dim

I come out over the hill into a dim world. It is no particular color and has no particular smell and has no particular depth. I am reminded of my machine. A gust of plastic and aluminum. The sensation of control. More space to arrange. I come upon a patch of static—maybe assembled from memories—and meet a worrying gardener.1 They are fidgeting, moving the broom this way and that way. A glove on the ground. A gleaming ring there too. They are saying, “I cannot see my flowers and ferns anymore”—they are gesturing towards chaos—“everything has become so dim here.”

  1. “The gardener digs in another time, without past or future, beginning or end. A time that does not cleave the day with rush hours. Lunch breaks, the last bus home. As you walk in the garden you pass into this time—the moment of entering can never be remembered. Around you the landscape lies transfigured. Here is the Amen beyond the prayer.”  —Derek Jarman, Modern Nature ↩︎