I have been away from my wormery and tomato plants for so long, I feel guilt at the thought of them. Memory is a form of guilt, I suppose, toward untended things, people, places, emotions, events. Left to rot, wither, or run riot. Wild and unkempt. Writing restructures memory into something else, located between guilt and deliverance from that guilt. Language imposes order on the unruly, training stems and shoots to conform into the image of a garden, a cultivated oasis within the general chaos of inarticulate life.




<<