Leah’s Trunk

A Work in Progress
30

Cord wood split and stacked while green

in May while waiting for news from town

Leah’s hair tied up in a yellow scarf

the color of fresh hewn alder

wood smoke scenting sunlight

sunlight ageing alder

finches perched on thistles

spreading thistledown

Donal was advised to avoid green suits

in business if you want to make them buy

dress for success with dark suit and tie

don’t wear clothes from which buyers will shy

northern harriers hunting a marsh

redwing blackbirds nesting in cattails

cutthroat trout in the shallow stream

a kingfisher by the pond near the beach

longer days warmer weather

emergent bumble bees

daffodils hyacinths

house finches warbling

well-seasoned wood

a year quickly past

Leah’s cabin now vacant

Still no news from town

We bought a trunk from Leah

for she was traveling light

leaving to live with an artist

down the coast and out of state

a capacious blue trunk

for toys and winter clothes

a platform for a doll’s house

for tea parties for scones

then came news that Boeing would buy

a seven-million-dollar list price deal 

for a Cray Research Cray-1

with full commission being quite a sum

wood smoke scenting sunlight

sunlight ageing alder

finches perched on thistles

spreading thistledown

after a dry spell it rained

plants that weathered well thrived

sudden growth seemed obvious

as if Persephone unbuttoned her blouse

Dick Russell © Richard M Russell

                     2025

Origins

A Work in Progress
29

I’ll close my eyes on a rainy day and choose a sun drenched cricket field edged by shade trees where leather meets willow and there’s watercress not far and a brook where a nymph lives that should a cricketer come in search of a hard hit ball he might spy it at the bottom of a deep pool that should he reach in to grasp would be too far for an arm to reach and she’d soon have him in her grasp

While fronds ripple in the splash

And find young Donal on his little bike riding pell-mell into the park through the wrought iron gates to fling himself down on the grass inside and hide behind his bike from the police car stopped outside the gates he’d just whizzed in front of risking scratch of paint

Sing to me muse as once you sang 

tell of Penelope in a nightie telling her son

he never slept, Odysseus, he never slept

with pajama bottoms on

So, Donal’s mother told him one day his father slept

but he had died. He felt unhugged afraid of touch 

flinching from contact with her skin

his mother's love had not outlasted him

Dick Russell © Richard M Russell

                     2025

Where Walt Whitman Walked

A Work in Progress
28

So Donal came to stand on land where Whitman may have walked

where he and Jean Bartik sometimes walked and talked

by the Cooper River across the street from where Donal worked

as Editor: Standard Electronic Data Processing

in time to see how it all began with those

who were programmers, coders

Donal carpooled with Jean

one of ENIAC’s team of programmers

all of them women 

Americans working with male engineers

She, Jean Bartik nee Betty Jean Jennings was an Editor 

at Auerbach Publishers across the river from Philadelphia

in Pennsauken, New Jersey beyond Camden

by the Cooper River 

And ENIAC claimed being first

And once upon a time the Cray-1 was undoubtedly the fastest

built by wirers, all of them women

Americans working with male engineers

So Donal learned to write for money

Auerbach Reports on mainframe computers

got to see how it was done

emergent from an archive of previous work

Cray’s short vector machine 

the world’s fastest computer by far

And Donal got a job at Cray Research, Inc.

and was there to witness Seymour himself

on a Saturday at the punch card machine

at the Halle Lab in Chippewa Falls

and in time got a transcript of his recorded talk

explaining a tool which measured nanoseconds 

in short strides of wire

delay lines running back and forth across the board

synchronizing signals

interconnecting simple electronic parts

obtained from Fairchild and Motorola

to mathematicians

famous at wrangling data breaking codes

there in the puzzle palace where a red flight flashed

when Donal went down to the basement where a multitude

of computers were arrayed

Dick Russell © Richard M Russell

                    2025

Glenn Hughes Began Another Screenplay

A Work in Progress
27

Let’s assume that by 1958 Glenn Hughes had read Isaac Asimov’s Foundation trilogy, published in 1951, 52, and 53.  From this came his idea for another screenplay where an older building on the campus of the University of Washington was the hub of a secret in plain sight, another type of Second Foundation dedicated to the survival of the human species.  A place where scholars kept in touch with ancient texts and philosophers, a place of great learning and patient understanding, a place where civilization would be saved when…

Donal sat on the steps of Denny Hall and sang while playing his guitar...

When you’ve been trumped, you cannot play for time

for your cards have been moved to another’s

you must wait then ante up and play once again

while you stay at the table with your brothers

When you’ve been trumped you must play a long game

For time’s on your side as all things decline

Before he can fail, he must first succeed

Posturing dominance vulpine lupine

Cast in crypto-gold to look like Caesar

Acting as if there’s no law can bind him

He’s going to say something outrageous each day

Sometimes led on by his keepers sometimes at whim

When you’ve been trumped watch out for madmen

Crazed with power and enabling a king

Trading votes in order to pay homage at court

Unable to see their king’s gone ding-a-ling

When you’ve been trumped it’s just a defeat

Victory comes when voters cast ballots

Having seen the mad king and his court at work

Next year the country will cast out some bigots

When you’ve been trumped you must play a long game

For time’s on your side as all things decline

Before he can fail, he must first succeed

Posturing dominance vulpine lupine

Dick Russell © Richard M Russell

                   2025

Dunkirk 

June 1st, 1940

A Work in Progress 26

At dawn the last men of the rearguard got to the beach

There were no boats waiting to take them off

So, they trudged miles towards Dunkirk

While Messerschmidt’s strafed in daylight

finding a rowboat, they dragged to the shore 

floated out to sea

where a sloop picked them up 

Donal's father said he came back on a sailboat

  

Dick Russell © Richard M Russell

                        2025

The party “included personnel from the 1st Battalion, The South Lancashire Regiment, the 6th Battalion The Black Watch and Brigade Headquarters personnel, as well as Fusiliers.  The party marched to Dunkirk, where a rowing boat was found and towed into the water.  Eventually the party was picked up by a sloop which, although twice hit by bombs, eventually reached Dover”.

A Short History of the 2nd Battalion Royal Fusiliers City of London Regiment during the first year of the war.  Published by The Naval & Military Press.

Once One Spring

Outside on the driveway inside my fence 

looking at purple irises, yellow daffodils, jonquils

a palette of colors to please the eye

four tall cedars over all snagging morning sun

low in the sky standing stationary 

awake and aware life is just a slice through time

a flurry big enough to leave a wake astern

of memorable moments I’d like to describe

if one can imagine a breeze moving fuchsias

long stemmed that sway shiver sometimes shake 

or the sound of a shovel as it scrapes

magical moments alone with nature

when things move in rhythm with a flute faraway 

far from the din of battle. Harkaway

Dick Russell © Richard M Russell

                    2025

Try Again

A Work in Progress
25

Try again.  Fail again.  Fail better.

Heeding these words

Donal got up on his feet

Found his voice 

To those adrift in troubled times

Now in these times of strife

famines follow disasters

lands unploughed and wasted

our inheritance goes empty

brothers   sisters   are drifting

going east going west

while this war continues 

they cannot meet   or

direct their steps home

where doors bang in the wind

gardens lie ruined

they are my flesh and blood

yet they drift down strange roads

dragging their lonely shadows

through far countries

unable to lean on a friend

like a solitary bird

blown thousands of miles

like uprooted grass

scattered in the wind

I am alone

cut off from home

now we all look up at the moon

in five different places

the same thought clouds our eyes

and we weep

Po-Chu-Yi

T'ang Dynasty

translated by David Sen, Dick Russell

© 2025

Feasting

Nutrient enriched

hot blood scouring a warm heart

oiling an engine

cleansing for winter

preparing tough arteries 

lean months meagre meals 

feasting in springtime

sun rising before seven

hardened hearts relax

snowdrops crocuses

at first one daffodil bloomed

now many blossom

carrots potatoes

simmering in a pot roast

early afternoon

winter sun rising

low in the sky having climbed

above the tree line

Dick Russell © Richard M Russell

                    202

Seeing You Raga

like you I know of sonnet rules of rhyme

but now I make these sonnets as I please

hoping fragments of them may yet survive

transmission through what goes beyond

that cloud of information beyond that plug 

that has its own heartbeat if it has one

going beyond the confines of our earth

out into space rippling on for light years

into our star system towards unknowns

knowing that others will read what I send

and they have a duty to comprehend

my meaning in case I’ve encrypted sense

in case I’m writing to those that rebel

who turn my nonsense into words that gel

when some readers stiffen with keen intent

it is my duty to enliven life

for I am an un-jammed radio ham

getting a message out that all is well

I can say no more gentlemen don’t tell

I can say much more but under duress

under inquisition and in distress

but that beautiful blue globe seen from space

has refugee migrations south to north

east to west crossing by land and by sea

changing direction where fences are built

adapting as species must to survive 

when threatened by what is unspeakable

driven by fears incomprehensible

twenty-four bars of a raga I play

using all strings of a well tuned sitar

only in my mind my fingers won’t work

for intricate chord changes delicate

phrases restating questions never asked

my fingers less nimble my timing off

discordant thoughts tumbling out of sequence

wailing sitar pounding tabla on stage

where if I could play but only in my mind

because I cannot play sitar I can

pluck a good string and perhaps even improvise 

what I’m needing what I’m pleading

what would be understood were meaning clear

what would propel forward if in first gear

then 

      there and then when

        coexistence twined

our eyes engaging passing on the stairs

when I realized composing these lines

vines might climb together never be one

when we exchanged bright words for brief seconds

enough time to enthrall that morning when

a trout stirred for a naiad in the fronds

your image appealing to prime instinct

when I saw you in Springtime on those stairs

forever rising upwards till time’s end

kept en prise captivated held so still

put your fingers on your temples find it

where in memory we’ll always exist

a portal to paradise entered in bliss

there are two spaces we think we exist in

one not more sacred that world we live in 

one in our brain an entire universe

put your fingers on your temples find it

that world in your brain Greek myths will explain 

should you care to consider a box is a brain

in temples so holy all congregate

in awe of a finely carved wooden chest

never opened full of unnameables

circumscribed by wide band frequencies

in which a universe appears to expand

that box of all your temple’s treasures most 

dear that box as big as a mind’s clear eye

answering all you can pose asking why

Turing’s machine conceived this universe 

everything minus one might exist

non computable never imagined

just reading these words creates a new world

analyzable freshly imagined

choose your own stories and populate it

or reuse attic tales’ modern myth

make new legends where you are heroic

some force compels you to enact a play

absconding a person in a chariot 

wherever Aphrodite beckons

escaping into enchanted gardens 

for gods can mix with mortals we decree

in that world not sacred that world we see

Copyright © Dick Russell

         Richard M Russell

                 2025

Further Reading

A Work in Progress 
24

Glenn Hughes turns up in the pages of a book, The Verse Revolutionaries, written by Helen Carr.  It’s a wonderful book for those interested in that era, beginning before the first World War, that vortex of creativity emerging in staid dingy London in pubs with floors littered with cigarette butts and restaurants noted more for their cuisine than for their bathrooms.  He’s also mentioned in another book, Vivian Whelpton’s, Richard Aldington: Poet, Soldier and Lover 1911-1929.

What caught my eye was his connection with the University of Washington (UW).  I was a Classical Studies degree student at UW.  An online search revealed that UW’s Special Collections had material related to Glenn Hughes in its archive. Which I went to see.  

“In 1919, Glenn Hughes (1894-1964), a young man from Nebraska and a recent graduate of Stanford University, joined the faculty of the Department of Dramatic Art, a part of the English Department. Though he came to the UW as a poetry fellow, Hughes soon became determined to create a first-rate drama school.  From 1930 to 1961 he led the Department, which became the School of Drama in 1940. He wrote more than 60 plays, wrote and edited various literary and scholarly publications, launched one of the West Coast's first foreign film series, and established the drama program as the center of theatrical life in Seattle. The University of Washington came to be recognized as one of the leading institutions in the nation for professional training in theatre arts.” 

Source: https://drama.washington.edu/history

The University of Washington Bookstore published 49 chapbooks edited by Glenn Hughes between 1927 and 1931.  Source: www.historylink.org.

In addition to his academic credentials, Hughes was also a successful playwright and somebody with great entrepreneurial skill. Now he is remembered mostly for creating the university’s nationally acclaimed Drama program; in fact, the Penthouse Theater on campus is named after him.  Largely forgotten is the contribution Hughes made to modern poetry.  He was, one of the first, if not the first, to give serious scholarly critical attention to Imagist poetry.  He had spent time in the late 1920s on a Guggenheim grant researching such prominent imagists as F.S. Flint, Richard Aldington, Ezra Pound and H.D.  He had been immersed in the poetry scene in London and Paris for almost a year and had met many poets including W.B. Yeats.   In 1931, Stanford University Press published the resulting book: Imagism and the Imagists: a study in modern poetry.  Before then, Hughes had also begun editing a series of chapbooks released by the University of Washington Bookstore.  He was able to attract many prominent authors including Richard Aldington writing about D. H. Lawrence and Remy de Gourmont, Ezra Pound translating Ta Hio, and Herbert Read, who posthumously edited the writings of T.E. Hulme. 

Dick Russell © Richard M Russell

                    2025