The colour of the dirt is browner than velvet and so deep that the eyes dive into it like a star swimmer into a plunge pool. Along the slope the shrubs grow slowly and shoot down tentative roots, ready to take off. Like a smartly dressed violinist waiting for the conductor to send a limousine.
Red gravel forms the first stretch of path up the mountain, where the bride and groom go to track down the desperation that stimulates their intimate caresses. A father and son go this same way to negotiate peace. The deep-voiced breeze whispers:
‘Peace. Peace. Be with you.’
The trail is also trodden by brothers longing for their teen years. With packed lunches from their wives who wait at home with the dinner and hopeful tenderness and tissues in their apron pockets.
And there go claustrophobic women, heavy footed and stubborn with fear. Blinded by the produce of the grapevine, in the hopes of reclaiming their sight, because the view distorts the suffering.
Female relatives who share a fiancé sit down on the mountain crest, find dice in their backpacks and throw:
‘He is mine, he is mine. He is yours, he is yours…’
But they don’t care who gets him. Chance rules the throw.
And on top of the mountain Vikings search for runaway slaves to wash their swords in. For slave girls to wash their spears in. But don’t see a girl who is missing her national-costume doll, a pencil case, her swimming stuff, and the pink comb.
East of the gravel path sits your mother on a grassy slope and looks evening-tired over the countryside. There you can pick dandelions, bluebells, buttercups, sea mayweed, forget-me-nots, sheep’s sorrel; and soon the berries will be ripe.
Your sweetheart lies in the back seat of the car and sleeps while you stand by the bonnet and talk on the phone under a few wisps of cloud – that orderlies compare to cotton, baker boys to meringue-tops – by the marsh-sun to the west, over the sea that has spread out the freshly ironed tablecloth so a streak or crease is nowhere to be seen.
If you smooth out a tablecloth you imitate God.
If you set the table for one you imitate God.