I cast my faith on daffodils –
on the steadfastness of green
and promises of gold
I can believe in the movements
of worms, shaking up earth
beyond visible proof
I accept the testimony of buds
before their exhalations –
modest currency of Spring
I can discern a mystery in dirt
and a truth rests in my spine –
that some bright morning
the burgeoning will arrive
© Sarah Whiteley
My newest chapbook Wandering Wonderful is now available for pre-order from Finishing Line Press.
if I could freshen the day
like flowers kept
in the ironstone pitcher –
trim away the wilt,
snip the calloused ends,
gather up the fallen curls
of color from the floor
if I could invite the breeze
to brighten the gray
garland of winter hours –
I might better stand the sting
of lingering February
and find the light
amidst the hardened snow
© Sarah Whiteley
My newest chapbook Wandering Wonderful is now available for pre-order from Finishing Line Press.
our days of heavy snow
have shattered the plum trees –
snapped their branches until
they stand now in the night
silent as broken men
the rain now exposes them,
these splits in branch
and dangling bough –
only Spring will ascertain
whether the heartwood sustains
© Sarah Whiteley
My newest chapbook Wandering Wonderful is now available for pre-order from Finishing Line Press.
for the sixth time since November,
the heat’s gone out – the radiator sits silent
there is no weight of heavy snows here
to bear down upon roofs or wool-shod shoulders,
yet the dark leans in against the windows,
its own weight overwhelming the small hours
for once, Time in its grand arc is on our side –
as are the dogs exuding contentment,
as is the glass of whiskey on the pale marble
table by the deep-seated chair
either the radiator will rattle tomorrow,
or it will remain cool in dormancy –
but in the morning, I will seek the green tips
of emerging hyacinth – gift and promise both
© Sarah Whiteley
have you seen how hope
gathers at the edge of pain?
how like first light, it graces
the thin lip of the ridge
before sweeping wholesale
down the slope?
how sometimes it is slow
to gather, and even slower
to rise up over the noise
of our daily just-eking-by?
love, too, is like this –
it should spill over like time
that can’t be bound by hours,
it should shake your petals
© Sarah Whiteley
no stars have come for us
no birds align in coded message
there is only us and all the ways
I say without saying
that I am both broken
and blooming, and uncertain
how to welcome hope and despair
on such unequal footing
© Sarah Whiteley
this window is just
the idea of sky
in the same way hands
merely suggest caress
human hearts imagine
more than what is given
this ceaseless
invocation is hope
and is the reason for
so many moon songs
© Sarah Whiteley
I would bury them,
my sorrows,
deep into the loam –
into the comfort
of earth, and dark,
and waiting
I would bury them,
these burdens,
beneath the roots
of the locust that
stood as witness
to their birth
I would bury them,
my troubles,
close by where I’ll see
come the spring
these troubles become
more beautiful things
© Sarah Whiteley
more familiar
with the betweens
than with the origins
and destinations
and that, I suppose,
is the nature
of the journey we take –
a conglomeration
of moments framed
by first and last breaths,
by the hopeful fogs
of tomorrow’s mornings
and the dry silences
of last year’s gardens
© Sarah Whiteley
you were never
and are not
and yet then again
that crumbling moment
when the sun subsides
and a farewell fire
clings to the bellies
of the clouds
–you are dappled like that
the glow about the edges
of the end of my day
though I am capsized
it may yet
be this way again–
or dust
© Sarah Whiteley
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