We found a stream that night
away from everywhere but us –
water voices whispering,
the honey of first times,
wind feathery on urgent skin.
Perhaps a folly, our rush
into together and tomorrow –
forever’s promissory note
before the debt of everyday.
Let’s go back
and lie beside the stream again,
listen for the water voices,
feel the wind’s breath
before we disappear.
– Sarah Russell
First published in The Houseboat
When glacial bogs blush with berries
it’ll be a hard winter, folks say.
He is cutting down the dead pine near the cabin,
beetle-killed by drought last summer.
His chainsaw knows the hearth’s width
without measuring.
I went to the orchard on Route 5,
bought peaches for canning.
The kitchen smells of sweetness —
furry skins sloughed off with blanching,
floor juice-sticky.
He comes in for lunch,
fills the room with flannel and sawdust.
“A lot of work,” he says.
“Yes,” I answer.
We eat warmed over stew.
He cleans his plate with bread crust and pushes back his chair.
“Back at it,” he mutters and opens the door.
A cold wind makes gooseflesh on my arms
as I set the pint jars of preserves
in steaming water to make them sterile.
– Sarah Russell
First published in The Houseboat
Reprinted in WAVES: A Confluence of Women’s Voices
dust the ferns with my ashes —
there, among the aspen
trembling gold against the sky.
Let them settle, sighing,
on the still warm earth of autumn
where the next peak calls your name.
Snow will come. The wind will show me
paths the doe and vixen know. The moon
will call me with her crescent mouth
and share stories of the embered stars.
– Sarah Russell
First published in Poppy Road Review
I hike the ridge on the last warm, tousled day,
speckled as a partridge egg,
sun already stilting
shadows in early afternoon.
The leaves
are October butterflies, crimson, gold.
I want to stop earth’s tilt-a-whirl right here,
hold this moment that feels so much like love
before the winter’s swordsmith hones his blade.
– Sarah Russell
First published in Poppy Road Review
I stopped for groceries after work.
Jeff will be late again tonight.
“Don’t wait up,” he always says.
I hate these country roads at night –
twisting, full of ruts. I woke
this morning choking back a scream,
but the dream escaped
with the trembling.
I round a bend, see movement
in the willows. Slow, I tell myself.
It’s probably nothing.
– Sarah Russell
First published in Black Poppy Review
I had no mother,
no tribe. Swallows
heard me crying.
They gave me flight,
to feel the wind,
to find my spirit.
They gave me a mate
to birth our young
in ancient cliffs.
They gave me companions
for warmth
in winter’s cold.
Someday I will rise to the sun.
My feathers will gleam iridescent.
My home will be in cloud cliffs.
I will look down on Earth’s chaos
where my mother disappeared.
I will no longer miss her.
– Sarah Russell
First published in Ekphrastic Review
Based on a painting by Benjamin Chee Chee,
a Native American artist
So pleased to have my poem “I lost summer somewhere” featured in Centered Magazine this month. The poem was previously published in Poetry Breakfast.
Keening in a bruised sky,
ragged chevrons
follow the coastline south –
imperfect V’s, left wanting
on one side or the other –
testament, perhaps, to those taken
by foxes, hunger, double barrels,
their skeins unraveling autumn.
– Sarah Russell
First published in The Houseboat
Republished in Poems in the Waiting Room
Black-eyed Susans gossip in the gullies
between the road and corn
past harvest,
clouds in feather boas waltz
through pale silk skies, and cows head home
for milking, while
the hawk holds vigil on a fence post.
– Sarah Russell
First published in The Houseboat
Republished in Your Daily Poem
“the smell of earth turned by a trowel…”
I’ve grown quiet here. My mind
has opened to woodsong
and the smell of earth turned
by a trowel.
I enjoy solitude, even when regrets
or the throb of an old lover happen by.
Sometimes I invite them in, make
a ritual of teacups on starched linen,
a silver server for the scones.
We reminisce ’til shadows trace
across the floor, call them away.
Afterwards, I tidy up, wipe away
drops spilled in the pouring. I save
the leftovers though they’re getting stale.
I may crumble them on the porch rail
tomorrow for sparrows
before I garden.
– Sarah Russell
First published in Poetry Breakfast
Sarah Russell Poetry 