The Underground Man

I find Imagination always willing to leap into Ignorance’s breach

the Berry Man can scatter himself into a hundred disparate parts and a prying eye would see nothing but the same leaves and twigs as lie on any woodland floor. But once the prying eye has passed on the Berry Man draws himself back in. The scraps of bark slowly shift along the ground and are reintroduced to each other; the chill wind shuffles him in

in each dark little teardrop is the makings of a tree.

Huge trunks were being wheeled in every direction and there were kisses and handshakes and embraces and much waving of handkerchiefs as we set off.

O, how wonderful to be an apple tree – to know one’s place in the world. To be both fixed and fruitful.

the man’s wife was a coal-eater

every happy moment has the brake put on it, for I know it will be recalled alone.

no great weeping when I go. I did not even manage to marry the woman I loved

I could tell straight away that my seeds had been cast on the stoniest of grounds.