63” x 50”, oil on canvas

How can mountains, rivers and flowers end?

I can only pin my hopes on the loyal grasses

that once ran north forever.

The great Tang Dynasty poet, Du Fu, wrote in a famous poem, “The state is ruined, but mountains and rivers survive.” In a time of utterly ruinous civil war, he found solace in nature.’s continuity. Our time is different. For now the state survives; plant species and animals, the state-ruined natural world, are threatened.