Lithophile

Dawdling spring starts to lift
winter’s dreich and brumy veil
from saturated inky hills,
revealing cobalt palimpsests
on elephantine grey.

Outcrops of land-slid indigo
form walls dividing pitch and roll,
cross ragged seams of paths and tracks
through brown and ochre soil
riddled with lumps of flint and shale.

In the distance, a sliver of silver
threads its way behind the hills,
the powerful current of Coniston Water
carving the rocks into a vale.

Kim M. Russell, 2018

Image used with permission of the artist, Fay Collins

My response to dVerse Poets Pub Poetics: Fay Collins

This week we have a new bartender, the lovely Sarah Connor. She says that although dVerse has ‘done’ ekphrastic poetry before, the beauty of ekphrasis is that every artist is different, as is every poet, so the result is always fresh.

Sarah has introduced us to Fay Collins, an artist working in the North West of England, who produces beautiful images of the natural world. Sarah has Fay’s permission to share her work with us and says she hopes the subject matter, the depth of colour and the emotional interpretation she brings to it will inspire us to produce amazing poems.

Sarah says that Fay mainly works in oils, oil pastels and water colours, though she has produced some limited edition print runs. She is inspired by “the complexities of nature and landscape”, and the way the landscape changes with the fickle weather of the north of England.

For this Poetics prompt, all we have to do is choose a picture, and let it inspire our words.  

48 thoughts on “Lithophile”

    1. Thank you, Bjorn! We’ve had sunshine the past couple of days and it’s glorious – not too hot and not too cold, with a gentle breeze. My washing is dry!

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  3. Kim, this is gorgeous. I love the way you use the colour palette, and I really love that final glimmer of silver, like the merest hope of Spring. It’s hard to know which came first, the painting or the poem.

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