The Terraces After Harvest

Let your eyes wander

1. Begin with the pale feathery grass heads nodding along the bottom of the picture.
2. Below them, the terraces curve around the hillside in long rounded steps, like the lines of a thumbprint.
3. The rice has been cut, and on the large terrace to the left, small dark tufts of stubble stand in neat little patches.
4. In the middle, a few lower terraces still hold water, silver between rows of green shoots.
5. On the right, a small stand of young conifers has turned a soft rusty orange.
6. Further up, one round terrace sits on its own little hill, its top a patch of red-brown earth.
7. Across the valley, more terraces climb the far slopes in fine thin lines.
8. In the upper left corner, a tiered building with a dark roof sits beside a thin road along the hill.

There is no last thing to find. Look again wherever your eyes would like to rest, or close them and keep the picture.