just hum

November blows in
bearing a hundred
different songs
about her wind,

leaving one ditty
to rattle and drum
upon the limbs
of the locust

you know this one,
I tell myself,
if you’ve forgotten
the words, just hum

© Sarah Whiteley

November is upon us, and I’m not quite sure what happened to September and October. But then I suppose a crazy schedule will do that to a person and before you know it, days and whole weeks slip away without a leaving any impression at all other than a chaotic blur.

Things have calmed down a bit for me finally and I am determined to get back to the habit (and pleasure) of writing. For the month of November, I am tasking myself with drafting at least one poem a day. Many of these won’t be posted – they’ll be put aside to be tweaked later with the intention of compiling them into a new manuscript. But it feels good to set my mind to a creative task. One that will leave an impression and will keep the days from slipping by without remark.

And one of these days, I’ll post an update about the crows. They’re gathering their numbers for the winter roost, so I will at least try first to capture a quick video of them tagging along for an autumn walk with the dogs (which always turns heads in the neighborhood).

Happy November to all!

crow funeral

this morning, I am the attendee
of another crow funeral

the fourth such curated cacophony
close followed by hushful reverence

yet this is only something eventual
finally becoming true

while elsewhere, the crickets
rasp hymns to the rain

© Sarah Whiteley

Anyone who has followed this poetry blog for any length of time knows that I have been accepted by a very special family of crows. For the past 9 years, they have been clownish companions who visit me on the porch, caw through my window to get my attention, introduce their young to me, and tag along on walks with the dogs. I have had to warn any dog sitters coming in that the crows recognize my dogs and will want to walk with them even when I’m not there. I have been entertained, enchanted, and delighted by them – even when they steal my lighter and drop chicken bones on my head (I think that’s a gift?).

This morning the family lost one of this year’s young – hit by a car while I was on my way to work. This is the fourth crow funeral I have witnessed, but the first I have seen from start to finish. While I would have much preferred to have a different start to my Friday, it at the very least serves as a reminder that animals are as capable of close connection and of mourning as we are.

uproarious – excerpt from Wandering Wonderful

to say that a landscape
can never be clamorous

disregards the wild
hearts within it,

forgets the crows
and casts no winds

an outlook is only
sometimes peaceful,

and mostly uproarious

© Sarah Whiteley

My newest chapbook Wandering Wonderful is now available for pre-order from Finishing Line Press. Pre-orders through March 22nd will have an opportunity to win a canvas print of the cover art. Click for details!

June crows

four crows in the June grass
watch me watching them
from my bright blanket,
while the fifth plucks sprigs
of blooms from the chestnut

an all-at-once wind teases
white petals into yellow light –
a sudden floral flotilla
and the fifth crow flies with one,
two, three sprouted sprigs

and I from my bright blanket
reaching into the world –
admiring the petals,
yet never wondering
who the bouquet is for

© Sarah Whiteley

reading Milosz on the porch in March

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

April windstorm

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

extra cinnamon

startled stranger,
you may be wondering
how it is that quite suddenly
what very much appears to be
nothing other than a slightly misshapen
pumpkin (yes, take a gentle whiff) pancake
has turned up, or rather fallen, onto the stiff
blue wool shoulder of your winter coat

it’s just that
the crows were hungry
and your raucously loud
barreling-around-the-corner
cell phone conversation disturbed
Charlie (the one scolding you) Crow,
causing her to drop her treasured breakfast
onto the unfortunate shoulder of your winter coat

I added extra cinnamon

© Sarah Whiteley

the winter roost

the crows come again, perch
within the remnants of summer –
turned to rust and rue;
they’ve come again
with their own narrative,
their inscrutable truths –
strike their own lines
against November’s sky,
while we try blindly (futile)
to navigate stolen darknesses;
fixed, and non-migratory –
roosting in huddled groups
for the long and empty winter

© Sarah Whiteley

uncommon company

uncommon company

comes cawing

-purple gracing black-

knocks politely

on the wood,

awaits his

morning snack

****Crow Update****

It’s been a while since I’ve done one of these and perhaps it’s overdue?

Coyote and his mate (now called Magda) had no surviving offspring from the spring’s hatch. There’s really no telling what happened but I noticed more hawks than usual in the neighborhood, so that may very well be it. Of course, we have raccoons as well, who will think nothing of eating crow eggs, or even hatchlings.

We’re headed into the gathering time for the winter roost, and so I’ve got several crows who come along on walks with the dogs currently. But the two that are most present right now are Coyote and Knock-Knock. And it has been my pleasure most weekends to spend some time sitting on the porch with both of them. Coyote especially sits quite close on the porch railing and seems to like to hold a “conversation” with me. I keep trying to capture the little chortling and deep guttural noises he makes at me on camera – he makes them from deep in his throat and actually bends his neck so that his beak is nearly on his chest when he does the gutterals. I’m determined to get that on video one of these days!

I’ve been sitting out on the porch with the laptop, getting ready for NaNoWriMo and diving headfirst into research. I’ve noticed that if I’m not paying enough attention to Coyote, he will very boldly walk up along the railing behind me and knock his beak against the wood very loudly. The first time he did it, he startled the you-know-what out of me as I hadn’t even realized he was there.

Coyote has also started to show an interest in the toys Freyja brings outside with her. Yesterday, he tugged her blue stuffed dog across the parking lot while Freyja looked on. She didn’t seem too concerned that a crow was inspecting her toy – she’s so used to them now.

I never tire of these strange “friends” and their antics. I don’t even mind the occasional loss of a swiped lighter if it means I get to continue to observe them from perhaps just a little closer than most people have the opportunity to do so.

2.12.2015

snippets from the past few days

the snowdrops have been stepped on by some unwary foot – they are closer now to mud than to sky – but the crocus persists and the daffodils are showing their greening tips

I had to side-step several puddles of blood on the sidewalk outside the office one morning while the police tried to tape them off – a man stabbed apparently kept right on walking – I felt like I could relate

I wake most mornings at 2 AM with my heart thrumming like a sparrow trapped in a 50 gallon drum – and it is the strangest sensation to feel empty except for the beating of frantic wings – on lucky days, that goes away

Knock-Knock has learned a new vocalization that somewhat approximates a soft bark, not unlike what Freyja sounds like when she calls the crows – I am intrigued and pleased by this

Coyote has been extra amorous with his mate, and in another few months, I will hopefully have a new blue-eyed fledgling or two that he will let me photograph

I briefly met someone at the office whom I strongly suspect is a very shy, closeted smart-ass – this makes me want to invite him to coffee so that we can enjoy the comfort of being smart-asses in like company

three gin & tonics and eight pieces of sushi with raucous friends is better than hours of therapy; a peaceful hour spent painting is just as good