I Wrote A Novel, But Then Was Distracted
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I wrote a novel, then I published it. Then Mr bought me a strimmer, just at nettle harvest time. And the tomatoes were red, grapes purple-black, runner beans rough green - our garden, a bounteous mess - I don’t mind, nor do I mind the work. Time squeezed can also be savoured. How the novel was finished is a mystery. I have started the next one, equally baffled. This day is sewn in with summer birds, silky light, a fat twine of pigeon, edged in cloud. Rustling green shadows, one escaped Next Door chicken pecks and is wary. I can’t manage to publicise my own novel, chook, recapture is unlikely. I can’t even get in the hammock, I’m lying on the ground under a broken sun umbrella, watching it rotate like a snapped flowerhead. Dog is slunk into shade. Chook and me in sun. Mr is noises in the shed. Birds drop flight for a noon rest. The next days, our weather is changeable. Between rain and sun, machines stand in half cut fields. Some bales are stack