My Norman walls have overseen the bustling market for centuries. I’ve witnessed war and rebellion, wealth and famine, the flourishing of Norwich as a fine city. I harbour ancient treasures, chronicle the lives and times of citizens: some were imprisoned in my dungeons, while others hung from my walls for all to see. Ghosts linger […]
Category: Poems about Norfolk
Eggs and Other Things in Your Basket
From the steps at city hall, the market square resembles a tin of sweet wrappers, brightly striped in sunshine and glistening in rain. A walk between the stalls makes me sea-sick: I roll down the lurching incline, a sometime sailor, bantering with Norwich traders over fresh fruit, fish and flowers; exotic spices, eggs and cheese; […]
Cobbles Lanes and Courtyards
There is comfort to be found in cobbles, lanes and courtyards oozing with medieval mystery. This fine city slips on like a pair of favourite shoes laced up with familiarity. Sunlight flickers off the Wensum as it wends its way past churches, one for every week, and pubs, one for every day of the year, […]
Plight of the Sand Martins
This is a true story of the sand martins’ plight on their annual return to the Norfolk coast to nest and lay eggs after a strenuous flight. Is human comfort more valuable than the right of birds endangered by nets and posts? This is a true story of the sand martins’ plight. Erosion threatens a […]
The Joy of Light 14
nightingale’s song hovers over fading light Norfolk sunset Kim M. Russell, 29th March 2019 My response to Carpe Diem’s Light Retreat 2019: The Joy of Light In a new retreat, we have a period of 30 days to create haiku and tanka on the theme of The Joy of Light.
Into the Sea
We are crumbling, eroding into the sea with our pigmentations of blue, brown and green, accompanied by a withering wind and scent of rain. Dithering on mouldering marsh and […]
The Privilege of Green
Once I walked among dusty cars, along crowded streets, hemmed in by buildings and a depression of sky. I had the freedom, the privilege to choose green. Fields, trees and lush leaves are all that crowd me now, and the sky, although not green, stretches its hugeness to infinity. Kim M. Russell, 18th February 2019 […]
Giants once roamed here… (revised)
in a mist that rolls along the North Sea coast. Looming through thousands of years, woolly mammoths weathered waves on a journey to extinction. Among mounds of stones and sand at the foot of crumbling cliffs, where Norfolk juts its chin, waves roll out and crash back in, devouring the coast from Yarmouth to King’s […]
A Sudden Sonnet
On a dark December morning, invisible in sea mist, Norfolk beet fields whisper wind. Silent poplars, stripped of their leafy dress, oppressed by the closeness of gunmetal clouds, flank the lane. Tarmac glistens with overnight rain, the sky threatens to split again and has leached all colour. Suddenly, in the hedgerow, I see the silhouette […]
A Quiet Place
This is a quiet place: a collection of moments, a still languid lake that swallows each drop of rain and cries tears of memories in watery reflections. Wistfully blue complexions shimmer with light and shadow, split by the occasional kingfisher or dragonfly, the only chinks in a diluted sky. Kim M. Russell, 2nd December 2018 […]
