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Trelliswork

In seeking to find ways to discern God at work in His creation now, I offer this story which happened recently.

“It was the fresh side of summer. An early morning, and I stepped out into the garden to appraise our work on the new borders.  Although not a      professional gardener I am nevertheless keen to create a patch as beautiful as possible for ourselves and others to enjoy.  This entails planning and planting and waiting and looking, until sometimes briefly it seems right.  This is what the professionals do too, though even they confess to struggling until all the variables fit together.  The distinguished gardener, Beth Chatto, wrote to her friend and  gardener, Christopher Lloyd, saying, ‘Too often one’s mind is  cluttered with problems, eyes on the ground, fussing about a few gaps, or messy bits of planting.’

I stood back from the new borders. ‘Horns’ we had called them, curving round to create an oval lawn beyond, in the centre of which was a simple plinth topped by a wide grey urn.  This had been filled with a dark burgundy cordyline and a wonderful succulent, Echeveria splendens, a real eye-catcher.  I felt satisfied with the urn, but the borders, though filling out well, lacked something to make the scene a whole.  I trailed back into the house, placing the problem on a ‘back-burner’ in my mind.  The garden was due to open for the annual Walkabout the following month.  Perhaps it could be solved before then.

A few days later a solution appeared to a different problem.  We were planning a service in church at the close of the Walkabout, and had searched for a poem to celebrate the ‘making of music’. Nothing suitable had been found.  Then it occurred to me that the person to ask was my daughter’s             father-in-law, Head of English in a well-known college.  A request for his help in finding such a poem gave me the perfect reason for phoning him.  It would make our conversation easier and give it some real substance, for he had   recently suffered a terrible tragedy, and sharing our normal pleasantries was quite inappropriate.  Bill’s wife had been killed in a car crash, and he badly  injured.  Physically he was mending, though other parts of the healing process were understandably much slower.  Our ensuing conversation was good and he was pleased to help in tracing a poem.  Sure enough two days later a    couple of poems by well-known poets arrived - either would be suitable.  But Bill added that another poem would follow and this is it…….

Something very close

I watch the face of this, my youngest child.

Eyes screwed up tight, tongue pressed against her lip.

The bow moves, awkwardly, across the strings,

Small fingers stretch to grapple with the fret.

Then something like a miracle occurs,

And from this struggle, agony, and strain,

Her fearful concentration and concern,

Emerges Danny Boy - or something very close.

I play the caring parent, and applaud,

Doubtless more loudly than the piece deserves.

(In my imagination, ten years on,

She makes her debut at the Wigmore Hall.)

That evening I watch Oistrakh playing Bach.

No outward struggle here, no tongue on lip,

His bow draws fluidly across the strings,

His fingers all at ease along the fret.

Yet still I sense that same intensity,

The same deep concentration and      concern,

Though what emerges from his violin

Is Paradise - or  something very close;

A deep engagement with another world,

Of permanence, serenity and truth.

And my applause for Oistrakh’s artistry,

His heavenly, sublime account of Bach,

Recalled that earlier applause for     Madeline’s

First, faltering, attempt at  Danny Boy.

All art involves an effort to express;

All art is struggle with the form we choose.

Wrestling with words, or music, marble, flowers,

Our fingers often fail to span the frets.

This word is weak, and that perspective false,

This chord is clumsy, those begonias wrong.

To flee the fierce haphazardness of life,

We chase the pure perfection found in art.

And when it’s found, in Danny Boy or Bach,

In child or adult, miracles occur.

We mortal creatures  glimpse a fragment of

Eternity - or something very close.

                                                               Bill Hughes

 

It was perfect, though the tears streamed down my face as I read it.  Here indeed was the healing process taking place.  We do indeed ‘flee the fierce haphazardness of life’ to ‘chase the pure perfection found in art’, and, if we are lucky, we ‘glimpse a fragment of eternity - or something very close’.

Meanwhile, I had been to the local town to do the mundane weekly shop, and happened to notice a new nursery on the way.  Promising myself a treat I called in and, in the way of gardeners, could not resist four splendid caster oil plants - Ricinis communis Red Spire.

Another lovely June morning and I wandered round the garden deciding where to plant my four plants.  They were striking and needed space, so whereas I had thought to group them together, there was no room.  Then suddenly I saw them standing at regular intervals along the ‘horns’ of our new borders.  No sooner thought than planted.  I stood back to view my work and something whispered in my ear - ‘or something very close’.  I laughed out loud for inadvertently I had mimicked Bill with my Ricinis refrain, and drawn this simple view together.

In one of her letters to Christopher Lloyd Beth Chatto remarks, ‘I find it both fun and stimulating to write about life beyond gardening … Personally I think we may have a wider approach to garden design if we have been helped to appreciate other forms of art; to be aware of basic principles - balance,    repetition, harmony and simplicity - which apply to all forms of creativity’.  Indeed these are the ‘trelliswork’ for what we are trying to create whatever our medium.  Bill and I in our different ways had been applying these        principles as we struggled to engage with ‘another world’ to which all art points.

These scenarios from this summer’s life are undoubtedly small in the grand scheme of things.  There is a temptation to go either way when considering them - that is , either to make them into something much bigger than they really are, or to discount them completely and to miss their point.  But maybe the sliver of emotion that I experienced when the whisper entered my head alerted me to recognizing the cohesion of God -His permanence, serenity and truth - and reminded me too that we are here to play our part in it all.

Chris North