Sleeping Tygers
I am thinking of a second career as an urban graffiti artist. Urban is pushing it a bit, but small market town graffiti artist is too much of a mouthful.
Every day I walk my dog along the local trailway, dodging cyclists and pushchairs. It used to be a railway line and cuts through layered banks of flint and chalk. When the summer holidays start children do what children do and use lumps of chalk to write what children write.
This year a new development. In letters two feet high:
JESUS SAVES
Time to raise the tone of debate. Over three or four days, with several near misses (cyclists) and some suspicious loitering (pushchairs), I write:
THE TYGERS OF WRATH ARE WISER THAN THE HORSES OF INSTRUCTION
I check on it with each walk, touch up the letters when they get scuffed. Dog approves and doesn't pee on it.
After a couple of weeks suddenly one morning there's a reply:
EXPECT POISON FROM THE STANDING WATER
Not sure what to make of this. Could it be that deep rivers of radical passion are flowing under the Corn Exchange? When the automatic doors of the Co-Op slide open, does a tsunami of feeling flood in? Or is there another pedantic show-off in town?
What to write next? Just leave it as a dusty meeting of minds, or follow up?
YOU NEVER KNOW WHAT IS ENOUGH UNLESS YOU KNOW WHAT IS MORE THAN ENOUGH
But the weather breaks and it rains. One more washout
