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Tag: Gardens

This morning it was not possible to sleep.

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This morning, it was not possible to sleep past five am because the air was spoked through with bird call, too much of it, and mostly it is the pink and grey galahs and also the white corellas that moved in before Christmas and have not yet packed up their campsites. Sometimes they all shout at once.

The lemon light is already warm, and it is stitched through with too many birds. I am outside on the lawn and can see through the window that Max is awake, standing up in his cot and looking out with his hair sticking upwards, rumpled, warm. He is looking out through the window into the green, holding his head, with the sticking up hair to one side, looking gravely into the feathered and beautiful morning which is where I am standing, right in it, wondering what it is I have right now, joy or sorrow. I can see Max listening to the birds as they inform him that he is awake.

Digging

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The most important exertion at the moment is packing, digging and throwing.

Max is in the garden, he has found a rectangular brick planter full of lovely earth. At the moment it is only growing some rogue basil. He grasps the earth and hurls it out. He does it again. It is physical and substantial work, and difficult, it requires coordination and regulation. He does it again and yet again.

He regards the thrown earth on the path, he is breathing hard, he dribbles but does not notice the line of saliva that falls, it represents his intense link with living, with movement, with sensation, with the smell of earth, water, basil, sunlight, gumleaf, and the ticking of the summer sprinkler. The dog lies nearby with the hopeful tennis ball, sometimes the earth scatters over her ears, she shakes her head kindly, keeping watch over the young.

Max pulls on the basil leaves, the air is poked through with basil, he grimaces against the basil, it is lovely.

He regards his warm, starfish hand, it is covered with hot soil, he frowns, dribbles, turns his hand over and back again.

Maisie the kelpie is barking through the fence, Max regards the walkers on the dirt roadway also through the palings, his mouth is open in amazement, he slants his baby head to one side, seeking the sliding voices through the hot fence.

It is a warm, gum tree evening, the birds are frantic with this evening, Max stands, covered in this evening, in warm earth, he is regarding the sky, the trees, the galahs, the basil, the breathing of the garden. He cannot close his mouth and does not swallow, this would take up valuable time.

Then there is a voice he knows; his mother, calling for bedtime, he drops to the pathway, preparing to crawl, there are basil leaves clinging to his thighs, he arrows for the door, still looking backwards at the outraged galahs, crawling toward the mothership and clinging with ecstasy to his warm, baby life.

 

 

 

Max and I go into the garden after it has been raining.

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One morning at the shop, Yvonne put her head in the door and called out: How’s Max? How much does he weigh? I told her and she said: God bless his dear little heart.

Well, the other evening, when it was hot, very hot, it had suddenly rained. And I was in the garden with the secateurs and then, when it rained, there was only the dark rich green, the leaves, the water running down the leaves and the silver of the secateurs. That silver under the rain was so silver.

Then it stopped raining so I went inside and brought Max outside to walk through the raining water and the raining garden.

From the doorway, it was too bright to see. So we went the short distance to the lime tree in a tub and looked carefully at the basil underneath. In that wet, hot evening light it was all emeralds. It seemed valuable. I crushed one leaf close to Max, close to his nose and we went on down the wet path, pursued by basil. Then the white cockatoos are overhead, they tear the sky with their screaming joy. Max is frowning and looking up through water and light and we stand for a long time looking up at those scribbling nuisances.

Then down again, down the path, past the Chinese Elm that is not doing well, the lavender, the rogue fig tree that we did not plant, the lemons and then beneath our feet, gum leaves, gum leaves and gum leaves. Then we are at the gate and you might be asleep.

But you are not. Your eyes are buttons, fastened to the rinsed light and the blowing gum trees.

 

My grandson Max could not drink his milk.

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It was very funny the other morning when I was outside giving you a bottle. Because it was a grey and dark morning but it was hot and it was raining. Then the sun returns and glazes everything too sharply with light from just everywhere. You had to stop drinking and stare in outrage because it was light and colours going into you instead of the milk.

 

Max is a Pint of Blue

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It is the end of summer, and the air is full of that strange, footless summer breathing. Why does my grandson pant in my ear when I hold him? What is he looking at? The oblongs coloured like jewels along the back wall. These are books. The horizontal streaks of the bamboo blinds on the front door framed in lozenges of coloured glass? You sit for one baby minute after another staring at these.

The grape vine, the plum tree, the basil under the lemon tree. There is too much basil. The died roses, the pegs on the ground, the golden orb webs. We don’t like them, but you do.

Your head wobbles on a stalk not strong enough to hold it still. When you have completed your wobbling examination of a thing you grumble slightly. Time to move on. But once you stared thoughtfully at a lemon for nearly three minutes. Drenched in yellow, we could finally move on. Then we are under the wisteria and startled by purple. The whole house is breathing Max: powder, soap and milk, light, shapes and heat.