“deer… like skeletons.”
—Dorothy Wordsworth
Yes. Like skeletons this winter,
stealing silage meant for cattle
though it starves them.
They look wistful at the forest’s edge.
I want to coax them to my fire
before the wind tonight and snow,
more snow.
Some will fawn in spring if they survive.
We shall shrug off matted coats,
graze among the daffodils.
– Sarah Russell
First published in Eclectica
Photo Source
For dVerse
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
Photo Source
For Poets United
For fifty years mother’s face reflected
a marriage she endured,
a man she didn’t love.
But when he was blind and frail
in hospice,
she visited him often,
and when he reached out, groping
for her hand,
she would smile and move it
(again and again)
just out of reach.
– Sarah Russell
For Real Toads prompt “power”
and for Poets United Poetry Pantry
Drawing by Greuze
I am so proud to know Steve Deutsch. He is part of my poetry workshop group and for the second month in a row, one of his poems, this time “Flotilla,” was chosen by Goodreads from more than 300 entries as a finalist in their monthly contest. To read the poems in the contest, click here. And if you agree, as I do, that Steve’s poem is outstanding, please vote.
You left behind.
one half a jelly donut,
stale as last Wednesday;
some clothing, moth-eaten,
mildewed; two shoes,
one black, one brown,
with newsprint for the soles.
You left behind a paper sack
of winter warmth, and poetry
by Whitman, Poe and Crane,
well-fingered and browned in age.
You walked into the river
and left behind four dollars
and eighteen cents, which I
have spent on coffee
and a banana nut muffin,
that crumbled in its freshness.
Your poetry; penned
in your perfect prep school hand,
was stuffed inside two newish socks
atop the brown and laceless shoe.
It is unnervingly good,
but I can use the socks.
I crumpled your words in their freshness,
and set them to sail upon the river,
page by remarkable page.
– Steve Deutsch
First published in Weatherings
photo courtesy of moneycrashers.com
When I told Truth to go away,
we were both girls –
blossom-cheeked,
skipping rope with life.
“I can’t be your friend,” I told her.
“You know my secret.”
Truth shrugged. “OK.
I’ll be here if you need me.”
She waved goodbye, and went
to live high in the hills
with hummingbirds and foxes.
I stayed behind, secure in my choice,
though joy was hard to find, I never
trusted love, and I reacted oddly
to the seemingly mundane –
lilies made me nauseous, Black Beauty
gave me nightmares, a breeze against my neck
could make me cry.
After fifty years, I looked for Truth again.
She hadn’t changed – still young,
sweet, smiling, glad to see me.
But I’d become Wilde’s portrait in the attic –
haggard, bitter, burden-stooped.
I asked what would have happened
if I’d let her have her way.
“You’d have suffered,” she said. “People
would have shamed you. They’d say
you made it up.
But you’d be free.”
– Sarah Russell
First published in the anthology Secrets and Lies
For Real Toads quote by Dickinson
Painting: “Two Little Girls” by Pierre-Auguste Renoir
I close my eyes as a young woman
massages in shampoo, gently rubs
my temples, smooths cream rinse —
scented with jasmine — from my brow,
and you are here with me again
that summer day under the waterfall.
– Sarah Russell
First published in Shot Glass Journal
Photo courtesy of waterfall.solaridas.com
For the “suggested narrative” prompt at Real Toads
Also for Poets United’s Poetry Pantry.
“. . . a poem is a silent tree in spate . . .”
This morning I read a new poem by Rajani Radhakrishnan that is a perfect description of how a poem is made and who it becomes as we let it go. Rajani gave me permission to reblog it, so here it is. Please visit her site, ThotPurge to thank her, and while you’re there check out her second blog Phantom Road where she converses with Marcus in a series of haibun poems — equally as evocative. Rajani, I am so grateful to have discovered your poetry.
even a word in a sentence,
you hold it there, lock it in and
for a while it makes sense
then it begins to work itself loose
wanting to move
wanting to move on
another appears in its place
an unfamiliar voice,
saying something else;
a poem is a silent tree in spate
one by one its green eyes fall
one by one new eyebrows are raised
only you know it is a different tree
the shadows paint another dark
and whatever is flowering
is not caused by your being;
everything becomes a stranger
once it leaves, once it falls
words, worlds,
people,
even you walking away
carrying a poem
carrying a sentence
cast shapes angled into the sun
as if the light is making love to you
in a different language.
– Rajani Radhakrishnan
The finches are courting
outside our window, a warbled
discussion of real estate and love.
Like last year and the year before,
they want to lease the flower wreath
on our front door. It’s always a dilemma:
discourage their rapture or detour
through the garage?
The finches always win. So
for a month we’ll wake to overtures
at dawn – so cheerful, so loud –
show pictures of pin-feathered babies
to friends, recall demands
and pleasures of our own brood,
the bittersweet fledging.
– Sarah Russell
First published by Your Daily Poem
The photo is of their nest last year.
Thought this was apropos since Mr. and Mrs. Finch are back and are quite excited about our new wreath this year. They were both tucked into a niche behind the blossoms, discussing the furnishings when I opened the door this morning. The nest was almost complete this afternoon. Can’t deny true love.
To end April’s National Poetry Month, here’s a wonderful portrait written by award winning poet Joan Colby. Joan’s latest poetry collection is The Seven Heavenly Virtues. Learn more about Joan and her poetry here.
Five daughters, every one with hair
To her hips. Cumbersome dresses
Meant for Sundays. No one is smiling.
The mother’s hair skinned into a thick bun.
The smallest child on her lap. The father
Gallant with sideburns, chin whiskers,
A wave over one eye. Cravat and
Polished boots. That they lived, all of them,
In a one-room log cabin in the Uinta Mountains
Is not apparent, dressed in their finest, hair
Freshly washed and brushed so that
Every girl could be Rapunzel.
Two infant sons already buried.
The father will die by gunfire
At the age of 40. The mother will be nursing
Her last child: my father
Who will be photographed later
In a white lace baptismal gown.
– Joan Colby
First published in Poppy Road Review
P.S. New prompts are up on the Prompts page.
“The facts were told not to speak. . .
Jane Hirshfield wrote this insightful and cautionary poem and will read it on April 22nd during the program for the March for Science. It was published in Sunday’s Washington Post. Read more about this wonderful poet’s work here.
On the fifth day
the scientists who studied the rivers
were forbidden to speak
or to study the rivers.
The scientists who studied the air
were told not to speak of the air,
and the ones who worked for the farmers
were silenced,
and the ones who worked for the bees.
Someone, from deep in the Badlands,
began posting facts.
The facts were told not to speak
and were taken away.
The facts, surprised to be taken, were silent.
Now it was only the rivers
that spoke of the rivers,
and only the wind that spoke of its bees,
while the unpausing factual buds of the fruit trees
continued to move toward their fruit.
The silence spoke loudly of silence,
and the rivers kept speaking,
of rivers, of boulders and air.
Bound to gravity, earless and tongueless,
the untested rivers kept speaking.
Bus drivers, shelf stockers,
code writers, machinists, accountants,
lab techs, cellists kept speaking.
They spoke, the fifth day,
of silence.
– Jane Hirshfield
P.S. There are new prompts on the Prompts page.
Sarah Russell Poetry 