Free Some Other Garden by Jane Urquhart Page A

finally downed the trees. They begin sketching out allées and parterres upon the exposed earth. They begin digging and locate solid rock ten inches down.
        Everything suddenly appears to change. The King finds himself alone, in a thick forest, his distance perception, sense of direction, completely addled. Light barely passes through the trees.
        Somewhere, vaguely to his left, there is a loud roaring noise, like wind. He stumbles through thorns and burs in the direction of thunder. Bits of Royal brocade are left on branches.
        He comes upon the waterfall. He is completely stunned. It lacks symmetry but none the less it is vaster than any waterwork he has ever seen. He wonders how Le Notre was able to design anything so powerful. He doffs his cerebral hat and imagines how greatly this will impress other monarchs. He decides to present Le Notre with a dukedom.
        And then his foot slips on wet rocks. He plunges sceptre, robe and mantle into the churning rapids and flies over. He feels he has become the very centre of a fountain. SCREAMING.
        The following week he eliminates the word
glory
from his vocabulary.

NECESSARY PAUSE
    A necessary pause
precedes the performance
just before dawn
splits open to morning
    the hard morning pauses
they have held your shirt
caressed your stockings
    pauses
moments turn back
those eyes that sweep
the crowd
    they carry your relics
contemplate fountains
    footsteps leave no traces
and the handwriting is burned

BIRDS
    He cannot make them stay
or stay out of the garden
they make their own decisions
    he considers cages
giant aviaries
a mesh of metal among
the trees he has planted
    some stay
others perch on the outside wire
they sing louder
disturb his morning sleep
    the dogs of the hunt
whimper
    some birds migrate farther south
they leave him looking for
their patterns in the sky
    he desires the tiny hearts
of birds as jewellery
he invents special weapons to interrupt
their flight
    generations later
their fragile eggs break
expose a path of grace notes
unharnessed by his will
it connects the garden

MARLY LE ROI
    He chooses this location because there is no view.
        Here he can keep his personality intact. His lust tied.
        Directly in front of the palace there is a large hill. The small immediate garden is enclosed on either side by steep cliffs. There is little he can do. This is comforting, at least at first.
        He cannot live there. But he will visit, and bring along his favourites. He believes he will flourish in the company of temporary intimacy and accessible green.
        He can’t sleep. The cliffs cancel his dreams. There is a pressure on the left and right sides of his brain. He is convinced that the hill has moved closer. Twelve different engineers measure the distance from his bed to the first incline of earth. They assure him nothing has changed. He realizes this is the problem.
        He levels the hill.
        During his morning promenade the attending crowd is thin, the atmosphere informal. They chat and giggle in his presence. No one discusses glory or divine right, and the girls turn their eyes to younger men.
        He cuts into cliffs, expands the castle. There is an army draining the enormous outlying swamp. Soldiers in their hundreds die of diseases connected to unhealthy soil. The engineers bring water to the fountains at his palaces.
        He builds four hundred fountains down through the vista where the hill used to be.
        He dismantles, builds four hundred more.
        Two thousand oak trees are brought in from the forests of the Jura. Half die in the process of transplantation. They are replaced with healthy giants. Well-ordered forests appear where once the cliffs used to be. But now they present a barrier to his view from the west and east rooms of the palace. A throbbing begins in his temples. The forests disappear. The are replaced by artificial lakes. Hundreds of guests float in imported