The shades and tones of changing foliage remind me of bottles displayed behind a bar: the honeypot tint of mottled leaves; the richness of wild cherry and dogwood dyed in aubergine; maples softly glowing crimson; hawthorn and blackthorn flaming fervently among the beery browns. Raise a glass to autumn drinkers huddled around the open fire […]
Tag: dverse Poets Pub
A New Voice Among the Old
Tomorrow is my daughter’s birthday, about which I have written before. The day she was born was frosty and the night was clear with a full moon. Restless owls hooted among the trees, a fox barked in the distance, and the wind roaring in the chimney caused a shiver of hot cinders. All of these […]
Tasting Books
‘Alex- A few moments of reading pleasure in return for an evening of sensual delights. Denis October Bacchanalia 1994’ Found on the flyleaf of The Physiology of Taste – Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin Spidery writing offers pleasure on the pages of a mildewed book discovered in an antiquarian book stall by the Seine. Taste is something […]
Navigating November
there is no dawn or dusk no proper time of day like the depths of the dark forest we navigate November running fingers on bark and fungus to find north we lean in close listening for sap to rise and bubble signs that queuing behind winter is spring Kim M. Russell, 15th November 2022 Free […]
Survivors
All that’s left are the remains of war: overturned tanks; crumbled bricks of a building, among which lies, like a fallen crow, the blackened wing of a fighter jet – and yet survivors smile at children playing in a pile of dust and rubble. Kim M. Russell, 14th November 2022 Image found on Freepik It’s […]
Wood Witch
The lonely lady peruses the history of rainy summers shining through tree stump rings. She traces bark with gnarled fingers, tastes the snow of past winters, listens to whispered stories shelved for centuries in the library of knowledge stored in every tree, shrub and hedge. The forest shares its secrets, its treasures, and its warnings […]
Still Embraced by Summer
this summer’s overtopped itself with fern and willowherb below a tree a grassy lea with fern and willowherb it’s hard to find the perfect verb at least it is for me when winter comes and no bees hum at least it is for me most summer’s overdressed in green and days are always warm with […]
Kindly Moon
At twilight, there she is, an old friend rising in the east and setting in the west, above fields shorn with harvest. She’s on the look-out for geese complaining after thousands of miles flight. And she smiles, this kindly moon, as they cross her face, knowing they have no perception of space, just a birds-eye […]
Ringing School Days
The resonance of a handbell rang the hours at our school: it summoned us to class each day; signified the end of play; commanded a straighter line by the canteen at dinnertime; at four o’clock, it made me wait expectantly at the school gate. Kim M. Russell, 17th October 2022 After a very long hiatus, […]
The Fervour of Fermentation
The seasonal fermentation of my October passion becomes more fervent, and I am more observant as her larder, fully stocked, is temporarily unlocked: piles of acorns underfoot; hedges full of autumn fruit; birches seed and conkers brown, sycamore helicopters tumble down; and, multiplied by recent rain that’s made the grasses green again, hordes of mushrooms […]
writing in north norfolk 