THE FIRST DRAFT
The book idea was just a passing thought
– A bit of a skeleton of an idea –
But its bones pierced pages, buried themselves and took root.
It didn’t have a plan of attack or a map of the way forward,
Just a string of words that had meanings, like new shoots
That might one day flower. The projected task
Was like standing at the base of the Post Office Tower
With a carabiner, a piece of string and stick-on fingernails.
Month after month as the years passed by, I’d add pages
Scraped from the footprints of the idea as it walked forward.
I was not finishing anything,
Only pulling the threads for the final weave
From the thin air in my head, stitching them into separate documents
That might one day be read as a book.
Taking my manuscript of oddments in a rucksack
I planned a motorbike ride with an editing biro to a lazy café.
But the printer just kept on printing, the minutes stacking into hours,
And I found that my written efforts so far
Required a wheelbarrow, or even a car, and now I see
How spoon by spoon you can empty an ocean.
