Six Words: Intensify, Studio, Oven, Stubborn, Multiply, Recession
The artist’s studio near Terlingua
gives a view that changes with the seasons,
not the way views change in the Texas Hill Country
or the Piney Woods,
where trees change colors
and drop leaves
and sprout new ones.
Not the way bluebonnets
and Indian blankets
and other colorful wildflowers
appear in spring along Texas highways.
No, out here in the Big Bend area,
colors and textures intensify,
recede,
multiply
as the sun moves northward,
then southward.
Temperatures change from oven-like highs
to freezer-like lows.
Some people think the views change
because of the changes in the length of daylight.
Others think the changes
depend on the temperature.
Still others think
it is because of change itself.
All tend to be stubborn
in their opinions.
To the artist
and the occasional guest,
the reasons don’t matter at all.
It is simply that it happens
that brings them here.