Frieda Hughes: Art can ‘grow’ in the strangest places

THE METAL TREE

Several men opened several bottles of beer and cans of lager and admired

The finished spaces they’d worked in for three years, as if there had always

Been a roof, as if the ceilings were never sent off in a skip, as if a mini-digger

Had never dug out the floors, as if the rain had never filled the muddy ruts

That ran the length of the hallways; where once were missing walls and openings

There were now windows and doors. I was saying “thank you” and “goodbye”.

These men had been my daily life during the lockdowns and let-outs

And false alarms as Covid rules ripped holes in the fabric of normal.

When they left, they were done; their work was over, so they’ve gone.

The longed-for silence was both welcome and the soundtrack to being alone.

But before the weekend I met them again, it was like seeing old friends,

Renovating where I am commissioned to design a metal tree

With the man who made one for me; I’d draw a leaf – he’d make the leaf;

I’d draw a trunk – he’d make the trunk. My drawings grew bigger

And more ambitious and his sculpture grew twigs and branches.

A pair of ring-necked doves built a nest, laid eggs, and reared two chicks.

They returned a year later to do the same. This new tree

Will grow right out of a landing wall of Farrow and Ball “New White”,

Stretching its metal fingers up into an atrium as if reaching for light,

Sprouting metal owls like overgrown acorns.