Night Sounds by Sarah Russell

She tiptoes to the garden
on cricket nights to visit beings
busy in the grass and sycamore and willows,
hidden except for a swoosh, or chortle,
or pounce and small scream.

This night, she settles herself
on a stone in shadows, watches
moonlight tremble through leaves,
breathes moss and larkspur and clover.
Her fingers play with the hem
of her nightie, and she shivers.

Soon, she hears the wind chime cadence
of fairies dancing. The moon wends
a wildflower path to a clearing,
but the sounds drift ahead, out of reach.
She fears she’ll be lost and returns
to her stone in the garden.

Inside her house are loud voices
and sobs and the sound of something
falling down stairs. But she hears only
the tinkling fairies. She knows someday
they’ll find her and bring her to another garden
where another girl sitting on a stone
will hold her hand.

Sarah Russell’s poetry and fiction have been published in Kentucky Review, Poppy Road Review, Misfit Magazine, Rusty Truck, Third Wednesday, and many other journals and anthologies. She is a Pushcart Prize nominee. She has two poetry collections published by Kelsay Books, I lost summer somewhere and Today and Other Seasons. She blogs at SarahRussellPoetry.net. 

Two Poems by Sarah Russell

Indian Summer



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.

On Kebler Pass 

dust the ferns with my ashes --


there, among the aspen


trembling gold against the sky.  


Let them settle, sighing, 


on the still warm earth of autumn 


where the next peak calls your name.  



Snow will come. The wind will show me 


paths only does and vixens know.

The moon will call me with her crescent mouth 


and share stories of the embered stars.


Sarah Russell has returned to poetry after a career teaching, writing and editing academic prose.  Her poems have appeared in Kentucky Review, Misfit Magazine, Red River Review, Ekphrastic Magazine, and Black Poppy Review, among others.  She blogs at SarahRussellPoetry.net

Leaving by Sarah Russell

The dimmer switch is canting down

and flowers on the table are in silhouette.

I know the contours of this room so well,

know the path across so I don't stub my toe;

where one dining chair's leg tangles

with another, mars in the untangling,

so I lift it up and over gently to sit down.

You want to push the toggle all the way

to dark, but let me have this twilight

'til my heart adjusts, OK?

Sarah Russell lives in State College, PA with a patient husband and a curly dog named Smudge. Her poetry has appeared in Kentucky Review, Red River Review, Misfit Magazine, Black Poppy Review and Shot Glass Journal, among others.  Follow her work at www.SarahRussellPoetry.com 

In Venice by Sarah Russell

on a side street burrowed deep

off touristed San Marco, dusty relics

beckon in a shop no larger

than a footprint.  I join the urbane owner,

a musician -- hair  like Mozart, an artist

in a paint-daubed smock, discussing

Nietzsche, Modigliani, the cafes

in Genoa and Istanbul.  We toast

with Sangiovese in styrofoam.

Cento di questi giorni!

a wish for a hundred of these days.

Sarah Russell lives in State College, PA with a curly dog and a patient husband. Her poetry has appeared in Red River Review, Misfit Magazine, The Houseboat, Shot Glass Journal, Ekphrastic Magazine and Poppy Road Review, among others.  Follow her work at www.SarahRussellPoetry.com