devotees

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

wind follows wind

wind follows wind,
as would the grasses
were they not rooted –
relegated to whispering
wayfarers’ songs

this evening I carry
that elsewhere urge –
a glow of foot,
the rise of thigh –
the sort of sky to set
wings to trembling

© Sarah Whiteley

insomnia

craving stars, I crept
down the crouching hallway,
disturbing only moths
seeking their own small
allowance of light

trees sleep, lowering
their limbs by fractions
as the day subsides,
leaving only the incremental
gestures of slumber

I have had to explain often
the peculiar edicts of insomnia,
and how it does no good
to seek why in the high
corners of the night

how it is better then
to slip into ready shoes,
and out into the expectant dark
where pivot the city’s
token of stars

© Sarah Whiteley

there are wiser things

take from them what you can –

there are wiser things than those
that carry discernible voices –

down the street near the park,
five cherries are marked with orange

distorted by time and poor nourishment
(it’s no surprise they’ve failed to thrive)

and within this Spring’s feeble pink,
parting unfurled and scattered

come July, the city and their saws
will pare them down to stumps

before then, the crows and I
will grace them with a last goodbye

not with pious pity,
but with a graceful thanks

for their green rendering
of unknowable sky

© Sarah Whiteley

almost spring moon

the insistence of clouds
makes of this a barely moon –
a struggle against
the low skies of winter

and yet yesterday
I watched a robin stridently pipe
his wish for a willing wife
from the top of the power pole

spring, though still disguised
in her winter veil,
emerges from the damp –
shyly purple, in violets

© Sarah Whiteley

evening fragment

I am transfixed
by the kiss
of sickle moon
to black pine
against infinite
ink of sky

© Sarah Whiteley

Anyone else catch that large and glorious crescent moon in the sky a few nights ago? So beautiful!

let me be small

if, every now and again,
I must be smaller than myself –
then let me be small

let me curl into gray
unknowing stone, or disperse
downward as rain on windows

but let me be small
in the way of violets,
which at their core

are no less expansive
than the most colossal
of radiant skies

© Sarah Whiteley

color study – sky

let this be be the color of the sky –

shades of rain and chicory
and cloud shadow slants
on broken-stalked plain
weathered white porch eaves
where the speckle-winged moths
flit on evening’s brim
with the last long curls
of the iris slowly fading
from its porcelain vase

© Sarah Whiteley

a few dried blooms

I have reconciled myself to much lately
perhaps too much so
and now the hydrangeas
have lost their azure
bleached to bone-papered petals
kissed too closely by the sun
come fall I would have picked
bloom by bloom the dusky blues
and purples from their globes
as they dried for a bit of color
to scatter across the table
but today the possibility
vanished into dry disappointment
if I could just instead pluck
a few small pieces from the sky
of that certain blue with the gold-tinged
hue of days’ slow slide into early autumn
I would not so mind the loss
of a few dried blooms

© Sarah Whiteley

remembering in October

mine is not a life without sky
but like a pebble pocketed
and half forgotten
my fingers will brush
the cool smoothness of you
and be startled into sadness
for the space of a long heartbeat
or a breath lightly held
before moving on beneath
the sighing lull of yellowing trees
mine is not a life without sky
though there are times
I can feel the edges of it
following along beside
wearing your scent,
carrying your sound,
and casting our words
to the leaves at my feet

© Sarah Whiteley