First Glimpse

We were new to the North Norfolk coast
and couldn’t agree what we loved the most:
the flatness of the landscape,
the drama of the clouds,
the wind so loud,
the skies so wide and flaming
with gorgeous sunsets
and expansive star-filled nights.

In the charcoal-shadowed garden,
listening to the sea beyond the dunes,
I pointed out the constellations,
unobscured by light pollution,
pulsing mythological tunes.

Mounds of gritty sand ground underfoot
on the slope of the cart gap –
and then we stood on top,
scanning the dot-to-dot
of lights from fishing boats
and distant rigs.

We lay on our backs,
hand in hand in the sand,
gazing into the onyx sky,
hardly believing our eyes
when it crackled and shifted:
Aurora Borealis bathed the sea
with a spectral shimmer,
glimpsed for the first time by you and me.

© Kim M. Russell, 2016

Northern Lights over Happisburgh

Aurora over Happisburgh lighthouse: image found on www.bbc.co.uk1024 × 576Search by image

My response to dVerse Poets Pub Tuesday Poetics: first things first

This week, Kelly is our host. She’s back for a visit to the pub after a while of being away from poetry, writing and blogging.  She has told us about visiting Maine with her husband and her parents – a first for all of them, as well as another first for Kelly’s mother, who had never seen the ocean. Kelly says it was a memory to cherish and they certainly seem to have had a wonderful time. For this week’s Poetics, Kelly has asked us to write a poem about a first: one that meant something incredible to us or one we have yet to check off that list.

I have taken the haibun I wrote for dVerse Poets on Monday 5th September about our move from London up to the North Norfolk coast when Ellen was eleven going on twelve, and reworked it into a poem.

32 thoughts on “First Glimpse”

  1. What a beautiful word-picture you’ve painted for us… I especially love the dot-to-dot imagery, and the crackled and shifted. I could see it.
    And what a wonderful first to remember, my son was quite young the first time we saw the aurora borealis, and I will always remember that night as well.

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  2. Clever transposition of haibun to verse–reinforcing the poetic worth & value of good prose, where poetics may emerge intact with some line breaks & visual changes. This works very well for you, and we are treated to a new perspective.

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  4. What a heavenly delight that would be ~ In my lifetime, this would be in my bucket list:

    gazing into the onyx sky,
    hardly believing our eyes
    when it crackled and shifted:
    Aurora Borealis bathed the sea
    with a spectral shimmer,

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    Reply

    1. I’m not sure how good I’d be as a travel agent, Victoria! But I have some favourite places I think you’d like. We had a Northern Lights ‘red alert’ yesterday across the whole of the UK but I didn’t see them – I think it was too overcast.

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    1. It was the end of March so it was still quite chilly. Ellen didn’t know what the Northern Lights were and I had to explain them. We’d both like to see them again but I think she wants to do that with her husband now…

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