Mina’s Eden
(*BASED ON MARIANNE NORTH’S GALLERY AT KEW) MINA (HOLDING HER KEY) They build a place for my flower paintings like they say. My gallery is like a railway terminus among the trees. A railway station with no tracks. No rolling stock. No passengers. I pack the whole world up inside and, alongside, finally, with my own hands, I build my Tea House for Tired Visitors. A small house with deep roots and open windows balanced on a rock in the centre of a large pool, fed by mountain streams full of golden carp. There’s a little bridge. A little house made of paper, with sliding panels all around, two sides opening to the frosty air and sky. A gardener’s wife, or some other being capable of boiling the kettle for tea or coffee and biscuits at a fair price, works there, making tea for tired visitors.