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
I can’t scrape away
the last of my paint
just can’t
though I’ve been
peeling myself away
from these walls
seven years now
new walls, yes,
can wear my color
it’s yours I’ll miss
© Sarah Whiteley
we say goodnight,
then goodnight,
and once more a goodnight
of softening kisses –
just as the dawn
cracks the night
I count the hours of you
that remain to me,
and tuck them about us –
thin comfort against
the coming light
© Sarah Whiteley
on a day when light is tired,
and creeps just barely
across the floor to nudge
a perhaps foot in recognition
of shared apathy
do not mistake sadness
for a sort of ingratitude –
I am thankful for the hooks
that wrench up the grief
from beneath the calm
it is a change at least
in latitude, a revision
of a current insufferable state
and an airing out of that
which has stagnated within
let light be tired then,
and just barely there –
let us be dim together
and somnolent at least until
some fresher air may rouse us
© Sarah Whiteley
if I needed a reason
to pace the floor,
pass by the door a fifth,
tenth, fourteenth time,
to check the gas,
to raise the windows,
to create just a little more
space for the dark
to slip into
if I needed a reason
to count the passing dogs
with impatient owners
hurrying them home,
to touch again the spines
of books whose pages
have kept their silences
firmly to themselves
and failed to distract me
if I needed a reason
to press my ear
nearer to the air
we shared,
to wait fruitlessly
on footfalls in the hallway
to pass, to pause,
to toe the crack
at the bottom of my door
if I needed a reason
to twist and spin
myself into a thread
thin and taut, fraught
with all the things
we wait to occur
while all our actions
compounded, amount to
a paralyzing passivity
if I needed a reason
to box up all these hours,
to cut these ties
and stop the gainless pacing,
to close my eyes,
and finally close then
the window blinds –
you didn’t stop by to ask it,
and that’s the reason why
© Sarah Whiteley
tonight, it’s the Blues
that slow-doleful prayer for understanding –
a measure of salt for the cheeks on a night spent by the window
with a glass of something that burns (on the rocks, of course)
and that solitary pine for companion
tonight, it’s the Blues, yes
but tomorrow, I’ll be Jazz
6:57 AM and light’s early overture
has warmed the cherry petals just enough
that the faintest scent of sweet emerges
maybe it’s more than just scribbling poets
who note these moments and mark the time,
mentally ticking off the mileposts to restoration
but this morning’s note is more than that –
today’s surfacing defines a full ten years,
and the cherry trees have bloomed to remind me
when my bus crosses John Street, I lose it –
cry quietly against the window at sunlight
pushing obdurately through the newest leaves
but by tiny degrees, I still find comfort
in the indomitable certainty that gently-scented,
spring will always return where you cannot
© Sarah Whiteley
A little sad today – marking the 10-year anniversary of losing my little brother. Don’t think I made a complete fool of myself on the bus – at least I hope not. I do find the cherry trees comforting. The bloom does go on.
On a side note, I do not recommend beginning spring by simultaneously breaking your toe and ripping the toenail off. Can we say ouch?! Yes,… yes we can. With a few other choice four-letter words thrown in for good measure!
days like this it’s best to go home
pour a couple fingers of something stiffer
than the current state of your knees
and think about the things that do make sense
like opening the window and letting in December
for a few brisk moments and turning up that jazz
until the riffs absolve you of the sins of the day
– just for a minute, anyway –
or living off the vicarious high of the dogs’
hello’ing tails grinning with a jubilance I think
god reserved just for the canines of the world
or maybe just saying I love you to the ones
who don’t hear it often enough
a stiff drink and a brisk wind might not fix
what ails our hearts, but it’s a better
remembrance than simply breaking apart
under the fearsome brunt of days like this
© Sarah Whiteley
I felt a river rise within
perched upon the bridge’s edge
poised upon the moment
and there you stood
while drops of me
slid and dripped
beneath the pre-green
of a sky considering twilight
one breath whole
and the next breath broken
as the chaotic coursings
of wet on your window
you left me on that brink
to plead alone with never
and a rush of rain
descendent
© Sarah Whiteley
I have been having trouble sleeping for weeks,… months actually. This isn’t a reflection of my outward life (I don’t believe it is anyway) as I’m relatively content. But I’ve experienced cycles of insomnia before, and they just seem to come and go without any indication of why. This time I’ve started taking a sleep aid (don’t worry – it’s natural) and while it is beginning to work, one of the side effects is vivid dreams. And oh are they vivid! You might be thinking “well that’s pretty cool!” and it would be except for one little thing. The dreams are achingly, unbearably sad. They aren’t nightmares or anything like that – no dinosaurs chasing me around trying to eat me for dinner. But they are disturbing in their own way. A writerly friend (Hi, Martin!) suggested that I maybe begin to write them down. And here I am just a few moments later and this just poured out as if it had been waiting for me to give it words. So in an effort to purge some of these things and hopefully find a more peaceful rest, I’ll be writing some dream-themed pieces here and there for a time. So if the tone seems a little off from my usual style, this is why.
I have my sorrows,
yes,
but they and I
are turned companionable
as crows who follow
close behind
on quiet days
and I have learned
that a certain
tilt of the head
reveals the purple
upon the black
now it seems
if they were to go
I would sorely
feel their lack
© Sarah Whiteley
I have written on Tied to Sky something about the crows who have “adopted” me and follow me about while I’m walking the dogs. It all began last year when they were juveniles and starved for any bit of food they could find. I apparently became a prized resource for doggy treats, which they love. I find it especially entertaining as Freyja’s (one of my dogs) namesake in Norse mythology is the daughter of Odin, who has two ravens who fly the world over and carry back information to their master. And so I began to joke that Freyja’s father was simply checking up on his daughter.
I’ve taken to calling them Sorrow and Mirth which comes from a proverb about crows, and as there are two of them, it just seems to fit. Sorrow is the bolder of the two, and as a result the more demanding. He will swoop in low, sometimes brushing my head with a wing, and land no more than three feet away, giving three short caws indicating he knows I have something he wants. Mirth hovers around the perimeter, but will still come to within five or six feet. The dogs recognize them and now automatically sit when the crows come cawing. They are no longer juveniles, but have grown into beautiful adults – and while I never envisioned they would become such quirky little companions on so many of my walks (sometimes hopping along behind us for quite a few blocks), I enjoy their company very much.
ebbtide 