Poem in December

Yeats passed a glancing muse 

who'd seen him in better days 

got not even a crooked smile 

to send him on his way

Then he knew his days were over

no better rhymes he’d find than these 

to propel his saga forward

into a realm of dreams

He hoped his gods stayed constant

while mortals aged and died

that muses would inspire us

pleasing ears and eyes

Did he say they’ve left us

were they ever here?

even though they've been and gone 

still Yeats’ words would cheer

May some lyric from his past

delight in future time

may they not erase his words

while skipping over mine

Dick Russell © Richard M Russell

                    2024

Winter Approaches

like a maple tree in sunlight whose leaves are 

most beautiful in autumn before they fall

whose roots reach into deep darkness far below

each root a memory awaiting recall

love is bare winter unadorned

still clearly what it is even without leaves

nourished by the earth's overwintering warmth

down where memories enmesh in threads 

our future is born while storms rage above

the planet's defiance pines underground 

where soundwaves like shingle sliding in a slurry

warn of mankind maneuvering overhead

love is bare winter unadorned

Persephone's spirit drives seeds to sprout 

craves sunlight craves freedom bursts out of concrete

cracks pushed open by the pregnant earth

hope won't be paved over 

trees’ leaf again

though snow blocks passes and ice jams streams 

belief sustains all of us

as a story unfolds 

love is bare winter unadorned

Dick Russell © Richard M Russell

                        2024

 More About Bruce Choppin

They say Bruce was a mysterious man

he hired me in London to work in New York

at Teacher's College 

UNESCO paid

the key to it all was a new machine

the first of its kind in sixty-nine

a multiple-choice test marking machine 

that sensed marks made on cards by pupils

penciled dots that were their answers

pre-punched holes for schools and countries

comparing children's ability in school

Bruce sent me to Iowa City

to learn how to program the thing

then he set me to Sweden

to connect the dots 

hooking up this wonder machine

to a computer

It was a summer 

blue and yellow

working with Britt

Then data on tapes was sent to New York

to be mined for clues about why

children in Japan read better than elsewhere

or girls world-wide did better than boys

Sami said Bruce was a mysterious man

Maybe he did have such an air

After New York I lived faraway

at Roughside

Bruce visited 

brought Rachel

Dick Russell © Richard M Russell

                        2024

 So where's the poetry?

The first time I'd my own apartment

Was in New York in sixty nine.

So, where's the poetry in that?

The great guy I sublet the flat from,

Bruce, died in Chile in eighty three.

Google said: "In doubtful circumstances"

The first guests who stayed with me, then 

Were Christine and Alan, both Brits.

Christine died years ago of cancer

So, where’s the poetry in that?

New York City's so full of life

That death spills over its edges

Bruce Choppin arranged the flat for me

My own place, my own space, 

In New York!

I passed the flat on to Sami Al Banna

Who had friends from Palestine.

Sami's still alive.  He's from Iraq

And may I add that Sami had LPs…

Iraqi monks chanting Christian hymns

Civility born of antiquity

Never having read Cluny Brown

Got feedback on a first novel from Knopf

“Make it a short story”.

Dick Russell © Richard M Russell

                       2024

Nairn Revisited

Age puts distance between present and past

connecting time present to time past so that

when we go outside to where wild things grow 

all of us breathe and exhale time future.

Age is the measure of circumferences of the sun 

so that all of us age at the same daily rate

although we may measure our age by our looks

and not go by what might be recorded in books.

Except time present is date time location stamped

by satellites passing unseen overhead so that

even at sea far from land in a sailboat or 

on land far from a road you’re surveilled by a spy cam.

Entangled with your muse timeless and eternal

Age puts distance between present and past.

Dick Russell © Richard M Russell

                        2024

(Nairn

Age puts distance between present and past

stretching lengths longer than any string 

connecting time present in electricity

to time past in books made of paper pulped from trees

to photographs and film to ruins that outlast

time present time future wherever we can ping

For only at sea far from land in a sailboat

or on land far from a road can I imagine 

sempiternal time’s wild attractions

alone with whatever weather sky apportions

alive that moment wearing not wasting time’s coat

unbuttoning time’s blouse I imagine

Entangled with my muse timeless and eternal

Age puts distance between present and past)