There is a little fernery in our garden, flanked by bamboos; a miniature rain forest where I go when I feel desolated by the every-day and anaemic with elections.
We call it The Grove.
The bamboos stir and rustle in a papery dance and their green pennants ride against the harsh sky and they slice the sunlight with slender shadows.
The ferns sprawl in old pots or hang in weathered baskets. They are silent, undemonstrative, tranquil. While the bamboos shuffle and shake, the ferns remain dense and distant, primeval almost.
This grove with its dim interior excites me with some kind of mystic wonder, in such a grove perhaps Greek and Roman gods were wont to assemble to make love or plan mischief.
Sometimes, even, I feel like a paunchy Pan but when I look around for wood nymphs to pipe to they are mostly at the supermart or in at the neighbour’s.
There is a little touch of damp, a dab of moisture in the grove.
In the humid afternoon, languid sparrows and superior blackbirds sit around the bath’s circular rim like drinkers at a bar.
They beak-dip, ruffle their feathers and rearrange their social order with the mandatory peck.
Familiar voices filter
through the kitchen’s wire screens.
“Where’s your father?”
“He’s in the grove, acting the Greek god”
“Well that figures, he’s built like Mount Olympus.”
There is a small, ornamental seat in the grove. I rather fancy it, I have bent its thin strands of steel into my shape.
I sit there, an oracle to be consulted; an old earth father with a mossy mind; deep truths are lodged in my consciousness born of the world that rampages on the edge of the path; that froths beyond the fernery.
I whisper my wisdom to the passing ants.
Keep cool, keep still and keep out of sight.
So I sit and listen to the wind interrogating the bamboos.
A sparrow is poking about in a ferny tub. What are. you seeking little feathered Diogenes?
Perch on a branch and I will tell you what’s with the world. Conflict and confrontation; exploration and desecration; the scrimmage for the image; the monetary mirage and silicon. chips that pass in the night.
That’s what.
A neighbour enters the gar den and darts suspicious glances at me.
Conversation again filters through the wire screen
Did you know that your husband is in the bam boo grove again among the ferns?
Oh, it’s just that he is going through his classical period. He is all myths. Today he is Apollo. Tomorrow, Fat Cat.
Oh, sea terrors of mythology, Scylla and Charybdis, have I got a couple of right terrors for you.
A honey-eater dips in the bird bath, rippling its water, producing a mini-spray. Ah, little Aphrodite of the tadpoles. Sweet sipper of nectar.
If I were Bacchus I’d be tippling with you, with beaded bubbles winking at my brink.
I must make do with mineral water and mango. It bubbles and beads as I sip it slowly and toast all the beautiful birds.
Goddesses where are you?
Oh, there you are!!
See, it is Diana, the huntress; equipped with a five-pronged spear known in mortal circles as a garden fork.
When you’re ready, Earth Father, you can cast a few thunderbolts at the snails and stir the fecund earth.
Such is the gist of her communication. Then she is gone, to hunt the elusive hip pocket and the wild, shy allowance.
Just a little more time then.
But the bamboos rustle suspiciously and close ranks and the ferns remain enigmatic.
It is time to go.
By the bird bath, I notice a dove.
All the Hawkes are in Canberra!
Max Fatchen