Sometimes a painting isn’t about anything. Sometimes it’s just a painting of a leaf with raindrops on it. Little water droplets reflecting the world above, around and beneath it. A tiny dim sun dots each of them. A magnification of the leaf below. It makes one wonder, what’s inside?

I looked it up. In order for a raindrop to form high up in the atmosphere there must be a speck of dust around which the moist air can condense. And clinging to that dust can be all manner of things: bacteria, fungi, pollen, more dust. Dust particles pulled high enough must be mighty tiny, I surmise. Dust from fallow fields. Dust from belching industrial furnaces. Dust from jet engines screaming across the sky. Dust from the porch Aunt Millie just swept. We shed bits of dust from our bodies. Is a bit of me in that droplet? You?

A chipmunk might just take a sip of one of those drops. Or a breeze might tilt the leaf, sending it into the soil where it meets with other drops, sinking deeper down into the water table and out to the pond nearby. It may find its way to the little creek that drains into the headwaters of the Charles River and into the bay and out to the Atlantic ocean. Or the droplets might evaporate and return to the atmosphere and becomes part of an afternoon rainbow. Or it might come out of our tap. Or into our tea.

So yes, this really is just a painting of a leaf. With raindrops on it. It’s just green with a little pale yellow and some blue. Really.

Painting: Green Leaf © Lissa Banks 2021