Artist friends, look at this!
Look at these colors. They don’t spring out. They are dark and intuitional, like Arthur Dove’s. Not as overt as Georgia O’Keefe’s, though I’m asking you to look at the small, wet extremity that splits the color spectrum into two.
It’s shocking, disappointing, and then, simply life. These beans, when boiled, go from purple to green. The most intense purple, deep, darkly fertile. To green. Basic beany green.
Romano. String. Wax. Green. Jack and the bean stalk. There’s still some magic, despite the Anglo-Saxon simplicity of name.
Jack is thrilled to see his bean coming to fruition. Fruition. It is a fruit. First the little, tender stem. Then, the tiny, furled leaf. He planted it in a Dixie cup full of soil. He didn’t, and doesn’t, know what it was. But his enthusiasm for the greenness of the green shoot is boundless. He’s contemplative, in awe, amazed, incredulous, proud. It’s a pleasure to watch. Does it have anything to do with his asking, “Mommy, why did you decide to grow a baby? … I mean me?”
The Roving Locavore 