Song of the Willow Warbler
I rode the wings of night on rising air
That carried me from Africa's wild shore;
To fields of meadowsweet and maidenhair
To sing of heaven's dome and ocean's floor.
Spring greets my song with hawthorn flower and briar.
Rewards my voice with nectar-tinted sun;
The thrum of earth's renewal is my lyre
As thaws begin and waters speed to run.
I sing for memories of sultry days
For zebras racing over arid plains.
I sing of England's tepid Summer haze;
Slow-strolling shire horses with plaited manes.
From heaven's heights I sing, for life's divine,
The purest voice, the lightest heart is mine.
© by Sara L. Russell, 22nd June 2003
Deep in the Garden
Along the path and down amid the trees
Is where I place my steel-and-canvas bed
To gaze up into emerald canopies
Of bright willows and rowans overhead
To contemplate the hazy azure sky
In copper sunlight of late afternoon
Gazing at every bumble bee and fly
Hearing the monotone wood pigeon's croon.
Deep in the garden, tap roots grow and twist
In labyrinthine coils beneath the grass
And midge flies form an effervescent mist
Flashing like sparks where sun and shadow pass.
Then, just as all seems reverently-still,
Some idiot switches on a cordless drill.
© by Sara L. Russell 5th June 2003
These sonnets were originally published online in Sonneto Poesia, Volume 2, Number 3, Summer, 2003. To access Sonneto Poesia, go here.
The Fruits of Our Labours
Sara L. Russell 2002
My table brims with bounties of the field
Blackcurrants glisten round the spit-roast boar
With apples chosen from the orchard's yield
Of rosey fruit, cached in the pantry's store.
Pearl barley, soft as bread, in simmered stew
With parsnips, carrots, lifted from the soil
Awaits the pleasure of a chosen few
To taste the harvest of the farmer's toil.
Outside, low-lying mist lies on the hills,
The corn deepens to sultry evening gold.
September's horn of plenty over-spills
Bringing enough, with surplus to be sold.
Come friends, and leave your boots outside the door,
Come taste the fruits of labours gone before.
(from Worlds Inside The Head, published by Kedco Studios, 2003)
Above photo by Sara Russell as well.
HOME
Sara L. Russell, Jan 28th, 2004.
Home is the word that weighs too much to say
Volumes of wistfulness to crush the tongue;
A straining lid on tortures locked away,
The word is uttered - and the catch is sprung.
It paints vignettes of half-remembered scenes,
Familiar quiet, between the brash and new,
The tongue speaks it, the mind spells what it means,
The apex of the spear is driven through.
Flightless, we watch the free-scape of the sky,
The window seems a picture on the wall;
No more dimensions than what meets the eye
No other lives but dreams hold us in thrall.
When every last defence is stripped away,
Home is the word that weighs too much to say.
