Nancy D Valladares



Excerpt from: The Density of Breath

“Seedlings traversing in houses made of glass, humidities and densities invisible to the naked eye were necessary for their survival. It was a peculiar moment; when the density of breath was opaque for a brief moment in history.  Producing the technologies of transportation of plant matter, the biological agents which, in conjunction with human colonizing counterparts, transformed the landscapes which they touched. The species that accompanied these colonizing forces: grains, wheat, their bacterial agents and their colonies would ferment in the antipode.


The opaque accounts of domesticated ships and glass produced an order, one of static genetics and disembodied botanies. Colonies and relatives, cessated, buried, but emerging travels produced gardens, their exchanges, unmoving histories.


Hunters of the Opaque.

Collectors of light.


Perhaps these seed hunters were the ones seduced.  Plants are creatures of seduction, an art they have perfected over thousands of generations.


The arts of mimicry are games that have been played in the biotic arena which only now are we scratching the surface. What are the olfactory and pheromonal worlds that are completely invisible to us? Languages can build worlds, but so can scent, heat, the dispersal of chemistry and signaling.


Seeds learned to move in the currents of the ocean and the wind, to float on water and air, to become the first stowaways and hitchhikers. I can only surmise as to their motives if phylogenesis is still occurring.


Plants desire to propagate, to move, to transport, to fly.”