2019.1 Articles of Instruction

Step One: Start As You Mean To Go On 
Pour all the pieces on the floor,
It is important to ensure that the ground is
Unprepared, uneven,
Littered with a palimpsest of
Previous attempts.

Step Two: Organisation 
Sort the pieces into piles of what
Feels Right. Your intuition is more powerful
Than the prognostication of
Experts. They have no real passion;
They don’t know your life.

Step Three: Motivation 
Talk loudly about how great it will be
Once you’ve built this…
Thing. Talk of the joy you’ll feel when
Those extraneous little… jiggledy wotsits
Are out of the way.

Step Four: Focus Your Energy
Do your best to fish out the little bits
By yourself. They don’t look like the rest.
They’re not strong and proud and straight
Like the rest. Too many complicated
Twirls and curves and fussy edges.

Step Five: Key Perspectives
Ignore your neighbours.
It’s at this phase that they will lean, smiling,
Over the hedge. Offer examples.
Gesture to their own grand structure. Yours will be better.
Fling the fiddly bits into their garden when you can.

Step Six: Critical Path
Your children are asking what you’re trying to do.
Tell them that kind of attitude
Wouldn’t have served their grandparents.
Your father comes around. Tells you you’re doing it wrong.
What does he know?

Step Seven: Safety First
The rains are coming. Cover the pieces
With tarpaulin. Your partner is asking when you’ll be done.
Ignore them – you are working on the
Important things. Like what to call… it.
More small, fiddly things are turning up.

Step Eight: Reviewing
Your other neighbour is complaining.
Says she won’t be able to step over the fence
For a cup of tea any more if you build… it there.
This kind of stirring won’t help anyone.
Your partner has that look again. Ignore them.

Step Nine: Requirements Gathering
Your children have written you an email,
Asking you to stop. They only want you when
They want you. Ungrateful brats. The image
On the top of the box is blurred with rain,
Bleached by sun. Take your time to get it right.

Step Ten: Resource Gathering
The neighbours are no longer smiling,
Say they’d quite like to talk about other things
Like subsidence, unruly pets, what you’re going to bring
To the barbecue next week. They’re getting fed up of gammon.
When you ask for help, they keep telling you the same damned thing.

Step Eleven: Prioritise
The garden need work.
The tarpaulin rattles in the breeze.
The pond is clogged, the fruit gone unpicked since
The kids stopped minding you. If you’d only
Got rid of all those “screws” and “bolts” you’d be done by now.

Step Twelve: Establish Timelines
Your partner shows you a diagram
They’ve come up with. Too little too late.
You ask the neighbours. They tell you the
Same damned thing. Talk about how six of
Your relatives don’t want… it. Don’t cry where they can see.

Step Thirteen: Review
People keep talking about recovery.
You’re fine. Stop fussing. If you can just build
It. Doesn’t need to be perfect.
Not any more…
Not any more.