Among the high branches of the silver birch struts a handsome magpie, jet black on creamy white, not still and quiet like the pigeon on the branch next door, but constantly chattering and fidgeting, see-sawing its tail to keep balance. It’s a fine, long tail, a stick of charcoal scribbling in the grey February sky. […]
Tag: Weekly Scribblings
Wriggle and Squirm
Sometimes, when the sun has gone to bed, a can of words opens in my head, too tired to stop them wriggling across my brain, they leave slime and detritus, worry and pain, a blot on the landscape of my weary creativity. I carry them with me up the creaky stairs and, as soon as […]
Black Tulips
Glossy goblets in the florist’s shop, rare tulips, brimming with power and strength, constrained like Rilke’s panther, stained with the ink of witching hours. Oh, for a pot of midnight flowers, scented with soil, not a bouquet of beauties with stems cut and wilting in their pain, but petals of black velvet that bloom again […]
New Tricks
twenty seven years learning new tricks together richer or poorer Kim M. Russell, 30th January 2020 My response to Poets and Storytellers United Weekly Scribblings #4 New Tricks Rommy greets us with a question this week: she asks whether we made any new year’s resolutions and wonders how they’re going. She says It can be […]
View from Sea to Shore
The coastline is a rugged spine of cliff, rocky ribs rise and fall with each breath of wind and wave that shift the distant skiff. Its feet are firm and solid in the depths of tides that loosen roots and bits of stones like rotten teeth; they tumble to the beach with salty water sucking […]
Queen of Winter
Cailleach, the Celtic winter queen, atop the Cliffs of Moher, her domain the time from Samhainn to Bealltainn, strikes the ground with her frosty staff, freezing the tops of hill and mountain. From her creel drop curious stones carved with magic, the ancient bones of her husbands and her many children, promises of fertile field […]
Breaking the Silence of January
After the revelry of Christmas and New Year, the silence of January is solid as a block of ice, occasionally melting into shifting swathes of mist grey as wood pigeons and musty house mice. No gentle coo, whistle or twitter of birds, the day is mute; no body warmth or human words until the fire’s […]
