First Bee

A boozy bumblebee flewfrom May blossom drenched with dewand alighted on the ledgenear a blooming hawthorn hedge.After a dour start to spring,flirtatious buds are burstingand daisies dance in the grass. Insects are parched for sweet sipsof perfumed pollen from lipsof wayward woodbine flowerstumbling from bushy bowers.A bevy of bees in Maywill be worth a heap […]

Children of the Brambles

Thorny limbs snatch at naked skinon the twilit forest path; glancingright and left, we seek knots of berries,black and shiny as jet, followingbrimstone and comma butterfliesthat drift like graceful ballet dancersarrayed in spectacular sunset hues. We dodge wasps weaving among spursand landing on fruit that bursts with juice;pick flies and spiders from the clusters,brush cobwebs […]

A Whale’s Lament

I thought that once my shadowed dorsal bentthrough undulations, swimming would be spent;descendants bask in waters far from me.I’m a menopausal hundred-year-old granny. The ocean sparkles glisten off my back,as I pick at barnacles and bladder wrack.I birthed my last calf back when I was thirty –I’m a menopausal hundred-year-old granny. I’m an awkward Orca […]

Sparrows in the Garden

As light returns, in dozing green,never a sparrow to be seen. Never in tangles of rusty fernsnor hedges rich with pungent tannincurled with smoke where bonfires burnin dozing green, as light returns. Outside the window, on fence and ledge,some chase each other in the hedge,or hide and seek in the curly willow.Too small to see, they’re […]

After the first step into the New Year

“we write past, present and futurefind possibilities in wordsbut we cannot swim like dolphinsor swoop and dive like birds”               from ‘Being Human’ by Kim M. Russell I couldn’t wait for the end of itafter so much worry and disenchantment,and longed to say goodbye to itall year long. Planets out of alignment,illness took the shine off […]

November Umbrage

Suspicious of a sunny dayas autumn’s glow begins to fade,I resent the early twilight.I doubt the early morning frost,the crunch of leaves the wind has tossed,despise the temperature at night.Although snowflakes give me a chill,their sparkles still give me a thrill,but I fear deep blankets of white. Kim M. Russell, 28th November 2024 Image by […]