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 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
sometimes the light is perfect
in the way it drapes itself
across the day – as it is now,
this morning in late October
and you find that you must pause
in getting up to go in
to a waiting chorus of chores
though the front step is cold
and has grown harder than remembered
you try to delay the mundane –
the rinsing out of the favorite mug,
the sweeping up of the dust
that returns so doggedly to old corners,
and you wait for the light to shift
into something more ordinary,
more suitable for the junk drawer
calling out for a straightening –
to be set somehow aright
© Sarah Whiteley
light is sparse this morning
so let it come slowly,
a sifting upwards
of gold, diffuse
through wind-bent trees
let morning be hesitant –
with time, nothing
will be left out in darkness
© Sarah Whiteley
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I could not think a prayer,
and so instead I found one –
spreading low and white
along the river below
and for an hour, together
we were slow and driftless
with only the vague intent
to flit and lift,
which is prayer enough
in a temple of trees
making acolytes of ravens
and hymns of the leaves
© 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
startled stranger,
you may be wondering
how it is that quite suddenly
what very much appears to be
nothing other than a slightly misshapen
pumpkin (yes, take a gentle whiff) pancake
has turned up, or rather fallen, onto the stiff
blue wool shoulder of your winter coat
it’s just that
the crows were hungry
and your raucously loud
barreling-around-the-corner
cell phone conversation disturbed
Charlie (the one scolding you) Crow,
causing her to drop her treasured breakfast
onto the unfortunate shoulder of your winter coat
I added extra cinnamon
© Sarah Whiteley
almost like night,
eyes closed,
outside,
crusted snow
protests beneath
some dog’s feet
I admit it’s possible
the sun hasn’t
reached me yet
© Sarah Whiteley
it has been a gift
to lean into you
to split the light
between us,
and place tentative
names to movement
but morning rises
and corrects us
some emptiness-es
are just that –
not sky after all,
not expectation –
realization blooms
from the wrists,
take it with you –
it is my gift
© Sarah Whiteley
brown drifts of coffee grounds,
and the tappings of the black-capped chickadee
finding rhythm with the tick-ticking
of spring rain on new-green locust leaves
the passing hours mold the morning
into the firmer lines of day,
tracing the flights of fugitive birds –
red hawk, wren, house finch, crow,
ubiquitous dust-winged sparrow
shadows lazily skate and shift,
thumbing plants and spines of books,
shelves graced with inconsequential treasures –
of feather, stone, and sloping shell
the peonies on the window,
barely beyond their prime,
settle into fading brilliance
with unabashed aplomb
and if it might seem I forget you
amidst this gentle roster –
you’re the one, though absent,
who gives the hours their reason
and this simple room, its light
© Sarah Whiteley
ebbtide 