When I was little, my grandparents had a very small garden: a patch of grass surrounded by flowers, crowded together in their flowerbeds. But my favourite flowers were daisies. Nanny taught me to slit the stalk with my fingernail and thread the daisies into a chain. April surprises rain puddles between grass stalks flowering raindrops […]
Category: Haibun
Lingering day…
is painted in pointillist shadows and shades. Light, fading with the last echoes of birdsong, clings to moon and stars. It’s a time when bats and owls swoop, skim and dodge in and out of branches not yet dressed in blossom or leaves, but pregnant with promise. silhouetted moon ascends from roof to ancient ash […]
Rainbow
A rainbow is the marriage of sunlight and rain. When kissed by a raindrop, a beam of white light disperses, in a similar way to light through a glass prism, into the colours at the ends of the visible light spectrum. We are taught about optical phenomena in school science lessons. However, as a child […]
Broadway
The show is over. Darkness settles on seats with a reverent hush. Outside, hum and sparkle limp towards dawn. Late night bars exhale alcohol clouds and taxis zip along Broadway, bright yellow sharks. daffodils bow heads the show must come to an end buds burst in applause Kim M. Russell, 2018 My response to Carpe […]
Romani
I remember stories about young girls and children who ran away with the gypsies, looking for a romantic life on the road and camaraderie by the campfire. I have also heard of atrocities done to Romani folk during the Second World War and seen them vilified for setting up camp near towns and villages. I […]
Opportunity
Spring reluctantly inches forward through late snow, relentless rain and leaden skies in the dormant pond a clutch of jellied tadpoles first kingfisher flash Kim M. Russell, 2018 My response to Carpe Diem #1407 opportunity (haibun without rules) Today’s episode gives us the ‘opportunity’ to create a haibun without rules with the theme of ‘opportunity’. […]
Meadow One-Bun
Meadow spins with constellations of clover, cowslips and kingcups; hums with sweetness and industrious bees… we string daisy chains, capture vivid butterflies and then let them go Kim M. Russell, 2018 My response to Carpe Diem #1406 Meadow (one-bun) In the first episode of a new week, our challenge is to create another ‘one-bun’ – […]
New Life
Four years ago I realised that teaching was sucking the life out of me. No time for reading or writing, exhausted and ill, I was a caged bird with clipped wings. These days I can spread my wings whenever I want to. nest of speckled eggs sun-warmed clutch in budding tree dreaming of the sky […]
Happiness
It’s joy to wander on a North Norfolk beach with wind streaming in my hair and rustling the marram grass, and the primeval sounds and smells of the sea. I love to watch lazy seals in the sun, seagulls whirling overhead; to feel sand oozing between my toes, the round hardness of pebbles in my […]
Mountains
I have never stood at the foot of a mountain and looked up at it, not even when I lived in Ireland. The nearest I got to one was the Hill of Tara, from where I could see pretty much the whole of County Meath. But I have looked down from an aeroplane and marvelled […]
writing in north norfolk 