Russell Willis

Russell Willis emerged as a poet in 2019 with the publication of three poems in The Write Launch. Since then, he has published poetry in over thirty online and print journals and twenty print anthologies. He won the Sapphire Prize in Poetry in the 2022 Jewels in the Queen’s Crown Contest (Sweetycat Press). Russell grew up in and around Texas (USA) and was vocationally scattered as an engineer, ethicist, college/university teacher and administrator, Internet education entrepreneur, and pastor throughout the Southwest and Great Plains, finally settling in Vermont with his wife, Dawn.

A Legacy of Words

In gratitude to Bill Moyers
Bill Moyers left us on June 26 at the age of 91.[1] His declining health over the past few years, and now his death, have left us longing for more of what he gave so generously in life: insatiable curiosity, clarifying insight, empathy grounded in respect, courage tempered by humility, and optimism anchored in realism.
Because of his life’s work—and because his career spanned a remarkable era in mass communication, from the birth of television to the rise of the internet—we are fortunate to have an extraordinary archive of his spoken and written words. These will continue to inform, inspire, and challenge future generations.

“Necessary Evil,” “This Fooling with Words,” and “Gratitude”

The idea of “necessary evil”
Is only plausible if you
Mistakenly equate evil with pain.
Reject the premise, then
Evil is never necessary.

Pain, on the other hand, is a different story
For human life to even exist
There is the matter of the
Pain of childbirth

“With Me Between the Lines,” “Knowing That You Knew Joy,” and “Until Tomorrows Are Swallowed By Yesterdays”

There are those who live
between the lines of life
who once were my story
but came not to fit,
not them in mine
nor me in theirs;

“Earth Cries and the Oceans Catch the Tears,” “Reservoir No More,” and “Summer — Memory or Prophecy?”

Each corner of a globe
With no corners
Born of the sea as
Liquid or solid
In dances with humans
And dances between humans
Fear and hope meet in their own dance
As the earth cries

“If These Walls Could Talk,” “Images of Night,” and “Overheard on a Train”

If only these walls could talk
we wonder
What might goad their reluctant tongues?

Wondered more often
by those who would be betrayed or wounded by the
small talk or gloating of these walls

“Windsong: Solo Flute,” “The Dig,” and “Sudden Gasp”

The flutes of those
who live
with,
not just in,
nature,
mimic windsong.

Even accidental noise
blown by untrained lips
echoes the haunting, ethereal
whistle of wind
through limbs and grass, crops and structures.

“Windsong: Grand Opera,” “Full-ness of Time” and “Shadow Play”

The first strains of the overture
Intrudes on the calm of normalcy.
Several measures of gentle breeze
Slowly crescendo into true wind.
The key and rhythm suddenly change,
Then revert to the original.

“There Are No Words,” “Que Será – Mother’s Stare” and “Peace”

“There are no words…” with tragedy
Or times absurd or ends unknown
Is tragic in its own accord
For words may be all that we own

“Attic,” “Thalia and Melpomene” and “And So We Sleep”

Three chains:
The first hanging in the hall
Just within reach, but
High enough not to disturb traffic through the short hallway

“Just Do It,” “Warning” and “Life Dunes”

No matter what the it
it often starts small, unannounced
undetected or unappreciated
It starts to grow or change in
some way, pushed or pulled by us
or self-induced

“Long Ago, Friday Night in Texas,” “A Train at Night,” and “Joy”

Light explodes from darkening skies. Not Sun, Yet, light unleashing elemental forces. The fragrance of recently mown grass As would be remembered by a thoroughbred Not so long ago a colt Building muscle and endurance Running like the wind through the grass just because You were meant to run like the wind when you are a colt.
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