Uplifted by a Breeze

Between grey days filled with blustery gusts and heavy rain, a window of wintry sun invites me out for a welcome walk. Gentler breezes give me an encouraging push towards the little bridge and the winding lane alongside paddocks, where horses and ponies stand solid as the wind tugs at manes and tails, rabbits freeze as if playing a game of statues, and cock pheasants dash between them, flashes of bronze, squawking and crowing.

In fields and ditches, the grass is vibrant green dotted with spring shoots. I look forward to the time when everything I do is stitched with its colour. I continue walking until I turn onto the moorings at the back of the row of cottages and look forward to a time when mallards and grebes sail the reeds and swans gather in the fields, brushstrokes of white against the verdancy.

Kim M. Russell, 16th January 2023

This Monday at the dVerse Poets Pub we are writing Prosery with Lisa in the prompt that requires us to write prose based on given lines of poetry. It can be flash-fiction or creative non-fiction but must not exceed 144 words in total (not including the title) and must not be poetry (no versification, line breaks, metre, etc.).

Lisa has chosen a line from ‘Separation’, a poem by W. S. Merwin: “Everything I do is stitched with its color.”

Not only does Lisa tell us something about the poem but also about Merwin, an American poet who wrote more than fifty books of poetry and prose, as well as many works in translation. He was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1971 and 2009; the National Book Award for Poetry in 2005, and the Tanning Prize.

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36 thoughts on “Uplifted by a Breeze”

  1. Beautiful imagery, Kim. Having spent our early years of marriage in a farmhouse in rural Iowa, I remember well pheasant season….so these words especially resonated with me! “cock pheasants dash between them, flashes of bronze, squawking and crowing.”

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  3. I feel like I was walking with you, Kim. The image of the “horses and ponies stand solid as the wind tugs at manes and tails” and your yearning to see “mallards and grebes sail the reeds” bring both the real and imagined worlds to life ❤

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      7. I ordered wood in November and already most of the local people were sold out. The fires in the summer destroyed a lot of the stock and the Chinese have been buying up what’s left. We got hornbeam from one of the two who still had wood to sell. That was all he had. Been using our own wood otherwise but poplar and alder don’t burn well.

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    1. Thank so much. I haven’t been for a walk for a while because I haven’t been feeling well, but it’s so frosty and cold here at the moment I don’t want to.

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