“Move the bucket“

the voice said

And I ignored it, wrote around it instead

Sipped tea

And the dust settled softly in drifts and droves

As the cars kept driving

out on the road

sending plumes more dust through the paddock and over the fence and all over my home and all over the deck

And with nothing to fight with

I

simply

let

them

And the dust built higher

“Move the bucket” said the voice

And I ignored it

And the dust

And the mess

But mostly the bucket that just sat there sulking and grim accusingly still scowling from the last time I used it

Muddy water turned to mud, turned to dirt to dust itself in its depths

But I ignored it

And the ring on the table that my damp mug left

And the slowly dying plant

That sat to my left

Until one morning

As the Butcher bird encouraged me with song

I picked up the bucket

And hummed along

And I swept the deck

And I mopped it as well

And the bucket was clean

The mop well rung

And the thing that I had avoided

Was suddenly done

Leaving my resistance

Quite

Put

Out

*I loved the book “The War of Art” it made such sense and on so many levels, I felt that Steven Pressfield was writing directly to me. Except he wasn’t. That book struck a chord with many people and not just creatives.

We all get stuck sometimes and it can be on the damndest things, like a blooming mop bucket.

It’s so dry at the moment that my hair is electric. Our rural road has become a highway as the blocks down the road have been bought up and had houses built, tonnes of tradies and new owners back and forth, back and forth. All seemingly at 100miles an hour.

“Bastards” I mutter sometimes as another pall of dust blooms behind a car and hurtles toward our house and exposed front deck and pool.

Last time I had barely finished mopping when it seemed like ten cars went past in quick succession.

I quit in high dudgeon

And for a month hence the bucket and mop sulked. But I won’t explain because – you know, poem.

And read Stevens book “The War of Art” it’s brilliant.

The header photo is not of the road but of the dry grass blown up against a fence.

The wind, completely uncontrollable and the older I grow the more I enjoy walking in it – feeling all that gusty energy hitting me in the face and pummelling along. Not so much when I’m trying to peg washing on the line, but the rest of the time – the wind – it’s growing on me.