my dog tells me
that she is dying –
subtly, as dogs do
that this is the first
of our many lasts
that we should
go slowly now
and savor this truth,
this pained heart,
with worthy tenderness
I owe her as much,
and everything else
at least once more
we take the first
of our last walks
between the light and
lengthening shadows
wheeling toward
the end of the year
good girl!
I cannot keep these days from sinking –
thirty-four years away, I awake
to the smell of lake water
and its soft slaps against the poles
of the dock, the wood on aluminum
of oars caught in oarlocks
three and more decades gone, and I know
with certainty that the lake bottom
is still sandy, and that at twilight,
two loons will arrive – carved from
a perfect summer night – to begin their calls
with rising chortles pulled into those
longer notes that seek out our edges,
indistinguishable from the edges of the sky
thirty-four years back, I might return
and instruct that wide-eyed summer self
to plant her heart in that space,
where it might quietly wait with the pines,
with the dry sighs of summer grasses,
and the smooth leaves of the wintergreen –
for some other sun-quivering July day,
when her feet can touch bottom again
© Sarah Whiteley
I could not save
the goldfinch
from drowning –
for years now,
the memory
has persisted
frail the feathers,
bright the dazzle
of sun on the water
logic tells me
he was dying
regardless
and his death,
the gift of a day
that remains
© Sarah Whiteley
Life is unpredictable, and sometimes we are presented with an opportunity which drives us in a direction opposite from our original intentions. The choice to jump in one direction or the other can result in unlooked for changes. For the time being, my heart has told me to set Colorado aside and to stay where I am to see what comes of a rediscovered love. Rest assured that I am both happy and hopeful jumping in this particular direction.
In other news, PBS American Portrait reached out to me recently on Twitter and asked if I would consider sharing. And so I did, submitting under the category “My greatest challenge is…” I hope that you will take a moment read what I’ve chosen to share, and also consider sharing your own story as well as browsing through the many wonderful thoughts that others have shared.
I don’t often speak of my struggles with anxiety and depression, but they are very real parts of my life. Hiking has become a way of coming home to myself – a way of finding peace when nothing else has worked. I felt like it was important enough to share, knowing that others face the same daily battles.
With much love and appreciation,
Sarah
that Thursday morning,
while ordinary elsewhere,
emerged here with such joy –
so bright and thick,
one could lean upon it
an homage to light,
the bending heads of yarrow
and the exuberant flash
of fireweed rose late
above the grasses with
grace beyond speaking
it is just as well I left
my voice at home
© Sarah Whiteley
I do not count them, the trees –
instead, I walk into them
as one does into sunlight
or into unexpected joy
along the needle-softened path
here I am most at home –
drifting like birdsong
beneath and between
the glad immeasurable
© Sarah Whiteley
I wake before the wrens
so that I can hike
alone up the rise
and watch the gold
of new light arrive
and each time
there is a pleasure
in its crunching
beneath my feet like
bright, brittle ice
© 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
in the shadow of the butte –
the river, its stones,
the ghost-shells of
two crickets, and
a fly breaking
the surface
of a rill,
but never
its song
© Sarah Whiteley
you speak of grasshoppers,
and fireflies, that sharp scent
of hard and sudden rains –
all the things that do not
set their blessings here,
or rarely do anyway
the impossibility of elsewhere
is no longer a vague notion –
the truth of it rests on my chest –
the spiny, black hull
of a horse chestnut dropped
on a damp and chill morning
© Sarah Whiteley
high above the canyon, the bumblebee wears its band of orange as it slips into the lips of the lupine
I have clamored up the steep creek, braving the slickness of rocks and roots for this spoon of solitude
up here, I am as anonymous to the wind as fierce-clinging heather – alone with ballads of bees and fresh as new nothing
© Sarah Whiteley
I’m slowly adjusting to my return to “civilization” after an adventure in the Alpine Lakes Wilderness. Mostly I am trying to hold onto that feeling of space and freedom for a while longer, but more posts about my experiences are sure to follow in the coming weeks. And for the first time, I journaled my experience with the help of a little weather-proof notebook my brother and his wife brought me on their last visit. Very handy!
ebbtide 