Red geraniums rust in September rain and sparrows splash in puddles again. In summer’s hinterland, something is stirring leaves already yellow, their weariness showing, tattered and brittle, counting years with their falling. But still trees find safety in numbers, flourishing in ancient copses, forests and woods, growing together for the common good while men train […]
Welcome Back
I read recently that Britain’s largest bird of prey, the white-tailed eagle, is back in England after 240 years; it’s hard to believe that they were once a common sight here in southern England, as they were hunted to extinction. Apparently, the last one seen was in 1780 at Culver Cliff on the Isle of […]
Candlemas Vow
In the moody half-lightof the Imbolc landscapebetween birch, ash and oak,there’s an unspoken oath. Brassy hazel catkins shimmer,lemony lamb’s tail buds glimmer,and there’s a gleam in Candlemasbells’ nodding waxen flowers. Everywhere, for the first timethis year, is the vow that temperatures will climband imbue everythingwith the welcome scent of spring. Kim M. Russell, 1st February […]
Next Door’s Ghosts Episode 3
Kay wasn’t surprised when she discovered the husband, Robert, in a corner of Edith’s garden, another friendly ghost. He never spoke, just lifted his cap in greeting. She started to listen out for his faint whistle and quite liked the smell of pipe smoke that drifted over the fence. Besides Kay, the only visitors to […]
Opening Time
It’s raining old women and sticks; the lights are on, but the pub’s still closed. They’re gasping for pints and packets of crisps, squeezed tight together under the awning, from which fat globules of water drip, trickle off ends of unkempt hair and find their way past grimy collars. Between the telephone box and bike […]
If
there hadn’t been hesitant sleetthat eventually turned to snowheaped like hills on the empty street, it might not have fluttered silently,like luminescent moths outsidethe window, a continued quietude when the flakes ceased gentlyfalling, that might not have been brokenby the boisterous warble of a robin. Kim M. Russell, 27th January 2021 My response to Poets […]
Sad Song
“The clear vowels rise like balloons” S.Plath ~ Morning Song A favourite song floats into the mind on a passing whimsical wind, prompted by a blackbird’s incidental trill or the postman’s whistle, and I am there again, mouth wide open, lungs bursting with the thrill, in a crowd of hearts beating to the same rhythm […]
On the Way Back
She had swum too far, felt the power of waves tugging her towards the horizon before striking back to shore. On the way back, when she reached out her puckered hand, she felt like beach pebbles scattered by the sea in ever shifting sand. Kim M. Russell, 25th January 2021 My response to dVerse Poets […]
Holme
It sounds like home. It’s a morning walk on a Norfolk beach,wind strewing salty seaweedlike hair on a northerly breeze. The flatness hid the traces. It was a sea henge with an upturned oak stumpat the centre of a Bronze Age ring of trunks:fifty-five split and ancient hearts of oak. And hearts were split. Some […]
Next Door’s Ghosts Episode 2
Of course, she told her neighbour, and Edith was not surprised. “That’s my cat, Maurice.” She smiled. “He was run over before he was six months old, and we buried him in the garden. But he preferred your garden, it always was a bit of a jungle.” The little old lady in the corner grinned, […]
writing in north norfolk 