Letters to garden makers

Dear Monty, Believing is seeing. The light flickered The garden - oriental Why trudge the same path six times a day ? With each journey something new appears I am surprised by plants that seem to creep forward Reluctant to stay in the borders. A new path - Manorbier to Bosherston. We curved around the contours and felt the land through our boots We gasped at the precipices The jewelled ocean sparkling in between Red and tea green marls. We heard chough And saw jackdaws pull wool from sheep for nests Tolkien Pinnacle The Cathedral Names made up on the spot The sun followed us Lit up the path Turned sand to gold 'Can two walk together unless they be agreed ?' We agreed that the truth can be painful Like a blistered toe on a tired foot The rocks tell the truth Age upon age Uplifted, twisted, pressed upon Turned over Ancient beyond memory Before we were He is Not dressed up No falsehood Mad with truth Truth e

Dear Monty, After Vermeer All I do is paint Butterflies bees and orchids. I lived out the development of 20th Century art in 4 years Wrote on walls Made installations and films Then 30 years in the wilderness Doddering towards the curtains. The Potteries What an extraordinary looking man is A.N.Wilson And what an exceptional pedigree But even I can chase stars I can see the pines And the God of heaven Whose stormy wind hits the house Bending trees Making the street lights flicker like distant galaxies. Bombs no longer break me as they did in the 70's The fear has gone Replaced by a weariness towards our insaitable appetite for conflict. 'Thar she glows !' The return of the light The disciples didn't know at the time the significance of what they said and did The colts foal The hero of Jerusalem The washing of feet with perfume, hair, tears The rolling back of the stone The life of Lazarus The kiss of betrayal The brea

Dear Monty, Like the weather, which I understand you have at the command of your fingertips, I have been feeling a little bleak recently. It is the eruptions of anger which catch me out, they indicate all is not well within. I am angry at my lack of self control. Looking at Rembrandt's self portraits on The High Art of the low Countries, Andrew G-Dixon posited that we don't really know ourselves at all. We can indeed be happy, cruel, sad, helpful, unhelpful, selfish, selfless - depending on our state of heart and mind. To have a garden is a blessing. Here is what Derek Jarman says about this strange thing called life : "Fools sing life in an empty song quickly lost in the wind, insignificant. How wrong. Though the watch-spring breaks, the batteries dry on the digits, the sands of time never run dry: they defy dread death. I stand with my camera, the film unwinding. Is there nothing but mortality ? The rushes are quickly over, I'

Dear Monty, I have just read the beautiful book about Derek Jarman's garden. I have never visited his now preserved cottage by the sea. We preserve things, capture them because they are like important messages to us from lives past. Here is what Jarman said about giant sea kale : 'They look their best in sunlight after rain as the leaves are designed to catch the rain and feed it to the centre of the plant; the beads of water glittering on the plant are an ecstasy'. This man was ready to live the colours and scents of the garden; to let them be 'a therapy and a pharmacopoeia' . Despite all else that was happening in his life, here in his shingle garden was raw and painful beauty. We all need space to breathe. I have been ranting on about litter again, I hate to see our lanes and roadsides and even rivers edged by litter, most of which is plastic. We had a lovely walk around Three Cliffs Bay in Gower, following the serpentine river with Egret and Her