I cast my faith on daffodils –
on the steadfastness of green
and promises of gold
I can believe in the movements
of worms, shaking up earth
beyond visible proof
I accept the testimony of buds
before their exhalations –
modest currency of Spring
I can discern a mystery in dirt
and a truth rests in my spine –
that some bright morning
the burgeoning will arrive
© Sarah Whiteley
My newest chapbook Wandering Wonderful is now available for pre-order from Finishing Line Press.
our days of heavy snow
have shattered the plum trees –
snapped their branches until
they stand now in the night
silent as broken men
the rain now exposes them,
these splits in branch
and dangling bough –
only Spring will ascertain
whether the heartwood sustains
© Sarah Whiteley
My newest chapbook Wandering Wonderful is now available for pre-order from Finishing Line Press.
the restitution for winter is this –
the modest wink of a wood violet,
a bit of bright among
the passing season’s debris
© Sarah Whiteley
I suspect that this is a snippet I will eventually expand upon. But for now, I think a nice little reminder that there is hope amidst the cold is fitting. Keep safe out there!
My newest chapbook Wandering Wonderful is now available for pre-order from Finishing Line Press.
it must be March –
this morning
the quince blooms
and two crows
sit on the porch rail
trading gentle preenings
between them,
beside me,
while I am sipping
rapidly cooling coffee
and reading
my tattered Milosz,
thinking about how even black
might just be luminous
when embodied by feathers
and emboldened thus
by the merest blink
of gathering Spring
© Sarah Whiteley
the house finches have
changed their song again –
to one of fierce joy,
of emphatic nest-lust
it seems almost too soon
for such passion,
with snow still gathered,
blue in the shadows
of the north-facing stones
then again, some songs exist
simply to remind us
it may never be too soon,
yet sometimes it is
quite plainly too late
© Sarah Whiteley
the winds that rushed in yesterday
to strip branches of their blooms
flipped trash can lids, sent them
spinning down the street,
cast crows into chaotic aeronautics
and sent all songbirds deep
into their shrubbed shelters
but today, they come out singing
blithely tumbling between trees,
the sidewalks surprised by pink –
awash in piles of petals
© Sarah Whiteley
our forsythia doesn’t bloom,
never having been properly pruned
the workmen (dirty-jeaned, bantering)
being more adept at paint and plumbing
than the etiquette of flowers
© Sarah Whiteley
yesterday, I carried a sprig of Sweet William
three miles to a favorite poet’s grave
simply because you do not have one
and there, the trees were a free-for-all
of birds – oh, gorgeous, noisome riot!
some other Spring mourner before me had left
a tiny, silver “s” of a snake – something you
(poet, brother) both would have appreciated
each year, I am less clever, more gray –
but only this newspaper clipping of you ages
© Sarah Whiteley
take from them what you can –
there are wiser things than those
that carry discernible voices –
down the street near the park,
five cherries are marked with orange
distorted by time and poor nourishment
(it’s no surprise they’ve failed to thrive)
and within this Spring’s feeble pink,
parting unfurled and scattered
come July, the city and their saws
will pare them down to stumps
before then, the crows and I
will grace them with a last goodbye
not with pious pity,
but with a graceful thanks
for their green rendering
of unknowable sky
© Sarah Whiteley
the small-birds have finally
found the window feeder
and the dogs are enthralled
with their sudden proximity
we are well, though feeling
the spring in our bones –
that gentle eruption debuts
a new brand of restlessness
the boards of the porch have been
too damp for comfortable reading,
and coffee for now is confined
beneath the mossy awning
but sweet and peppery
the season’s trees tease
the beginnings of green –
one promise kept, at least,
among so many hundreds dropped
these are days of small news,
buds of flowery hearsay – not much
here to report except the hummingbirds
are damp-winged and bright
among the new leaves of the maple
© Sarah Whiteley
ebbtide 