lately I have been
preoccupied with ghosts –
with the dust that
follows me from old roads
without wind, three pines
lean hard on a sister and groan –
the sound finds me
even after they fall
© Sarah Whiteley
“I walk, all day, across the heaven-verging field.” – Mary Oliver
at times, I have brought you along for company –
you and the pale trillium in that sheltered pleasure
found beneath hemlock and cedar, under second-growth pine
at times, I walked convinced I might hear you clearly
were the cascades not so Spring-ly loud,
or the whiskey jacks such engaging distraction
this morning, you have become the river
and I am grateful for the wetness of January,
for the gleaming mud that slows me down,
and for all these wild and gentle scents unfettered,
here where words like wild, and hush, and joy abound
© Sarah Whiteley