The small purple asters, still blooming, bow their heads to late October winds. I sit against the old oak. Its leather leaves crackle, gossiping about the coming snow. Passersby are zipping jackets, pulling hoodies tight to cover ears. Though robins have headed south, nuthatches and chickadees linger at the feeder, even when yearling squirrels shimmy up to fill their cheeks and race off toward the pine. Shadows are long by four. I’m glad for stew simmering in the crockpot and logs stacked for a fire this evening. I rise and find a new ache in my bones. The walk home feels lonely. My younger days have faded like summer warmth, and the ancient north wind beckons.
So fortunate to have 3 poems published this morning by Lothlorien Poetry Journal. My thanks to editor Strider Marcus Jones for the acceptance. Here’s the first one.
Breakfast with Squirrels
I take my coffee out back to drink in the cool before another sun-seared day. Hummingbirds keep me company, hovering between penstemon and hyssop, buzzing my yellow cup before drinking long at the honeysuckle. Dragonflies duel above the pond, vying to rule this spring-fed kingdom.
Oh yes, the squirrels . . . who peer at me from fence posts, sharp black eyes and chatter, asking for breakfast. I toss some peanuts into the flowers, and they are down in seconds, quarreling over the best spots under draping plume grass or near the daisies and lupine. They look like they’re saying grace in a tiny sanctuary, perched on their haunches, tails curled like a monk’s cowl, peanuts held in their paws as a supplication to this summer morning.
My poem “Someone Else’s Memory” was published today at Writing in a Woman’s Voice. My thanks to editor Beate Sigriddaughter.
Pat and I sit drinking cocoa on a snow-clad December day. Remember that Christmas Eve, she says, when we were young and went caroling with my cousins? I gave you my blue stocking cap you wound round and round your neck to stay warm.
And in a rush, I remember the night, the carols, that Bill sang loud and out of tune, my new, not-warm- enough red coat, and her cap I found years later in a crushed box on the closet floor, dirty from muddy boots and dust, wondered who it belonged to, how it wound up there—the cap I washed and reached out the car window to give to a homeless man, how he thanked me and put it on, wrapping it round and round his neck, grinning through broken teeth.
1 It’s a woman’s crowning glory, Mother said, and she brushed my hair a hundred strokes at night, rolled it in rags so my long curls would bounce below the barrettes, wound them around her finger each morning. She pulled so hard my eyes watered. I hacked each curl off with kitchen shears when I turned twelve.
2 “Don’t ever cut it,” he said, and his hands were tender beside my face, then drifted through, beyond. Mother’s mantra became my own. I brushed until it gleamed. Once he washed it for me like men do in Hallmark films. His fingers tangled, but I didn’t cry since women never cry in scenes like that.
3 The doctor said it would fall out, but the clumps in the shower drain startled me. I went to a salon and told the girl to cut it off, right down to the scalp. She cried and I cried and she wouldn’t let me pay.
My poem “What I Picked for the Journey” was published today by the wonderful Writing in a Woman’s Voice. My thanks to editor Beate Sigriddaughter.
What I Picked for the Journey
A strong walking stick that fits my grasp. Oatmeal raisin cookies. A few favorite poems. A heart-shaped pebble for my pocket.
I’ll leave on a day that promises sun and breeze and animal-shaped clouds. I’ll find wild blueberries and spring water pure as a child’s wonder.
I’ll pass the hours remembering forsythia in April, the softness of a baby’s skin, campfires, the smell of bread fresh from the oven. I’ll sleep where the milky way tumbles through the night sky and trees whisper to the wind.
The first of 3 poems published today in the wonderful Voice-Virtual. My thanks to editor Jim Lewis.
Long walks and sunshine. Not the mileage I used to clock nor the speed, but birdsong and daffodils I’d have missed before. An outing with granddaughters, peeking into their lives and loves, their favorite band (loud) and the in spot for burgers and fries. The quiet, driving home. Dinner with friends, repeating tales decades old, tsking at AI, cryptocurrency, Tik Tok, X. Evenings of old sweatshirts and slippers takeout and TV, my dog chasing rabbits in his sleep.
Silver Birch Press published this poem today in their “Mothers” series. My thanks to Melanie, the Silver Birch Editor.
Thirteen Ways of LookIng at My Mother-in-Law After Wallace Stevens
An Arkansas farm woman, Boby loves Sunday drives after church to see what folks are planting and to tidy up the family graves.
In spring, when the fields are ripe with fresh manure, Boby takes a deep breath. “Smells like money,” she says.
Honesty is her virtue. She told me once “You’re not exactly what we hoped for.”
Boby has no use for corsages. “Give me something I can put in the ground.“ She has eight flowerbeds— lilies, gardenias, azaleas, roses.
Each granddaughter and great-grand has a quilt pieced from a lifetime of scraps— prints, plaids, ginghams and a bit of lace. “They look pretty good from the road,” she says.
Her mother lived on the next farm over, her uncles just beyond, ripples of family for a thousand acres, bickering, loving, gossiping, mourning.
Boby buried two husbands. The first was hers for a quarter century. The second just four years, “a bonus” she said after forty years a widow.
We spend fall weekends shelling wash tubs of pecans—300 pounds some years—our fingers raw and stained dark as the delta loam.
Always a stray underfoot—cat or mongrel dog. They show up on her doorstep. She shrugs and takes them in. The cats are all called Katie.
She played piano at church as the congregation dwindled to a half-dozen stooped, gray forms. She never cared much for the preacher.
When she turned 90, Boby announced she’d give up driving October first. Took us awhile to figure out her birthday was the 6th, and she knew she’d flunk the eye test.
She killed a rabid skunk in a neighbor’s driveway with the shotgun she keeps under the bed. “Sorry I can’t stay to visit,” she told her friend. “I’ve got a cake in the oven.”
Now 96, she lives alone, as bent, stubborn and fragile as wisteria, children scattered from acreage bought a century ago. No money in farming these days. “They’ll carry me away from here in a pine box,” she says.
First published in Third Wednesday Poetry Journal.
I’ll be part of a Zoom poetry reading with a grand list of poets on Saturday, July 20 at 2pm MST. I hope you can join us. Details about how to register are at the bottom of the poster.
Sarah Russell Poetry 