Wattle fences and beckoning for a reawakening
(In Which the Author Tempts the RootâGods of Suburbia)
A cold day in the gardenâthe kind that gnaws at your fingertips and makes you question why you ever left the warm glow of your monitor. Three years ago, I built a wattle fence to hold back the ever-hungry tangle of wildflowersâthose sly, creeping bastards that reach out like the fingers of a half-remembered dream.
As with all things, entropy arrived on schedule. The structure sagged, slumped, and quietly rotted under the indifferent eye of time. And now, as the unwilling steward of this plot of semi-civilized dirt, it falls to me to resurrect the thing. Rebuild it from the bones.
Good fences break good neighbors
We construct these palisades from the husks of goat willowâan invasive, uninvited bastard of a plant that appeared unbidden in the yard like a drunken demigodâs prank. We did not summon it. But it appeared anyway.
It skulks everywhere.
In spring, the willow surges skywardâgreen spires spearing into the grey like itâs trying to get the hell off this cursed rock. Its roots drive deep, drink hard, and leave little for the rest of us. It's a miracleâif by miracle you mean "ongoing ecological hostage situation"âthat the soil hasn't been rendered dry and sullen.
Now I cut it. Hack it down. Strip it into and bury them in the earth, straight to the neck.
The quixotic thing: willow doesnât die.
When you jam a stake of it into the dirt, it doesnât rotâit reawakens. Roots stretch out like antennae, eager to reconnect with the wet subterranean pulse. Soon enough, youâre not fencing nature in or outâyouâre collaborating with it. You're co-conspirators.
Then maybeâjust maybeâthis fence becomes a living wall. A writhing, sighing barrier. Not made by hand, but coaxed into shape. Not built, but grown.
We shall see.
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