Looking at Life

There are many ways to introduce shade
to an overexposed garden.
You could wait for a cloud, or just close your eyes 
and imagine the bushes naked.

Their scaffolding emerges, a quiet architecture
of weathered canes and patient grafts,
with spots where dog-legs had to be made
as the quantity of artifacts thinned out in certain sections.

Take a moment to appreciate how the thorns 
make them all the more appetizing.

Too much looking can delude you into thinking
there is a best image of Peninsula Park in Bloom—
the perfect angle, the ideal light,
the most worthy version of things.

At some point, setting aside
the instinct to frame is the only way
to truly see.

And when you open your eyes,
what comes into focus is
not a study, not a landscape—
but a portrait of a thousand cuts,

developed over a century of labor and love.

by Kayla Kennett