first snow

so cold, not-quite-rain
hisses through the husks
of the locust pods

later, this ice will gentle
into hushful snow –
which absolves all,
forgives everything

and for a blessed hour,
every branch will
outshine the moon

© Sarah Whiteley

finch talk

the finches had much
to say today –
about the dampness
of the day,
the amount of seed
remaining on the sill,
the early dark and
the lateness of light

winter prattlings,
cold weather natterings –
so different from
the ardent liltings
they will trade
between the buds
in the spring,
but enjoyable
to ears all the same

© Sarah Whiteley

My apologies for my absence lately. Some large projects have been keeping me rather busy which means that finding time and mental space to write has been difficult to say the least. Unfortunately, reading the blogs I subscribe to has also fallen by the wayside recently. Of course, not having internet at home since before the holidays has complicated the issue. However, that particular problem should (fingers crossed) be rectified this weekend and I will hopefully be able to start catching up on my reading and my writing soon.

My best friend and I have a hiking motto, birthed during our first adventure together through three miles of calf deep mud and down a hundred foot cliff (one of us with only one working hand at the time). That motto is “straight through the middle!” Meaning that sometimes the only way to get to where you are going is to keep moving forward. In news of the major life adventure variety, I am making arrangements to leave Seattle after many, many years and relocate to Colorado in March. The Universe has basically been yelling at me for a while now that It Is Time! So with much nervousness (and much exhilaration), I’m holding myself to that motto.

I will miss my quirky crows, my beloved Cascade Mountains, all those rainy hikes, porch beers with neighbors, and of course my best friend. But there is also so much that I am looking forward to: new hikes, new neighbors, new adventures, and finding new inspiration all around. So if I start writing about changes and leavings and whole families of dust bunnies found while cleaning out closets, you all will know why.

With much love and gratitude,
Sarah

observation

December’s iron door has opened
and the trees seem more deeply rooted,
tucked further into stillness

winter may heave its bitter winds,
yet the trees depict the difference
between moving and being moved

© Sarah Whiteley

*

on new snow, I inscribe
only footprints –

there being nothing
that the leaves have not
already said

© Sarah Whiteley

a lesson in breath

there is a pause
at the final turning
of November,

before the season
firmly closes,
that may be entered

if the juncture
between foot and path
is timed just so

there stillness rests
in cool absolute –
a mantle of calm,
a lesson in breath

© Sarah Whiteley

the raccoons

that silver morning at Shi Shi,
the chill we rose to a mere shade
of the deeper cold to come

we’d had visitors in the night,
our tents encircled by prints –
two sets surveying our strangeness

then breaking away to wander
to the edge of the sea,
twining in close loops together

we followed with our coffee
trailing steam from our mugs –
careful not to efface the evidence

© Sarah Whiteley

the glad immeasurable

I do not count them, the trees –

instead, I walk into them
as one does into sunlight

or into unexpected joy
along the needle-softened path

here I am most at home –
drifting like birdsong

beneath and between
the glad immeasurable

© Sarah Whiteley