this is not the first page,
nor have I reached the last
on days such as this,
what I most want to do
is fling them all upwards
for complete expungence
into the winds,
which in February burgeon
and whirl, thieving breath
and birds and leaves
and so why not these?
© Sarah Whiteley
at the sill, I count
birds like blessings –
even the wisp of a junco
with the withered foot –
both of us recite
the words for sky
© Sarah Whiteley
wind follows wind,
as would the grasses
were they not rooted –
relegated to whispering
wayfarers’ songs
this evening I carry
that elsewhere urge –
a glow of foot,
the rise of thigh –
the sort of sky to set
wings to trembling
© Sarah Whiteley
I go out, and come back –
to the low voices of everyday
concrete saying stay,
voices that are each time fainter
I go out, and come back –
in sun, in mist, in rain –
and each time the tether
is less, and closer to temporary
each time the river’s shout
grows louder and I am more
cedar and stone, more
singing creek and warbler
I go out, and I am more
simply by being less
© Sarah Whiteley
light resides
in the quiet crook
of your elbow
were I to unbend it
or raise my head
from where my hair
loves the smooth
turns of you
it would surely escape
fly out the open window
pulling along behind
the rest of me
flushed as birds
from fields at dusk
© Sarah Whiteley
delphiniums droop,
blue-winged bloomings,
not a hint of flight
but the feathered teasings
of billowy breezes,
that laughing,
passed them by
at night they dream,
I think,
of unstemmed delight –
dipping slipping drinking
in the troughs of
silver streaking tails
of untrowable stars
whispering
at last
we are higher
than the spires
to which the sun
and earth confined us
but by dawn
they lie,
impossible curls
of fallen sky,
upon the earth
to which they are
forever tied
while breezes ever
laughing, pass them by
© Sarah Whiteley
I would
I could stay
in those days
of skinned knees,
firefly-lit trees,
and the cool stretch
of evenings
the moon tipped all
her sweetness into
and in the far fields
chase the years
yet to come
up the grass-wrapped rise
where the stars
that held my eyes
touch and hold still
that spray of youth
when green, green
spread unending
and the honeysuckle hung
beneath the sour apple tree,
bare feet dangling
down below the boughs
without a care
for things like thistles,
or neighbors, or propriety
dear me,
I would
I could stay
in those days
where we played
evenings along the creek
so cold it crushed
the breath from our
fledgling frames,
thin as new foals
but spry as goats,
we plucked berries
as fresh as you can get
and as wild as the orphans
our mother called us
then grass was meant
for rolling down
and words like winter
and worry
were still
so very far away
I would
I could stay
© Sarah Whiteley
how like waves
the days rise and rush,
fold and founder,
in this quieter collapse
of perceived shores
those hours I shooed
and shushed,
now distant as gulls
whose calls sound
time’s dying,
find placid flight
along the cooler drifts
of our remembrance
I trail you behind
like summer
at September’s end
© Sarah Whiteley
it’s been a year, my dear,
since I shut the garden gate behind
and shooed the wounded dreams away
to trail mournful after happenstance
and the ungraceful slant of those days
no more than small disturbances now
they rustle upon the edges of my feathers
and along the bending tips of my grass
there are no buzzings of bees here
but life, in cat-soft callings ’round the corner,
beckons of fingers held in absentia
and sings of the raveled strings
the intangible things that keep me tethered here
and bound to breathing
mistake not my thanks for fidelity
for I am adroitly adrift
and drift on I shall as vagabond leaves
those flutterings of a different sort
left me out of sorts and circling then
with all its brass-caged “ifs”
I leave their scattered clamorings behind the gate
I rise, I glide, I shifting sift
like last light’s slow-measured lilting
through branches that waver quavery
in the dreamy greens of settling dusk
a year, dear, and I am softer than the silence
unfolding from the star-tilted skies
and sweeter even than the honeysuckle sliver
of the moon that follows me home
and nests in the corner of my window
© Sarah Whiteley
And wham it came upon me – that urge to write. I think for now the lull has passed.
it matters not
to what, to whom,
to where I am bound
I am bound
as pinned to this earth
as unturned stone
freedom is as fleeting
as an insomniac’s dream
but had you asked
just yesterday
to what I am bound
I would have replied
to no thing
for you touched me
and for a moment
I was tied to sky
© Sarah Whiteley
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