Every tree is a miracle: the ancient birch with vector branches, silver bark and overgrown elephantine trunk; the curly willow, recently pollarded, younger and more strident; the quince, plum, apple and cherry; the prickly holly, the tree that heralds thunderstorms. In an arrangement of fairy stairwells, sulphur mushrooms rise from networks below the soil, blending […]
Tag: Garden
My Garden Sanctuary
There is nothing neat about it;briars and nettles aboundso thick you use your feet to find some solid ground. It’s a wild jungle for cats and a leafy forest for deer, a green sanctuary. That’swhere I disappear, where poetry is the spin-drift of the green dream, the loose change in the pocket of time; the […]
My first Cherita
winter sun has woken sombre sharp-suited magpies clatter in the trees the garden is elemental a gathering of gnarled and feathered sentinels Kim M. Russell, 2018 My response to Carpe Diem Weekend Meditation #17 Out of The Carpe Diem Box Chèvrefeuille has surprised us with a new Carpe Diem Weekend Meditation feature, called ‘Out […]
Do you dare…
to open the ramshackle gate and enter a shadowy place where gems masquerade as pebbles and bones; disturb the sleep of a petrified gnome; dig up burly clods of mud that turn into unblinking toadstones? Do you dare to feed them with earth-bound worms that squirm with spells cast in sifted loam; to purse your […]
Squirrels and Shadows
Sun flickers in spaces between the breeze- whipped branches and leaves, and dancing curly willows dapple the garden with shadows, Out of his chiaroscuro camouflage, a squirrel dashes to the apple tree to root among the ripened, wind-fall fruit. He hauls his swag just a few feet and stops to eat, relieves the weight and […]
Kintsugi
Most people like their gardens to be neat and tidy, organised into geometrical flowerbeds and manicured lawns. Any plant that shows signs of running riot is tamed into submission and so-called weeds are relentlessly chopped and ripped out of soil. Not so in our garden. We allow it to grow in its own way, creating […]
Granddad’s Garden
Confined to house and wireworks walls, he was a caged animal picking tiny nuggets of copper from boot soles like thorns from paws. Every week day, at one for dinner and at five for tea, deep in the fabric of his work clothes and his very being, he carried home the metallic tang of blood […]
Sprung
Now the clock hands have spun forward, an extra hour’s worth of sun- light has my nose smearing windows, spotting miniature mountains in mud- dy grass, patches clawed and dug by myopic moles in their hungry hunt for worms and beetles. My ears detect a rhythm, tap and hammer of a woodpecker, precise percussion of […]
Frosty Garden
late winter garden glittering and frost dusted delicate beauty Kim M. Russell, 2017 Day six of Carpe Diem’s Spring Retreat 2017 fragile beauty Chèvrefeuille has welcomed us to the Spring Retreat 2017. Last year we had two retreats: one in summer and one in winter. This year he has planned four retreats following the seasons […]
Through the Monastic Garden
Trudging the path between the yew trees, Those harbingers of death and sorrow, Monks’ bare feet crush the dross of berries, Poisonous, red froth between their toes. Psittacism of holy mantras Below the prickle of green branches Drowns out the twittering of sparrows, The songs of blackbird, thrush and finches. The dull clapper of the […]
writing in north norfolk 