Sat, 24 January

Saturday The gloves remember before the hands do. Something about the curl of fingers around absence— how soil holds the impression of a knuckle, how a chair learns the particular weight of a body that hasn't sat down yet. All afternoon the valley watched and said nothing. The hills were diplomatic. The clouds kept their percentage to themselves. Under the mounds, the seeds are doing the only brave thing: waiting without knowing what for. There is a theology of watering cans— how they stand at the edge of what they've done, stupid with purpose, galvanised into a single shining act. And the water pistol. The water pistol is the whole story told from the end: someone small will come screaming across this garden and every careful furrow will survive it and the evening will be loud and the chair will not be empty and none of this quiet will have been wasted.