that silver morning at Shi Shi,
the chill we rose to a mere shade
of the deeper cold to come
we’d had visitors in the night,
our tents encircled by prints –
two sets surveying our strangeness
then breaking away to wander
to the edge of the sea,
twining in close loops together
we followed with our coffee
trailing steam from our mugs –
careful not to efface the evidence
© Sarah Whiteley
you be flotsam,
I’ll be jetsam,
and together
we’ll be details
of the sea –
each the other’s
favorite
minutiae
© Sarah Whiteley
the gulls face the waves
perched on their own reflections
water reaches
nothing is washed away
except time from this day
© Sarah Whiteley
turtles are the only traffic here –
moving slowly landward with
the June-shadowed moon under palely
trailing feet and a torrent of stars
all day, the sea bloomed –
bursting brilliant in
white florets against the sand
but at night, the upsurge eased
and sun-brushed curves containing
all the day’s heat submerged
into cooler divulgences
© Sarah Whiteley
I have a very unofficial sort of bucket list. It changes all the time, but there are a few things that have remained constant and one of them was skinny dipping in the Caribbean. And Tulum last June was the perfect place to fulfill that particular wish – amazing experience! I’m heading back in October and am trying very hard to convince the beautiful person I call boyfriend to come along with me.
In other news, I think I’ve decided to combine Ebbtide and Tied to Sky into a single blog. Things may become a bit messy here while I play around and decide how I want to revamp the site in order to better accommodate both poetry and photography/art. My apologies in advance for the chaos.
Be well!
you were the sea
and no more could
I turn you away
than a sparrow could
the rumblings of a storm
but for a while
I wore you like raindrops
on feathers
© Sarah Whiteley
I have counted out the days
that do not contain you
have lined them up like pebbles
I might have pulled from the sand
salty still and glinting gray
as stones from the shore do
I imagine they must remember
the rushing kiss of tides
just as I remember how
the brush of you once stirred me
that place where once there was us
has since smoothed over
and the fissure is no longer
rough to the touch or recollection
still I have counted out the days
and will keep them with me
clattering together in deep pockets
and in the corners of drawers
to remind me of those moments
that might otherwise be gone
and I will line them up like pebbles
until I run out of room to keep them
or breath to name them
© Sarah Whiteley
And with that, I am off for a trip to see family in Wisconsin. This will be a treat (really, truly a treat) as it will be the first time we’ve all been in once place together in four years. Busy schedules and distance make it difficult to coordinate schedules, but tomorrow is my mom’s 60th birthday and what better reason to come together than to celebrate one of my favorite people in the world? See you next week!
I do not need
to shine as the stars
or rise with the dancers
to pivot in unbounded sky
I am content
to reside in the quiet,
unoccupied spaces
a long, slow trail
of watercolor blue
the sigh between
the stones and sea
to live loose-scattered
as glass loved smooth
by the waves
© Sarah Whiteley
you have mermaid hair,
as he pours my coffee
and the scent of salt and sea
surprises earthy café
as if just now
I recall the slide
into the quiet cool beneath
the languid lying
amidst the silver flashes
of fishes, the surge and sway
of sea and kelp and calm
the forgotten fins
and hidden dens
in the deepest corners
of deep blue bays
I feel the float
and drift
and the measure
of time in the tides
just as surely
as if I’d never
slipped to shore
© Sarah Whiteley
how like waves
the days rise and rush,
fold and founder,
in this quieter collapse
of perceived shores
those hours I shooed
and shushed,
now distant as gulls
whose calls sound
time’s dying,
find placid flight
along the cooler drifts
of our remembrance
I trail you behind
like summer
at September’s end
© Sarah Whiteley
ebbtide 