they’ve set traps for the rats…

they’ve set traps for the rats –
one would think who cares?
except that I’ve seen the mother
coax her young in clambering
up the long patience of her tail
to reach the seed in the feeder
long after the evening’s last birds
have flown to their repose

down the street, they’ve shot the coyote,
and are calling it mercy –
one might say so what?
except that she tracked the rats
and carried them back with her
into the deep green bulwark
at the densest edge of the park
where her soft-nosed pups wait

they’ve placed a sign around the corner
and one might think it benign –
until the hard hats descend
with their chainsaws and chippers,
to fell and to sunder the cedar
whose rings will mark an age
that far surpasses this city
and glibly name it progress

© Sarah Whiteley

afterthought

simple parentheses
could not hold you

yo(u outgrew th)em

and can no longer be called
an afterthought

© Sarah Whiteley

3.4.2015

I am learning finally how to be vulnerable, how to ask for help, and how to lean on friends and trust that they’ll stand steady beneath the weight. I’m coming to this lesson rather late in life, but this is a good step forward. But I’ve reached a point where I find I need to “lie low to the wall” for a while, as O’Donohue suggests in his poem. So I’m stepping away from new posts and writing in general for a while. I really couldn’t say for how long – at least until a few things have shifted a bit and the load is a little bit lighter.

I’ll still be reading and commenting on posts now and again. But ebbtide itself will be quiet for the time being.

Be wonderful and be well!

Celebrating!

Five years ago today, one tiny little poem marked the beginning of ebbtide. Five years! Am I celebrating? Hell yes!

I am so grateful for the countless ways in which this little space on the internet has helped me – as an emotional outlet, a sounding board, a source of writerly camaraderie, and a place to celebrate beauty. There has been a (much-needed) sort of inner awakening in my life since I began this writing journey, and so many people have touched me through this medium that I can only hope I’ve been able to do a little of the same for others. So thank you, thank you, THANK YOU for five wonderful years!

Peace,
Sarah

turned earth

I had determined
(after the last)
to no longer offer up
the root of myself

let it beat
(I thought)
for nothing other than
to mark the time
passing beneath my skin

but then hands
(so mercilessly capable)
dug in and I am as earth
freshly turned and raw

and the root
(remembering yearning)
has caught the rain of you
and strains again
toward sun

© Sarah Whiteley

spring walk, 6 a.m.

this is the moment
when I am unearthed,
when I am at last unbound
by mundane constraints –

now, when the birds
at their riotous best,
launch their relief that yes,
day again brings light

in a canon shared by wrens
and robins and flitting juncos
from trees whose slow buds
are indecently near to bursting

now, when the still low sun
lifts slowly above the hill,
when light is burnished pink
and leaf-filtered

here I am both more and less
myself than at any other moment
and piercingly in love
with every greening tree

© Sarah Whiteley

where light resides

© Sarah Whiteley

time once more to bloom

that late August afternoon
after sweating unwieldy boxes
up the three flights alone
I paused for a moment’s rest
and touched the ache of this space
not yet made my own
but thought at least how lucky,
to have the hopeful green
of a locust tree to nod in at me
not an hour later three men came
with their coveralls and chainsaws
to cut back the branches –
the cruelty of regulatory topping –
I tried not to take this
as irony or prophecy
and in spite of our crude pruning,
June arrived awash in petals,
white and brisk with bees
and the inquisitiveness
of hummingbird pairs
and October blew skiffs of yellow
adrift on winds that waved
as they passed the windows
and now this second April
as window neighbors
(we still politely nod)
not a sign of swelling twig,
nor brightness of bud,
but the brown bones
of last year’s unfallen leaves
still cling reluctant
while I watch and wait
for Spring to remind and wake
that inner ache which tells us both
it’s time once more to bloom

© Sarah Whiteley

You’ll have to forgive me if I’m a bit on the quiet side in the coming weeks. For those of you who don’t know, I work in the accounting field and now is a very busy time for me at work. Which means, unfortunately, that I am often too distracted to keep up with writing and reading. So this may be the last post until I’m on the other side of this deadline. But I’ll be back in a couple weeks to catch up on all the new posts I may have missed.

to one who waited

to one who waited
quiet as dust
hidden and pale
as peonies biding time
beneath March rains
I heard the scuttle
of your yearning
crossing the grass
beneath pale water skies
our unutterances
have left us
without bearing
and meager
as hungry
for one another
as spring buds
for a nearer sun

© Sarah Whiteley

I have been pondering…

I have been pondering
the madness of love
with the thought of you
like a fat spider
perched in its web
plucking at threads
I feel the reverberations
here with a strange pang
like rising too high
too quickly above the treeline
there’s madness there
in the small bits remembered
don’t believe me? look around –
I know just where it is
you see me
in the lone moments
where you wait unwilling
to stir further
the dust that stirs itself
in that chair, just there,
with the light behind me
and the dog in my lap
it’s where I realized
it’s the biggest mistakes
sometimes that set us free
you see? madness
and madness more so
that I yet love you
with the same surety
that I know you feel
me plucking
at the silk of you

© Sarah Whiteley

I am still having vivid dreams… and am at the same time battling the mother of all head colds. It is not pleasant – and it is not easy at the moment to string together cohesive thoughts. I’m at that stage where everything tastes like cough drops and my head is stuffed full of ether-soaked cotton balls. But I woke up this morning with this still ringing in my head and felt the need to get it out. If it makes any sense at all, hooray,… if not, blame the Nyquil.