A flamingo in a bright back garden is grooming it’s feathers. What it sees from the shade cast by the statues of ancient Gods and facing an incarnation of the Buddha is a mystery. Balanced on one foot in a corner pond covered in dark green pads and innocent opulent white lilies it peers down towards the warm tiled floor. The limestone slabs are etched with chalk hearts like fortune cookies next to hopscotch and drawings of monsters and men. I am a scatter-brain, but I cannot feign an understanding of what this bird is looking at, and so fondly. Parched dead leaves not cleared from autumns past dwell below a dusty circular patio table mixed with used cat litter and fallen grapefruit that have dropped from the tree above. Though most of the colour is muted or bland there are infusions of vibrancy from the vermillion bed sheet to the violet bloom of clusters of flowers that pierce through the vines and corrugated iron. My garden at Giverney without a bridge in the centre of the picture, there are instead are two chairs. Comfortable chairs whose metallic legs and arms glisten in the light and whose black pleather fabric absorbs the heat of another wild day.
The flamingo is a strange visitor to this garden that is mostly derelict and sparse,
It’s gangly frame leaps out of the water ***** it’s wings and departs.
