AN OLD FARM GATE

There’s not a breath of wind, but it’s cold again tonight. That’s because there’s no cloud cover. So it is once again a perfect night for stargazing. The old lady who has been relegated to live in one of the outhouses at the back of the farmhouse comes to join me.

If I look to the western horizon I can see one very bright star, but it’s not a star at all, it’s Jupiter. They say that is the biggest planet in our solar system and has seventy-nine moons of its own. I would love to see all those moons and wonder whether they too cause the seas of Jupiter to rise and fall; because just imagine if they all pull in the same direction all at once!  I always also look out for Orion’s belt, and yes, there they are: exactly three stars blinking and shimmering but in their exact positions, as usual, making Orion a very neat lad indeed as he strides across the heavens. Of course, my favourite stars are the four bright stars of the Southern Cross pointing to the south, so that those of us who spend our nights gazing up at the sky can always get the correct directions. Another reason why the stars are so clearly visible tonight is that the moon is what they call a new moon. I once heard that the old people who used to live here hundreds of years back, and didn’t farm but only hunted, used to call it, a hollow moon. And I know it might be fanciful but I like to think that their story is true because they said that the hollow moon is weighed down with all those who have left this earth.

Does that sound melancholy? Well, perhaps it is for I am indeed feeling my age today - a lot of rust and my joints in need of oil! You would think the people in the main farmhouse would be concerned about my appearance. They are those sort of people, who worry about appearances, but since they got the car, well, I am not the main entrance anymore, am I?

And I wish that my dearest friend was still here to hide me under a mass of leaves and lovely pink roses. For rose bushes become more lovely and prolific with age and she would have been able to hide my defects, as I eventually rust into nothingness.

“Snap out of it!” I hear her say.

Yes, I am feeling sorry for myself. But I am probably about to be sold for scrap metal. The old lady is even hesitant about leaning on my bent and rusty frame as she stares up at the sky. She prefers her stick!

 I fondly remember what my dearest friend, the rose, and I were like in our heyday? I was painted white and stood firm and straight and Mr Wilson built that lovely arch above my head. The Wilsons were proud of their farm. My friend was young and delicately trailed her fine leaves and blossoms over the arch and framed my handsome wrought iron scrolls and curls to perfection. We were quite the envy of the district because we epitomised the look of the times.

“How smart for a farm gate!” people used to say enviously. But at that stage, we didn’t know or appreciate how well we complemented each other.

The Wilson family grew and the farm did well and the children grew up to all be tall and good looking and far too ambitious to stay on a farm in the quiet, dull countryside. So we witnessed them leaving one by one. The sons all got jobs in the city and the daughters were married off, until there was only the youngest daughter still at home. She was a lot younger than her brothers and sisters. Very sweet and very pretty but really shy.

And then one evening this same shy daughter of the house, little Elsa, unexpectedly arrived back at the farm with a young man on her arm. He had asked her permission to walk her home from church. I remember how the two lingered under the trailing rose boughs beneath the arch, while they leaned towards each other, but not quite touching. The young man stretched up and picked a rose and placed it so carefully in Elsa’s dark locks. She blushed and we saw her transformed.

  The evening grew darker and the stars came out and the two still chatted away. At some point he looked up and pointed at a shooting star, saying, “Elsa, I’ll remember this evening with you every time I see a shooting star. Will you think of me as well?”

And it was at that moment that I realized that I too had a heart. I could feel how closely yet sweetly my friend, the rose, clung to me and I stood tall and strong and felt my heart embedded yet pounding deep within my solid and reliable metallic frame and posts.

Just then Elsa’s father came storming out of the house. He shouted at Elsa, “Go inside immediately! What are you doing mooning outside with a strange young man? Hiding behind this rose bush!” 

He turned to the young man and said sternly, “And you young man, don’t ever let me catch you talking to my daughter again.”

Elsa never did see the young man again because he worked for the bank and was soon transferred to another town. For a while she used to come outside and stand holding onto my rails and look down the road, hoping that he would come back. But he never did. She’d pick a rose and put it in her hair and I would feel the rose bush drop her pale pink petals consolingly around the three of us.

And then one day Elsa’s father said, “We’ve had word that Arthur Didcote has died of pneumonia, so enough of this!” for Elsa had been earmarked as the daughter who would have to look after her parents in their old age. She was not allowed to get married. And Mr Wilson brought an axe with him and again said, “Enough of this romantic mooching!”....and the roses and the pink petals were no more!

Elsa became an old maid and I became just another rusty old farm gate. And time went by and eventually, the older Wilsons passed on

  But as the years go by, Elsa, an old woman now, not needed or wanted by her younger brother and a greedy sister-on-law who have inherited the farm, still comes and leans on me and looks up at the darkening sky as she has done tonight. And she watches…….and waits for the occasional shooting star to burn its brief trail across the heavens.

We are both looking up. And there it is! This time a comet. For there is a ball of flame with a tail of fireflies igniting the sky with a shower of light. There is the faint scent of roses in the air, and our hearts are pierced anew.