Lately, I've been thinking about gates, but off and on, a bit like a light operated by a switch.
First, the municipal green gate with its strong spring that made it snap shut on the leg of the Belgian hare my aunty had brought home in a shopping bag. My first rabbit. I'm not sure if we ate it or whether it was actually the one hopping around its pen in our back garden.
Life is brutal at its core.
This farmer's gate keeps nothing out. It's just a warning and a designation of ownership. Sometimes the horses will bolt. When love of freedom overcomes their fear of fences. That sense of flight at the apex of the curve. A memory of tripping, over the chain linked fence, skin ripping on the spikes, a halting kind of pain prevents us trying again until, like giving birth, we forget, only thinking of the utter inexorable joy of the leap, faith in it all.
We're watching the horses roll. First one, then the other. They're so funny with their legs in the air, hooves look silly waving around like that. What a character he is, teaching his friend to play. We see it later in the gallery, Elizabeth Frink's exquisite renditions joining us in the joyful moment of it all.
Overcome it. Let it all come over you and feel the exhilarating rush of something akin to a notion of happiness.
Then life can be wild. Whichever side you're on.
⻚
No comments:
Post a Comment