“Colors shift like smoke within the branch beneath our feet. Sprites jump from leaf to leaf, leaving sprinklings of glittery dust in the air behind them. Droplets of water are strung like pearls from the silver strands of a spider’s web. Bluebottle glow-bugs stick to the leaves and branches, lighting up the night with their blue-green bodies. And high above us, clouds are draped like sashes of color across the sky. Amethyst, azure, jade.”

“Things stood still, not a leaf trembled on the branches, while the sky slowly lost its color and became an expanse that looked like the spread of glowing water.”

“The shadows of leaves fall upon their arms, as they spread the branches apart, but their shoulders are in the sun. The skin of their arms is like a blue mist, but their shoulders are white and glowing, as if the light fell not from above, but rose from under their skin. We watch the leaf which has fallen upon their shoulder and it lies at the curve of their neck, and a drop of dew glistens upon it like a jewel.”

“She turned back to inspect a bank of greens: olive, jade, leaf, kiwi, lime, a silver-green like the back of birch leaves, a bright pistachio.”

“Patience. I colored patience gray, hung over with black clouds. I colored hope yellow, just like the sun we could see for a few short morning hours. Too soon the sun rose high in the sky & disappeared from view, leaving us bereft and staring at blue.”

“In some ways, my mother was right; a tree does look the same from the top as it does from the bottom: same branches, starting as weighty limbs and narrowing to the tiniest twigs; same leaves, quivering in the slightest breeze or in the rush of the trains; same colors, same rustling, same gentle sway. But from earth, looking up, a tree is hopeful; it might be touching the sky. From above, looking down, you can see--it's stuck in the dust, just like us.”