The scent of a poem can drive me to distraction, like spores from a page of mildewed putrefaction, accumulated fluff and dust from under the bed, or the grey and blue mould on a slice of old bread; sometimes it’s cherry blossom dancing in trees, an explosion of honeysuckle on a summer breeze, a meadow […]
A Reply to Mother Earth
They read the wildfires, listened to the songs of floods, tornadoes and whales, conversed with owl and eagle, howled with wolves at the full moon. But they ignored them, too attached to throwaway gratification, the centres of their own worlds, to care about the real world. It took a whisper, the gasp of a pandemic, […]
Comfort in Cookies
We stood by a field, watched waves of leafy greenness rolling, wind-blown and whispering, born from earth and sky. We stood and breathed the scent of stiff-stalked oats flourishing and bearing flavoursome, nourishing crisp-cased seeds. I held your hand on that summer walk, a slightly calloused hand normally used to work, sometimes to cook and […]
Spinning
that feeling of childhood revolution with both arms outstretched and the whole world condensed into horizontal lines of a spinning top when you dare yourself to look up at a sky that’s about to pop think you’ll never stop and then you drop onto a grassy spot you roll over among daisies and the world […]
Balance
ripening crop ripples in the breeze scent of harvest Kim M. Russell, 21st July 2020 My response to Carpe Diem Exploring the Beauty of Haiku #1828 Baransu (balance) In a new episode of this month’s theme, we are exploring the beauty of haiku with a challenge to create a haiku with the ‘baransu’ (balance) technique. […]
Luna and the Blood Moon
Luna was hunting. She had left the house before twilight and was waiting for her namesake to give her a sign. She had already feasted on a vole and a field mouse. Magic was in the air. Grandmother’s grimoire had promised freedom from her feline form. The words were indelibly burnt in her memory: When […]
Bird-scribbled
‘A little bit of bread and no cheese,’ the scribble larks* beg – I know, they feast on bugs and seeds – the notes of their familiar song fall like rain from the sky. At my feet, another message scribbled in the intricate patterns on an empty egg, a warning of their demise through dearth […]
Coffee Morning with the Girls
I’ve been in Coffee Cup Cake for an hour, listening to them babbling on about their success as Internet influencers, the perils of public transport for mothers with buggies on their way to drop of their little darlings at the childminder’s, and date nights with their partners, “thank God for babysitters and grandparents!” Not one […]
Two More Weeks
I have two more weeks of dislocation from the world until I can hook myself back up to life outside. How will I feel? Scared I will freeze at the first glimpse of a masked face? Unable to navigate a supermarket? Incapable of measuring social distance by eye without a ruler? Lost for words? Inside […]
I am the Blue of my Mother’s Eyes
I am the songs that my mother sang to me the dust of Coty powder on her nose, cheek and chin the peach lipstick imprints on the paper hankie that she threw with panache into the nearest waste bin I am the softness of my mother’s favourite sweater the way her chiffon scarf wafted in […]
writing in north norfolk 