A gentle morn
Caresses me
Undoing worry
Erasing lines
Last night’s turning
Tossing troubles
Sleepless yearning
Surrenders
To the golden light
To brilliant bird
To poppies bursting
With the answers




Sara Mathews     May 2016

I swam out to the middle
Of the world
Taking nothing for my journey
With just a sun as guide
And a moon upon my other shoulder
That floated down to be with me
And peacefully we drifted there
Nymphs of water
Nymphs of air
The three of us together
Suspended in the buoyancy
Of deepest lake and largest sky
And with no weight to anchor us
We gave our fates to God
And left our fortunes
Intertwined
In green
Reflections
Of the stalwart pine




Sara Mathews     May 2016

                                                                         Duy Huynh
                                                              http://www.duyhuynh.com

I haven’t had
My sun
Today
I haven’t had the rain
It’s just a sky
Of sort of
In between
No one has come to
Clear my roots
Or given me a name
And I am just
A nondescript
And with the wind
I blow
And wonder where
To put down roots
And where
The wind might go
For now I’m just
In dormancy
A sorry little seed
Waiting for
A drop of rain
A bit of sun
A name
And most of all
A tender hand
To tell me where
To grow




Sara Mathews     May 2016

Artwork by Duy Huynh  (used with permission)

http://www.duyhuynh.com/

It’s the little things
That twist the heart
Like milkweed silk
The breezes caught
They drift across the mind
As words of song
Too long unsung
Though melody remains so clear
I strain to hear your voice
In the refrain
Each note a whole eternity
These haunting memories
Play in me
Like old and scratchy
Attic reels
Unwinding dear
To trace a silver tear
Of long lost time

Sara Mathews     May 2016

It’s the emptiness really
The heaviness
Of a heart going down

Down
To the depths
Of the other sad ships
The bone yard bound

It’s a desolate street
And the ghost town
Sound
Of its hollow beat

It’s the breathing that’s rough
The ragged air
Of feather
And beak

The restless hands
The concrete feet

The bereft wing
Of a nest-less thing

It’s the leaving





Sara Mathews     May 2016

                                                               Linda Dessaint Fine Art
                                                               http://lindadessaint.com


Out of the mouths of birds
That’s what I’m thinking
As I pick
They fly into the trees at my approach
And from their lofty seats
They scold me anxiously
Oh, not the biggest
Not the best

A golden doe and fawn
Have bounded to the thicket
At my step
And Mother snorts at me impatiently
An interloper on their morning picnic

A path of trampled grass
Tells me the wild turkeys
Made a hasty exit too

The only ones who do not seem alarmed
Are several buzzing deer flies
Orbiting my head incessantly
I’m almost grateful for their generous
Acceptance
Their willingness to abide with me
And their droning feels like music
In the midday sun

I reach my hand right through a spider’s web
Causing him an extra day of work
Another creature I’ve annoyed

The berries drop into my bucket
Guiltily
And I have the feeling
Of being watched from every quarter
An unwelcome intruder
You let me pick here grudgingly

Do you not remember that
I belong here too
I walked these fields
All summer long
A barefoot child
I tramped through juniper
And brambled undergrowth
And knew this berried pasture
To my native core
I’m one of you ~

The heat wave overstayed his welcome
And taxed the ripe fruit heavily
So today I feel I must pick sparingly
And leave some blue upon the bush
For you

I wanted just enough to make a pie
But I will be content with half a pail
Enough for cake or tart

Come out from thicket
Down from trees
Retrace your way through grassy paths
And gather what I’ve left for you
The field is yours for you to roam

I depart the feast reluctantly
And my new friends
The deer flies
Politely see me home!



Sara Mathews     May 2016

'Flower Child' by Linda Dessaint
http://lindadessaint.com

                                                    'A Dream of Spring'  Christopher Volpe    
                                                              http://christophervolpe.com


It gathered slowly
Like sadness
The mist that seemed to appear at once
Like a ghost ship
Crested a wave and was there
Just at the top of the new mown field
Yves said the morning’s warm rain -
- the cool evening
Brings the small cloud forming here
We raise a glass in cheer
And celebrate July
And talk of where we’ve been
And gone
I watch the sadness
Slip across the hill
Behind your eyes
I say how wonderful to be
The keeper of our happiness
And you agree
But keep a secret emptiness
You say you stitch
A bead for every tear
Instead of love
You tell of Pecos ghosts
Dissolving
Into mist
Resolving life
You talk of tribes
Of leaving one to find a more accepting
Kind
I too am mist
I too
Appeared
For just a night
To be with you
I too
Am made of warm rain
And cool evening




Sara Mathews     May 2016


'A Dream of Spring' by Christopher Volpe  (used with permission)
http://christophervolpe.com

I strolled into the month of May
A morning filled with spring
And joyously I praised the day
As were the other flowering things
I passed a lilac throwing boughs
Of perfumed spells at me
And fell into the depths of her
Intoxicating lavender
And hovering there
Amid her blooms
I turned into a butterfly
And barely flitted free
And rhododendrons boomed
Exploding fireworks
Of ruby red
As corals of azaleas shed
Their tutus at my feet
Like melodies they drifted
Lightly down the sweetened street
And all the human bees were out
Their little motors buzzing
Darting happily from shrub to shrub
Edge trimmers humming
And every green was bursting
With a splendid flag to fly
In vivid yellow vibrancy
And purple pent up energy
They shouted all excitedly
Their colors to the sky!




Sara Mathews     May 2016

                                                    James Peart @  https://society6.com/jamespeart


There was no point
I knew
While closing my umbrella
The rain had stopped ~
But still I felt the need
Of some protection
As melancholy seeped
Into my bones
In ways of all the loved ones
Lost
And things that might have been
Mercurial
Inclement drops
Of dismal thoughts
Still poured
My soul a sponge ~
I opened the umbrella once again
And took small peeks beyond
To watch my step
But otherwise stayed firmly underneath
And there I walked
Secure ~
Though sun appeared
I held my shield
Against the woes
Of phantom rain

Sara Mathews     May 2016

Artwork by James Peart (used with permission)

https://society6.com/jamespeart

An orchestra 

Of gladness

Ushered in

This first soft 

Day of May

While phoebes called

A joyful tiding

To the morn

The thrushes

Clucked their alto notes

And staccato sparrows

Chirped along

With the trilling flutes

And woodland song

Of other friends

I cannot name

But they all knew

The score

A far off woodpecker

Kept the beat

And even the

Raucous crows

Sang sweet

From every quarter

Of the wood

The morning music

Echoed round

And my heart was filled

With morning sound

Sara Mathews     May 2016