My good friend Nathan Leemis inspired me to take my laptop outside. He often sets up his easel in nature and paints the scene before him. (Check out his work on Instagram.) I wanted to try that with descriptive writing. Here are two descriptions from my recent plein-air writing session:
#1
The minuscule shrub has set out to outdo its much larger neighbors and succeeded. More flowers than leaves dress its slender branches. Less than three feet of wood ablaze with more than a hundred blooms: the plant must have malfunctioned. I wish that when I malfunctioned I turned into a beacon of beauty and jumble of joy rather than a fool. Perhaps this shrub hasn’t malfunctioned at all. Its flower to leaf ratio may not be ideal for its growth, but it certainly is ideal for my eye. Perhaps this shrub is being generous. Certainly, there is beauty in generosity. The pinkish-red flowers make me think of a young heart set on love rather than selfishness, and the delicate petals evoke the gentle deeds of compassion. Thank you, little shrub, for your gift.
#2
You would think it a stalwart pine if your gaze wandered up its trunk only twenty feet. Beyond that, ten feet of bare, white wood, as smooth as bone, debunks the myth of life. Empty eye sockets, the handiwork of woodpeckers, stare down at you. Further up, patches of bark cling desperately to the dead trunk, like the shingles of an abandoned house that somehow weather each passing storm. Skeletal limbs curve out at odd angles, ending at jagged breaks or twisted, dangling extremities. The tree once raised its mane of smaragdine needles high over the rest of the woods, but that once regal top was licked clean by lightning. May its carcass long remain as a warning to the vain, for the nose turned up is easily struck.
