Wattle fences and beckoning for a reawakening
(In Which the Author Tempts the RootβGods of Suburbia)
A cold day in the gardenβthe 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 wildflowersβthose 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 willowβan invasive, uninvited bastard of a plant that appeared unbidden in the yard like a drunken demigodβs prank. We did not summon it. But it appeared anyway.
It skulks everywhere.
In spring, the willow surges skywardβgreen spires spearing into the grey like itβs 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 miracleβif by miracle you mean "ongoing ecological hostage situation"βthat 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 doesnβt die.
When you jam a stake of it into the dirt, it doesnβt rotβit reawakens. Roots stretch out like antennae, eager to reconnect with the wet subterranean pulse. Soon enough, youβre not fencing nature in or outβyouβre collaborating with it. You're co-conspirators.
Then maybeβjust maybeβthis 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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