harshness of straight lines and coldness, br softening edges with patches of green & crooked limbs. br For long after structures have crumbled to dust br nature will reclaim every brick & stone & shard of glass br with stone crushing roots & a fearsome embrace of viridian.