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
A few weeks ago, Sherry Marr at Poets United asked if I would do and interview with her. It appeared today on their website. Thanks, Sherry, for the opportunity! If you’re interested, you can read it here.
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
“They haven’t dug the grave yet.”
Mom insisted on coming to the cemetery
after her best friend Dorothy’s viewing.
“The funeral’s not ’til 2 tomorrow,” I said.
“They’ll dig it in the morning.”
“They should have it dug,” she fussed.
Mom is a farm woman, used to death.
She turned ninety in the fall,
and Dorothy was her last good friend
in the tiny delta town where children leave
for jobs or school or just to escape the soy
and cotton. Her church has only twenty members
now — old women who show off corsages
on Mother’s Day and sometimes cajole their men
to come in overalls and slicked-back hair.
Dorothy and Mom taught Bible study, went to Eastern Star
and bingo, traded recipes and gossip.
Mom killed a rabid skunk in Dorothy’s yard
with the double barrel she keeps under the bed,
and Dorothy came to quilt on Wednesdays –
just the two of them since the other three passed on.
“Why’s it important to see the empty grave?” I asked.
“I need to know she’ll be comfortable,” Mom said.
“I know she’d do the same for me.”
– Sarah Russell
First published in On the Veranda
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
