Writing Gate
If the field gate is saturated and the garden soil too dry to
dig, my world is screwed. Having managed the day before
to lay that pen for the second raised bed just before it poured,
such a reversal of physical law would destroy the triumph in
this job – especially as I had skimmed the turf like sheets of
lasagne because of the frost. If I cannot go out and measure
for a new one or dig the earth, I will stay here writing about it.
Anything can be buried whatever the conditions if you don’t
need it to grow, and a gate still hanging will always close.
Putting all of this to a bigger test, I set the house alight and
watched it glow, flames spreading along the lawn to take out
those oak pens, scorching border camellias and heathers until
dead, and then creeping ever closer to what it licks best, a
battle with the doused marinade of a bored gardener’s gest.
Mike Ferguson taught English for 30 years, but having left this job, now writes and reads and listens to music when not examining to earn extra having left that job.