Lithophile

Dawdling spring starts to lift winter’s dreich and brumy veil from saturated inky hills, revealing cobalt palimpsests on elephantine grey. Outcrops of land-slid indigo form walls dividing pitch and roll, cross ragged seams of paths and tracks through brown and ochre soil riddled with lumps of flint and shale. In the distance, a sliver of […]

Binding with Briars

I bind you with a hedge of spiteful briars from the ensorcelled heart of a midnight forest, a rose hidden from men’s desires for a hundred years incanted in a white-hot rage of Beltaine blossom on a thorny cage. Young men will come to press their suit; I’ll pluck and spear their ripened fruit, stick […]

Praying One-Bun

On First Seeing ‘Praying Hands’ by Dürer… those honest hands captured in ink, I began to understand spirituality captured in ink, fingers gently pressed in prayer – oh, to draw such hands! Kim M. Russell, 2018 My response to Carpe Diem #1411 Praying (one-bun) Today we have a short episode: our task is to create a […]

Stringing Daisies

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 […]