after a poem by Ono no Komachi
too soon the bloom
has slipped from the stem –
a light lost over the deepening
sill of evening
and back and forth,
the beads are slipped slowly
down the thread while I
wait with the rain
Tag / ink
perhaps rabbits dance…
… when we’re not watching…
holding on
listing off on my walk
the names of the trees
whose leaves are holding on
just a little too long –
what was golden now
giving way to brown,
tattered things that cling
complaining in the wind
there is an art, I think,
to holding on, to letting
go – and an impatience
for things which shouldn’t
but have lingered past
their welcome – strange
how we are perhaps more
enamored by the things
that rightly fall away
than by those that fight
another day to stay
© Sarah Whiteley
November chickadees
November chill
rusts the dogwood,
scatters the locust seeds
down the sodden street
the maple this year
shows an unusual
reluctance for red
but today gray was made
a near beautiful thing –
a frame for the darker
darts of the chickadees
in the yellow goodbye
of the chestnut tree
© Sarah Whiteley
fire and wings
It’s not unusual for us to see Anna’s hummingbirds through the winter and several neighbors keep their hummingbird feeders up for them. So while many birds are feeling the pull of migration currently, I’m blessed to live in an area where we’ll have these little scraps of winged sunshine still with us in the colder months.
all that glitters
I’m finding art to be my much needed “de-stress” meditation recently. For a few hours every other day or so, I’ve been losing myself in line and color.
It’s been a blessing to not be thinking about anything other than what’s happening beneath my pen or paints. And I’ve discovered that the more I do this, the greater my patience grows and I actually take my time with each piece. And I’ve been enjoying challenging myself to paint things I’ve never painted before. Like this goldfish, which will be a gift for a wonderful person who loves goldfish and whose birthday is coming up soon.
For a while, I think, the poetry will be on the sparse side while I enjoy the paints and ink. Be well!
windfall
you have shaken me from myself –
like a windfall of yes-tinted apples –
to rest in the soft earth of you,
with teeth to charm the sweetness from my lips
© Sarah Whiteley
peace interrupted
an expostulation of crows
unceremoniously drowned out
by the lawncare quartet –
mower, blower, chipper, and saw
they cling to the high sawara
in hunched recrimination
thinking, I think,
much the same as I
© Sarah Whiteley
Crow update? Well sure!
The crows are still in the midst of molting (or moulting for my UK friends). So they’re looking a bit scraggly at the moment. Added to that, their numbers are increasing as a precursor to the winter roosting so I’m at the time of year when there are no longer just 5 or so following me about, but 15-20. Most walks consist of me, two dogs, and an abundance of bedraggled looking, very vocal crows. This morning I had roughly 10 walking in close formation behind the dogs – it looked like I had my own feathered army. One woman stopped her car, leaned out the window after honking at me, and said “they’re very bold, aren’t they?”
I’m very pleased that I can still pick Coyote out of the bunch and more often than not the two babies from this year’s nesting.
A little farther north, Sorrow is still around and still comes swooping in for treats. He’s always been quiet for a crow and doesn’t demand or cluck or scold like Coyote does. I haven’t seen Mirth for several months now and I have to believe that either he’s gone his own way apart from the flock or he’s simply no more.
I’m enjoying my strange friends while I can. A move is on the horizon for me so I’m afraid my time with Coyote and his brood and with Sorrow is limited. I’ll miss them more than I probably ought to – silly, sentimental me – but will appreciate their raucous company while I still have it.
ebbtide 