It starts with skitter of claw and whirr of wing,a battalion of ragged cormorants wrestling wild,ends with a sudden crunch like bones or antlers. With a sense of being elf-shot – sleet’s sharp sting –we cling together, yet unreconciledwith nature hurling branches, bowling boulders. There’s devastation all along the windinghomeward path, up past the church, […]
Tag: Meeting the Bar
Inequality of Weather
The sky-battle’s left a mud-puddle,metal-steeds shower us, and burstriverbanks cause mind-muddleas fields and gardens disappear. On the other side of the world,earth releases a dust-coughand plants drained of life-juicecrumble into earth’s crust-fluff. Meanwhile, we puff and blowat donkey-clouds that will not go. Kim M. Russell, 27th October 2024 Image by Frame Harirak on Unsplash It’s […]
Take Three Words
Drizzly It’s one of those days when the distinctscent of petrichor permeates the day; it sneaks through open windows and leavesan invisible trail like snot on a child’s sleeve, or the track of a single plump raindropas it trickles down the window pane. Wipes As a child, I loved to watch the window cleanerwhen he […]
Harvest Mouse
It weighs as little as a silver coin,a harvest mouse enriched with russet gold,concealed in the tall piles of harvest grass,where once the meadow and the wheat field joined. Its nest is filled with berries it purloined,with autumn nuts, and ears of wheat and chaff.The harvester retrieves it with his hand —it weighs as little […]
A Darkling Tableau
Where once grasses buzzedwith jazz of cricketsand loud grasshoppers,cornfields have been razedto stubble, and strawploughed in umber earth. Herons stalk soddenfields, through soggy standsof russet bracken,on towards winter,in ancient rhythm,still pulsing with life. It’s the yawn of time,when the hearth’s tonguesets culture on fire,to glow through the blackdome of night untilthe coming of spring. Winter’s […]
Birthday Bouquet
The birthday bouquetis more than a week oldand wilting in the vase A shapely vase of glasshalf-filled with scummy waterglinting in the sun A mixture of flowersraise heads in a last hurrahof purple and pale yellow Brown-tinged leaves hangover the lip of the vaseover like the birthday Small white rosesstruggle to peek abovethe flaccid foliage […]
All of Me
In a single hourof August moonrise,she steals all of me,lured by her silver glow.Time seems to stand still;I bask in her light show,and the deeper I dive,succumb to her moonbow. I can’t mourn the theftof my inner soul;moon, take all of me,I’ll treasure what is left.I stand in moonlight,baptised, not bereft.Unabashed, I know,I stand naked […]
Scarlet Pimpernel
I seek it here, I seek it there,a natural forecaster of showers,like a child’s drawing of red flowers,a childhood memory to share.I seek it here, I seek it there. When I was young, I spent idle hoursobserving tiny scarlet flowerswhich seemed to grow most everywhere.I seek it here, I seek it there. This summer, perfumes […]
I Dreamed of You
I woke on the edge of dawn,roused by a blackbird’s songin the first pink flush.Shadow-lit and milky-greyin the cosy embrace of blanketsand the fug of morning breath, I remembered dreaming of youand was reminded of your death. I clung to the edge of dawn.A sparkling new day had arrived,the cold, refreshing scentof dew-soaked grass waftedthrough […]
Fragments of Woodland
I remember the momentwe entered the woods:boots imprinted soil, releasing the scent of bark. I remember how the shadowsand undergrowth embraced us.The chill traced goose bumpson our skin as we brushed past rusty ferns and sodden grass,tangled in branches, kissedby leaves and brushed by fungus,and acres of trees exhaled into fragments of sky and cloud,a […]
writing in north norfolk 