The Double Garden

Martin Corless-Smith

Equal to our Domestic Garden—the herbarium enclosed by the loggias—is that other Garden—existing precisely where our garden is. Both Gardens seem inseparable. In one the hyacinth and jonquils frisk etc., as in the other world amasses a description. On both sides the garden bends out of view only to regroup behind us—as if spinning made the world dimensional. When I began speaking to the garden my choice of words is no longer unsettling—for the words fly off and disperse so exactly that the gardens, so quietly acquiescing, don't notice. Pay no attention to me. The garden bending behind both of us.

From English Fragments

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