These images of dying agave cactus fronds were made primarily at El Charco, a botanical garden in San Miguel de Allende, Guanajuato, Mexico. As I walked amongst these archaic plants, I noted that their lower fronds were dying back from the tips inward. Patterns and textures on the dead portions of the fronds were left behind, and wonderfully complex green, yellow, and blue patterns remained above the line that demarcated the living frond. I pictured the withering plants in the surrounding deserts bearing witness to and imprinting their surroundings during solitary nights:

Moonlit desert gardens, cold nights, lonely peaks reaching to starry skies.

The ancient agave stands witness to its surroundings in a separate time.

Days and years pass, but nightly wonder presents itself.

Sending its death shoot skyward, the fronds of the agave die back from their tip, recording as they do so some of the best views from a long life.