Lament

So let the piper make his drones lament

find the music for words best unsaid

that say she’s gone that say she’s dead

but she is not gone she is here instead

in my arms as we dance together

gazing into each other’s eyes

that time I stumbled with surprise

finding I’d suddenly realized

red faced stupid adolescent

what love is

and now I’ll cry 

and now I’ll grieve 

so let the piper start the drone’s lament

unsay those words that say she’s dead

let her music herald spring 

let her elope once more from Death

dance winter into spring 

with her young love

give birth to summer

let the piper raise our hearts and welcome in

another year another harvest to begin.

I’ll walk the path we trod before that led us through the woods

to where we crossed Chirdon Burn where it dropped two feet as it rushed 

on to the north fork of the river Tyne where we stepped over boulders

big standing firm against the stream that splits off the Cleugh right there

near Goat Linn where there’s a spring coming from Roughside 

with a two-gallon canister in each hand fetching water from a stream.

By Chirdon Burn I’ll wander where my love and I once walked

alone except for a birdwatcher’s hut by water’s edge where we talked.

And that was where she went no further for she wanted to go on from me

we’d passed a full-fledged tawny owl being mobbed by birds in a tree.

No, you can’t keep it, it’s wild, set it free She’d taken it anyway back to our bothy

from the drystone wall where she found it. We kept it and fed it and then it flew free.

From Allerybank we’d found her from Roughside near enough

was it her, songbirds were trying to kill in the valley of the Cleugh?

Leaves moving in time pluck melodies from the breeze 

she tamed wild birds and played with foxes

so let the piper make his drones lament

as he fingers notes for words best unsaid that say you’ve gone that say you’re dead

and gone and now I’ll cry and now I’ll grieve walking the path we walked instead

Richard M Russell © Dick Russell

      August 2022

The Spring

he practices casting words as feet
that will adhere
to meaning
catch a trout
catch the fame he seeks

 

what he writes now
he hopes will stay
if only clinging like lichen to rock
by that spring where she bent to hold a pail
right beside a blackbird’s nest
the blackbird did not move

 

there are many springs but none like Brard
not far from Merwin's place unless maybe Roughside's
an outcrop piercing the moor in the sloping hillside
above a stream they called the Cleugh which rhymes with rough
where grass grew thickly and curlews cried 

 

each step down the hillside strengthened entrancement
for a gaunt tree stood alone among deer cropped grasses
clansmen raiding the Bower assembled here
to besiege Dally Castle in the stone tower days 
and spirits haunt that place. 


Richard M Russell (C) Dick Russell
                      August 2022

 Near Lagos

morning's sun dappled cat
comes to the lagoon to lap 
an illusion
your muse
her voice shivers like a flute
her call
A
O
bass clef and treble clef of existence
trees breathe freely
canoes slowly pass
nearby   a village
only to go to
never to be from
at lagoon's edge
thoughts like mangroves bush

 

Richard M Russell © Dick Russell 
2013, 2022

 Walking from Roughside

Atop the crags over abandoned quarry shafts
with a view towards Smales a stone farmhouse further
a short-eared owl swooping to stop further approach
towards owlets out of their nest on Roughside moor.
Near Toddy’s Rigg overlooking the Cleugh below
poor moorland grazing fit only for a few sheep
but pasture for cows in a field near the Bower.
Everywhere open to wide skies conifers only knee high
Plantations newly plowed would one day hide the sky.
Descending the steep slope to the banks of the Cleugh
on sunny days though grass was dry to lie upon
its roots were damp with dew if your fingers felt there
sound didn’t carry once you stepped over the edge
down among memories of what happened before
towards a gnarled and stunted leafless tree bereft
by the banks of a stream running through a ravine
past an untended spring aware only of silence

Richard M Russell (C) Dick Russell
                  August 15, 2022

 A Valentine In August

I’d like to dance with you right now
awhirl you in my arms 
do the dance we did so well
hug you ever closer
the dance we did before
I’d like to dance with you right now
and hug you ever closer
though you would not feel the swell
we’d dance in step together
never far apart
closer than we’ve ever been
not pricked or poked apart
just dancing in my arms again
along with this refrain
there’s no tool like an old fool
if you raise your leg to the bar


Richard M Russell © Dick Russell
                  August 2022