At Some Level

Dreams are short. But some of them take a long time to tell....


So you have a real garden? asked Jesus. What's in it?

Oh, marigolds, violets, roses, lilies, I said. That's weird, come to think of it. They're all the ones in the song.

Not all, said Jesus. Check this out. And he was off again, singing.

The Crown Imperial bloometh too in yonder place, 'Tis Charity of stock divine the flower of Grace....

Yet, mid the brave, the bravest prize of all may claim, The Star Of Bethlehem- Jesus- blessed be his Name....

That's me, he said.

How come you're in your own garden? I asked.

Listen, said Jesus. Anyone can be in their own garden.

I mean it sounds like you're planted in your own garden.

It does a bit, said Jesus. But listen to this, the last verse.

Ah! Jesus Lord, my heal and weal, my bliss complete, make thou my heart thy garden plot, fair trim and neat.

Wait a minute, I said. That sounds like you'll be doing all the work in the garden!

Good heavens! said Jesus. So it does! What a stupid song. Nice tune though, don't you think?

Yes, I said. I like the way the lines don't fit the music.

Hey look! said Jesus, ignoring my remark. Someone's left a striped sock on the floor.

( Strange how dreams distort reality. As you know, I didn't see that sock till afterwards ).

How could they have missed it, I said, when it's so colourful ?

Yes, said Jesus. It makes you wonder. And see, the stripes are the same colours as my flowers, orange, violet, red and white and green. Now that just shows that everything in the universe is connected at some level.

Jesus! I said. That's deep.

A Rose Poem Begun As Prose

Here's something. I had a white rose in a small brown vase on the kitchen windowsill, for months. It didn't stay white of course. It dried out and turned the colour of tearstained paper. The lavender flowers surrounding it were astonished, and refused to die. One day three rose petals dropped into the sink. I picked them up and placed them in my paper boats. They looked like little extra sails, optimistic, about to billow in the wind.

I was outside this morning looking at the roses. They were crisping up alarmingly in the heat. The red ones looked as though they had been subjected to an electric shock. The shock had curled the edges of their deep red petals, created creamy wedges in the frills, ripped holes in their underskirts,

and exposed their lurid yellow skin.
I had to bring them in.

And so the tearstained paper rose met its end.

It decomposed in a flutter of papery notes.
Five petals I put carefully into paper boats.

My rose, at rest, so fragile, in the sink.
The red electric fright roses replaced it.
Ah!

An earwig thrusts its tail at me from deep inside.

Demise of Number 14

We've lived on this street for ten years now, approximately. No one's lived at number 14 for most of those.

We'd walk past in the evenings and see the setting sun reflected in the windows, which made it look like someone was inside.

But the broken blinds and flaking stucco walls, the cracking concrete and the unattended weeds, the ever growing collection of Messenger newspapers lying in the driveway, spoke of emptiness.

I've stared into those windows from the footpath, imagining some lonely person sitting in a darkened room inside, staring out, while their Messenger newspapers slowly turn to mush.

And their roses doggedly bloom, pink and red.

Now the house at number 14 has been pulled down. All that remains is a pile of rubble, and that too will soon be gone.

But for just a few days last week, when the house was still standing but the roof was gone, daylight poured in, illuminating the delicate lilac pink and lavender painted interior walls.

Chateau Barrosa

I've been looking at your Facebook photos from your weekend away, said Pliny the Elder, and one thing puzzles me, well, two things actually.

What are they? I asked.

Why is there a grand baroque eighteenth century chateau in the middle of Lyndoch? And why is it called "Chateau Barrosa" ?

Aha! I said. I can tell you the answer to both of those questions. The grand chateau was built less than ten years ago, by a local character called Hermann Thumm. He surrounded it with rose gardens containing 30,000 roses. He called it Chateau Barrosa as a reminder to everyone that the name of the Barossa Valley is mis-spelt.

I do not understand, said Pliny. why anyone would build an 18th century chateau in the middle of the South Australian countryside.

I dont think anybody understands, I replied. That is what it means to be a character. Did you notice that some of the rose gardens looked well tended while some of them were wild and overgrown with weeds?

I did, said Pliny. Why was that?

Because responsibility for the gardens had been split between the Chateau and the Lyndoch Hill Retreat, and the managers of the Retreat had let their side of the gardens go.

What a pity, said Pliny. I suppose you spent most of your time walking on the well-tended side.

No, we didn't, I said. We felt drawn towards the weedy paths, the collapsing trees and entangled bushes, the toppling arches and the broken follies and the choking ponds. We were enchanted by the pathos of the Ballerina Lawn, the Tea Pond and the Magic Sunset Garden, now visited only by birds. We read the names of the thirty thousand roses and marvelled at their strangeness. We sat on a wooden seat and contemplated the vanity of human wishes. Returning, we changed direction twice to avoid a young man careering down the path towards us on a motor mower.

These feelings would be understandable, said Pliny, if your chateau and gardens were really old. But had I been there I would not have wasted my time contemplating the vanity of human wishes. I would have complained about the laziness of the management.

You wouldn't, I replied, if your stay there was a gift.