She was the waft of lavendergrowing by the front door,a squirt of lily of the valley,and the breezy scent of washing day. She was a little cockney sparrergreeting everyone by their moniker,trilling songs from the good old daysas she polished and flicked dust away. She was the rumble of her shopping trolleyon the broken pavements, […]
Tag: Tuesday Poetics
Just a Little Longer
With lips of frozen berries I blow a kiss to barren fields and hills, waving brittle leaves still gripped by my twiggy fingers gloved in mist. Just a little longer, I promise. My woody hollows agape, I watch the skies with moss-sculpted eyes adoring ice and snow while you search hedgerows for signs of spring. […]
Dreamless
It’s a dream that never comes to me: there is no blossoming chestnut tree, no garden of rioting summer blooms, not even a house with empty rooms. My childhood garden has no calm, no mother to rock me in her arms. Because it was so long ago, I search for it with heart of woe. […]
Just Visiting
I wander unknown streets, pavement hard beneath my feet. City detritus blows in wintry wind, dust and grime of the sinned against and sinning, surviving in brick and cement, not living. Lost like a dog or cat, snow in my hair, I feel as if I was never there. Just a ghost in the burbs, […]
A Celebration of Light in Darkness
It’s the rasp of a lucifer strike on a matchbox to light a candle prayer or birthday wish; the romance of a moonlight kiss; the twinkle of a star in the density of night; the slow creep of misty morning sunlight; the afterglow of sunset as it fades to twilight; fairy lights nestling in the […]
November Morning
Tattered trees pose, stark in their tracery, leaves all fallen sopping to the ground without a sound. A thin veil of amber hints at a struggling sun behind the mist, a sensual bounty across town and country. Warning of the coming chill, frost and fog cover every hill, the muffled silence broken only by the […]
A Toast to Autumn Drinkers
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]