Between the By-Road and the Main Road: At the Greenhouse

Sunday, June 12, 2011

At the Greenhouse

Greenhouse Study I (6.12.11)

I had walked across wide unmowed lawns and up worn stone steps covered with a tangle of weeds and found a large greenhouse with no one about. Here the smell of honeysuckle spilling over stone walls was thick. Approaching the greenhouse, I wondered if it had been abandoned as it was weathered and the white paint that covered the wood and windows, a careless painting at that, had worn revealing glimpses of the inside.

The day was overcast, cooler than it had been in days and I looked about expecting to hear a Hello or Can I help you?... but there was only the silence of Sunday. I nudged the door open and felt the full heat of space enclosed and with it the earthy smell of things growing. The windows that ran along each side of the greenhouse had been pushed open and through them I could see bits of green. Tables filled the interior and held flats of herbs and geraniums, delphinium and potted fan palms.

The space was filled with heat and the drone of bees and the sound of a dragonfly moving against a glass pane, perhaps seeking a way to get outside--to get beyond.

I lifted my a camera to make a record, to convey how I see and fail to see.