RANDOM 10/11/05

Bishampton - Finding epitaphs of a man I never met. The little glories of a life. Staying in memory: the wood saws hung in a row at the top of the workshop; about eight of them, from small tenons to large almost rhomboid hand saws. Flat planes of metal so aged they have the texture and look of stone. Monoliths. Activity and use, the knowledge that something was done with these things, created. It’s pleasant to consider. And the rows of drawers and boxes full of lightly greased equipment and tools. It’s a Pandora of masculine curiosity. A pile of 7d magazines – yellowed and faded; thin, crisp paper – of countries of the world. Up against the cobweb covered window, a copy of a large painting: an orange sunset over water with some small boats moored in mudflats, like a bright hallucination.

Discovering a garden so secluded and full it is like a fantasy – huge, dense evergreens border it and exclude the world beyond; hidden terraces to be found only when you walk further, a wilderness at the far end among which some stone has been placed and the thrushes move and check my presence.

So ‘flag’ is not a bizarre coincidence or a result of translation.