A Moment

I took a real moment, not a virtual corona one, to step out into the garden, under cover of the darkest night. White noise and rustle of leaves – the only human sound was the distant hum of tyre on tarmac, a delivery truck perhaps. It was quiet and so dark I could not see […]

Heavy Suitcase

They took away my suitcase. There wasn’t much in it: a book to read, clean underwear, a nice dress for visiting hours (no one ever comes) and church on Sundays, moisturising cream for my hands and face. I didn’t think I’d be here long. Now I need to fill it with the weight of nightmare […]

Tesselated

honeycomb hexagons too narrow for fingers but just right for bees conjuring honey from pollen tidy and tessellated sticky-sweet Kim M. Russell, 24th April 2020 My response to Imaginary Garden with Real Toads NaPoWriMo Day 24 Play it Again in April 2020: Wild Woman’s Natural Wonders On Wednesday 24th April, 2019, Sherry inspired us with […]

Shakespeare’s Women

If I were to save a piece of Will, from all the pleasure he has given me, I’d need the wit of Beatrice to sway my choice and the cunning of the Nurse to keep it to myself: the women who populate his plays, living on today in modern Mirandas and Violets, Ophelias, Lady Macbeths, […]

Rediscovering the Night

Lying smug and snug in the arms of the countryside, I can’t recall the sound of the city’s background song, but hope, in this shutdown pandemic, that worldwide respect spreads like galaxies of stars for the long- forgotten night noises: the whirring wings of geese returning and the owls’ reviewing the day in the trees. […]

Hitchhikers on the Wind

It starts with an ephemeral puff of delicate seed-heads in a child’s hand, waiting for the wind, hitchhikers free to take sunshine wherever they land. A dandelion may start life as a fragile seed, a tickle in a downy clock a drifter on a breeze, but it can crumble paving stones and rock and, before […]