Letters to garden makers

Dear Monty, New vistas Sometimes in life it is as though everything is tinged with world weariness. I have sadness in my heart because people are passing away - people who influenced my beginnings in this valley. Bewilderment hits the relatives of those who fall ill, and I age. How can any of this weariness be redeemed - become re-connected ? The garden reawakening after a wet winter is like a mirror reflecting my inmost thoughts. Spring comes with new life. 'He restores my soul ' Soul is a difficult entity to pin down. For me it is the centre of my being, the core of who I am. From that deep place comes a burst of energy - like the sudden gust of wind on this bright afternoon rushing through the trees like waves breaking on the shore. The new vista of the trees beyond the garden was made possible by the death of a pine. Perhaps this restoration only occurs within me - if you were sitting here you may not experience it. There is a lot of maturing to ...

Dear Monty, I don't know how to describe the garden in this season of fleeting shadows. It is full of potential, the fuse of Spring is lit. I remember looking at a Ceri Richards painting in the Glynn Vivian art gallery in Swansea as a young man and not understanding the meaning of its imagery, but recognising the forms of morphing plants and animals. Later in my early adulthood I understood its sexual significance. The years take their toll on our sexual selves. We are creatures that live in the mind as well as the body - we are aware of so much more than just our bodies. We have a mind that roams further than the edge of the garden. Life can be so painfully clear sometimes, laid bare in the sharp light of a frosty morning. My destiny is the grave, it is not a kind of doom but it can appear to be so from this side of death. Here we are trying to find out what  happened after the big bang - where did we come from - why did we...