*

the wind and I walked,
and let the sun sleep in
just a few minutes more,
– just this once –

so that we might hear
our stray-dog thoughts
before the interrupting
layers of birdsong

© Sarah Whiteley

fresh as new nothing

high above the canyon, the bumblebee wears its band of orange as it slips into the lips of the lupine

I have clamored up the steep creek, braving the slickness of rocks and roots for this spoon of solitude

up here, I am as anonymous to the wind as fierce-clinging heather – alone with ballads of bees and fresh as new nothing

© Sarah Whiteley

I’m slowly adjusting to my return to “civilization” after an adventure in the Alpine Lakes Wilderness. Mostly I am trying to hold onto that feeling of space and freedom for a while longer, but more posts about my experiences are sure to follow in the coming weeks. And for the first time, I journaled my experience with the help of a little weather-proof notebook my brother and his wife brought me on their last visit. Very handy!

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

Ophelia on the dash

I can’t see a Buick these days
without recalling crawling in
through the driver’s side window –

for nearly 8,000 miles
that rubber worshiped roads
with Ophelia on the dash,
the trucks blaring as we passed

she was more cause than cat,
and once walked the split-rail
on the edge of a canyon while
the khaki families stared

criss-crossing 17 states,
we were never lost together –
only ever found making a beeline
for the next rich horizon,

calling home all those roads
that everyone else forgot

© Sarah Whiteley

I’ve been longing for an old-fashioned road trip lately, and it seems like the bug doesn’t hit without also missing my partner in crime from all those years ago. Ophelia was a Maine Coon kitten pulled from a trash dumpster who would grow up seeing the country from the dash of my old Buick. I sat down the other day and tried to figure out just how many miles we’d seen together, and I can say I traveled with that cat for further than I have with any human.

akin to grace

I stop in the cold where the elk have rubbed
their considerable selves against the trees –
signatures in russet worn by the river birch

there is a tangible rising when standing beside
evidence of what is wilder than us –
a furtive blessing, a lift akin to grace

I would spend my life on this – on branch,
on root, on hoof prints sliced into the snow

I would stop and stand with my solitude –
with my own snowy indentations –
and be simply crowded with light

© 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!

we could both go golden

if my last day would perish
so beautifully as this,

I would not mind at all

we could both go golden then,
full of road and sky moments

me following this light,
lighter and no longer envious

of “as the crow flies”

© Sarah Whiteley

Photo taken east of Snoqualmie Pass overlooking Cle Elum Lake

placid with the mountains

I cannot be the abstract
the city asks of me

I cannot maintain the grind
of teeth, of grime –

the hot seconds stuffed
into dull hours

when I do not go out,
the ghost of going out

rises within and whispers
of how the November woods

still smell of autumn –
of how the sleeping lake waits,

placid with the mountains
etched upon her face

© Sarah Whiteley

I go out

I go out, and come back –
to the low voices of everyday
concrete saying stay,
voices that are each time fainter

I go out, and come back –
in sun, in mist, in rain –
and each time the tether
is less, and closer to temporary

each time the river’s shout
grows louder and I am more
cedar and stone, more
singing creek and warbler

I go out, and I am more
simply by being less

© Sarah Whiteley

somewhere else

today everything I know
is somewhere else

except that the ivy has been
trying to come through window

I remember the last time
I crawled through a window

that was Mexico though,
with the moon low over the sea

and the slow procession of
turtles moving up the beach

today everything I want to know
is somehow elsewhere

tangled up in the pink
of the bougainvillea

© Sarah Whiteley

roundabouts nowhere

the question, always the same,
and the answer is that there are
so many blessed nowheres

she says she’ll have to find me
when I finally get that car,
when I finally succumb to go

she knows that I can write about birds
for only so long before I myself fly –
after so many years feeling
stuck and prayerless

the answer isn’t to find me
or to seek anything anywhere –
but if you begin to look for me,
try roundabouts nowhere

© Sarah Whiteley