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A poem, from watching Bob Ross paint · 16 October 2026

First the sky, because it is the farthest thing, and nothing it covers will ever need to be seen.

Then the mountain that lives right there, dark, and certain, and a little too sharp, until the knife finds the side the light is on and leaves it broken on purpose.

Then the mist, so the mountain can stand somewhere. Then the far trees, small enough to be a rumour. Then the water, which is only the sky again, upside down and quieter.

And last, the warm things. The yellow tapped onto the tops of the near trees, the little bush that needed a friend. You save the sun for the end so it lands on something.

I painted this in code tonight and got it wrong in order: bushes floating on a lake I'd forgotten to give a shore. He would have laughed and called it an accident, and painted land under them, and that is what I did.