It’s Wednesday

and this is what I know:
married thirty-one years,
living in a place where
beauty is everywhere,
yesterday we drove
for just over an hour
past the salt marshes
on the North Norfolk coast.

In an ice-blue sky
lapwings flash wings;
skeins of geese fly overhead
and a variety of ducks glide
across the briny water below.

It’s a landscape of shivering
bird calls, marsh birds pouring
over reeds, birds settling
in windswept branches
like damp black leaves –

the backdrop to our anniversary meal,
a memory nobody could ever steal.

Kim M. Russell, 31st January 2024

It’s Wednesday and time to find out What’s Going On? This week Sherry wants us to write about ‘this is what I know’.  

She says that a poem doesn’t always have to be breath-taking or amazing, and ‘those of us who write frequently might give ourselves a break on days when we simply show up, start tapping the keys, and see what happens’ – and she is often surprised by the result.

Since 2020, Mary and Sherry have been following Laurie Wagner’s Wild Writing practice: simply face the blank page and tell the truth, writing whatever comes, what is happening right now. One of Laurie’s favourite starting lines is: It’s Wednesday, and This Is What I Know. It can be any day, but today is Wednesday.

Sherry has given examples of poems by Jane Hirschfield and William Stafford to inspire poems that tell our readers how our life is today.

Sadly, I wasn’t able to capture all the birds we saw in any of the photographs I took!

43 thoughts on “It’s Wednesday”

  2. I just loved to read how you celebrated your anniversary in such a special place. In fact, I think it is wonderful that you made an occasion out of it and drove a distance to somewhere you don’t go on regular basis. And what a beautiful setting with the marsh. I see a fisherman out there. Now I am curious what you ate for your anniversary dinner! Smiles.

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  3. How completely lovely. It is wonder-ful to live in a place of such beauty. Gorgeous photo! I especially love all of the birds and the beautiful way you have described them. This was such a pleasure to read, Kim. Beautiful. And Happy Anniversary!

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  12. Happy anniversary. Love how you’ve celebrated the special day, Kim. And such a precious backdrop to the anniversary meal!! My favorite lines : “marsh birds pouring
    over reeds, birds settling
    in windswept branches
    like damp black leaves –”

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    1. Thank you so much, Sumana, it was a lovely day and on the journey back yesterday we spotted places we would like to visit when the temperature rises, We are very lucky to have lots of bird and other wildlife sanctuaries along the North Norfolk coast.

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    1. So do I, Jane. The stretch from Cley to King’s Lynn is mostly salt marshes. It’s our stretch of the coast, from this side of Cromer to Great Yarmouth and round to Suffolk, that is disappearing. It’s so sad to see people’s home falling off cliffs.

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      3. Erosion must be fast along that coast. We’ve had some houses drop into the Atlantic, but they were a result of speculation in the 1980s, built on a cliff with a superb view across the ocean. One big development has had to be evacuated and demolished.

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