The Constant Gardener, In His Garden, Thinks Of His Canadian Friend John Owens, Who Has Returned To Morrisburg, Ontario Poem by Dennis Ryan

begun Tuesday morning, June 26,2018 at 10: 20 a.m.; continued several times thereafter, including today, Wednesday, August 3,2022

Note: John Owens is a Canadian writer of short stories, historical novels and detective fiction. He is the author of The Sixth String, published in 2013, a historical novel on the holocaust, its aftermath—the fictional story of the hunting down of Dr. Josef Mengele, the infamous Angel of Death, by a gypsy flamenco guitar player. I have known John Owens since August of 1976 when we taught English at Hawksbill High School in Freeport, Bahamas, one of the largest public high schools in the Commonwealth of the Bahamas. We also played soccer together for a German firm, Beck's Beer Company soccer club, at Freeport Rugby Club, and played a lot of tennis matches against one another at the Freeport Racket and Squash Club. Freeport is the Bahamas second largest city, after Nassau, located about 90 miles east across the ocean strait from West Palm Beach, Florida.

" ¿LE GUSTA ESTE JARDIN? ¿QUE ES SUYO? ! EVITE QUE SUS HIJOS LO DESTRUYAN! "
--Malcolm Lowry, from the novel 'Under the Volcano', the final invocation, on a final, separate page, following the novel's conclusion. Lowry, an English novelist and poet, wrote the bulk of this acclaimed novel while living with his wife Marjerie Bonner at Dollarton on Burrard Inlet, near Vancouver, Canada.

Do you like this garden? What is yours? ¿Que es suyo?
Prevent your children destroying it! It rained here overnight,
John—I see the traces as I walk the garden path, surveying
vegetables and flowers. I need not water then. The days
are hot and humid now, good for growing tomatoes, peppers,
squash. You must have returned to Ontario by now,
to Morrisburg, having left Indian Rocks Beach some
time ago, in mid-May perhaps, but no word from you.
You don't enjoy the onset of Florida's sweltering weather,
rainy season setting in, raining daily, that weather I know
so well from the past. No word from you though—
though you always stay a step ahead, and when I call,
I get this message repeatedly—again this morning—
not even an hour ago: "Due to network difficulties,
your call cannot be completed at this time. Please try
your call again later." (It's been three weeks now,
from June 5th, that this same message has been playing.
You told me you had changed carriers; but if that's
the case, the message...?) Rain is imminent here,
now, in Raleigh, North Carolina—I feel a heaviness
to the air, see plentiful gray skies gathering, all the signs.

But it's all a matter of interpreting what you see, right?
A bird sings, "Koth biro: Rain is coming. Auma do
you hear what I say"? John, can you hear me, do you
hear what I say? The sound, the tonal qualities of my voice
as I speak? Rain is coming—it's time we gathered our reserves
for these crucial years ahead. I would not change
places with you, I have told you, despite your advantages,
your finances, and if our friendship has to be on your terms,
at your times these last few years, then.... You neither
value nor nurture it now, so you have told me, so now
it comes to a rightful close. In Lowry's novel, Hugh Firmin
had said that "by some contrariety we have been allowed
for one hour a glimpse of what never can be since brotherhood
was betrayed..." What never can be. Again. You, Dianne
and I living in Freeport Bahamas in 1976-1977, out walking
that wide, rocky beach that runs from Eight Mile Rock settlement,
past Harry's to West End, Grand Bahama, where the island ends. "Just an instant in the eye... If that should fail us... there shall be no... "

This life is ours to keep and care for. ¿Que es tuyo?
What is yours? Hugh's, the Consul's, Yvonne's, Laruelle's?
Say what you will, tools, unusual tools have been left at our disposal. Say what you will, the lie concerning your son included, had our friendship been sustained, and not intermittent,
the outcome might have been different. Might have been...
As in the title of that unfortunate play by Ben Jonson,
The Case Is Altered. And as M. Laruelle had said,
"Your Ben Jonson...When our two dusts with Waller's
shall be laid, siftings upon siftings", it will no longer matter,
nor matter that I loved you like a brother, moreso, to no avail.
No se puede vivir sin amar—these words scrawled on the façade
of Laruelle's house to no avail: " The only commonality is
a shared experience 40 years ago." Really? That only?
"I have told you countless times we are very different people."
Different, yes, but not all that different; otherwise, the close friendship... if this friendship bedevils you now... "Your interests, your concerns are not mine." True, the writing,
not on the wall, was on a board nailed to a local tree:
¿LE GUSTA ESTE JARDIN? Do you like this garden?
In Chapter 7, the consul saw the sign upon leaving the bar.
How many bars have you left in like fashion, big guy, big drinker? Go your way, John, your own self-interested way always.
¿Qué tuyo? I will miss you.