Practice writing exercise

from this week in May, 1985  (I was 40)

Practice writing exercise #4a. 30 min.

from John Gardner, The Art of Fiction

            Nine o’clock and not even the borrowed hour of

daylight saving time could hold the day.  These were

her own hands looking knobby on the back posts of the

oak rocker.  It swung easy now, it swung light.  Beyond

the chair and the porch the oaks reached one by one

across the field to the dry hills.  The peaks had obscured

the sun an hour ago. The shadows had taken all the

reflective colors.  The purple remains of leaves and

branches played as optical illusion       with dark sky.

Branch became sky and sky became branch.            

            She broke the spell by shifting her head, and she

sat in the chair and rocked.  Beneath the roof line the

breeze brought the cool scents of the forest.  Old smells,

moss, rotting bark on enduring trunk.  She watched the

trees fade into hills already indistinguishable from sky.

She listened to the crickets and timed her slight rock in

tune.  The wooden arc on the wood floor chirping and

pleasing, not so heavy as to mar the grain.