TIME SEEDS
By Margaret Elphinstone
If you can look into the seeds of time, and say which grain will grow and which will not, speak then unto me. William Shakespeare
Image by BLACK 17BG, www.pixabay.com
The final chapter will remain unread. Quite soon I must return this thrilling book to its cosmic shelf. Borrowed time has sped towards recall; there’s hardly time to look to the last page, which isn’t about me. It’s about the children. A world laid waste makes a poor plot; one page could turn them free to sow new words to grow what happens next. So many chapters reaped, so many lines of worn out tales, which we in turn pass on - for whom? Our story is a stack of lies if all small seeds that matter will be gone. But here are last year’s leaves, for what they’re worth, to add some colour to your fresh sown earth.
Margaret Elphinstone has published ten novels and two books on organic gardening.
Her historical novels include The Sea Road, Voyageurs, Light and The Gathering Night.
Her most recent novella, Lost People, has been shortlisted for the Saltire Society's Scotland's National Book Awards for 2024.
Time Seeds was first published in Issue 3 of Paperboats zine, A Turn of the Sun.
Paperboats is a collective of writers focussed on nature and environment in a time of climate and ecological breakdown. They are Scotland based and global in outlook, and write to affirm the astonishing life of this planet, and how its future may yet be shaped.
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