procrastination

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

*

it is late and rain falls on rain

all day long the wind called,
tumbling through the trees

unable to answer, I sit now beside
the open window imagining

that wild intensity of scent –
damp pine before the day awakens

© Sarah Whiteley

My newest chapbook Wandering Wonderful is now available for pre-order from Finishing Line Press. Pre-orders through March 22nd will have an opportunity to win a canvas print of the cover art. Click for details!

escape

on days when I cannot be here –
in the sense that my vigor
for living rebels –

I can instead be tucked
among the clutches of brush
on the high plateau

can instead snaps bits
of silvery desert sage,
crush it, inhaling –

we are both of us escaped
and wilder here

© Sarah Whiteley