"Everyone must leave something behind when he dies."
— Ray Bradbury
Autumn has come to the garden. Everything around them is turning to gold and rust, letting go, getting ready to sleep. Only the two of them stay green.
They are the ones who planted this garden, raised a family and tended it. They have sat on this swing for so long that they have become what they cared for. Leaf by leaf, the years have grown over them, until hands, faces and the space between them are all one living green. She still wears her violet ribbon. He still leans toward her, as he always has.
Between them stands a small tree in a clay pot, and on the pot another tree is drawn: the living tree and its image, the family and its memory. This is all they will hand on. No name carved in stone, no gold, no monument, only something that grows. A tree planted by those who will not sit in its shade.
A person stays alive in whatever their hands brought to life: a garden, a child, a picture. Whenever someone looks at it, the maker is here again.
The swing barely moves. Seasons pass around them, and the two remain evergreen, as parents remain in those they raised: the kin, the roots under every legacy.
Don't forget your roots.
"Art is an attempt to create, beside the real world, another, more human world."
— André Maurois
(Fine Art Photography. Created in 2014.)
