Before the night lifted away
Like a little black bird
Catching a sigh
Before the day even spoke
Before the morning’s silver breath
Enchanted the window pane
And the golden sun rolled down
Each snow struck roof
Before any bird had thought
To fill the barren branches
With a song
And the brittle vine to chatter
On the sill
And the memory of moon
Press faces through the dawn
Before all this
I somehow knew
The day was filled
With every kind of hope




Sara Mathews     December 2017

A little chirp of morning
Calls to me
The day is grey
But here am I
The ground is drear
But here I sing
The wind is harsh
I swing the course
A little chirp of morning
A cheerful chap
Unflappable
Then how can I
But chirp
Right back





Sara Mathews     December 2017

An autumn wind blew in
Sighing on the sill
A fluttering of waning dreams
A song of purple Aster
Heavy with the bee
Of Sunflowers swinging drunkenly
And Queen Anne’s lace
Bejeweled
A touch of night still
Guards the swollen grape
The warming sun
Concocting spices never named
Or bottled
The scents of childhood long ago
Besetting me
They wander past and
Waft against the shore of me
They drift me down a country road
A nip of frost beneath my toes
The glassy air
The cobalt blue
A rush of color at my feet
Ah, September
To be young!
She has me wholly in her grasp
And leads me hungry
To this memory
I pluck the essence from the laden vine
And hold the last few breaths
Of summer
On my tongue




Sara Mathews     October 2017

                                                                  Nicolae Grigorescu


Shall I dust
Or sit and watch the sun
Play light and shadow games
On every leaf
Gold and black calligraphy
Secret sonnets
Just for me
And the tiny wren
Who nestles in the vine
Shall I wash
Or lose my way within the wind
We traipse the garden
He and I
Turning every blossom to the bee
We hum the grasses lazily
And trace a path of ghost steps
On the lawn
Shall I sweep
Or shall I practice on my echo
Every trill and buzz
And rattle
Every languid summer song




Sara Mathews     August 2017

                                                                        Duy Huynh



Hello
My pretty flowers
Every day I kiss your faces
And tell you how beautiful you are
And you tell me
How happy I look
I wasn’t always ~
Not this truthful
Deep and rooted peace
That only comes with weathering
And rain
It’s not wisdom that I seek
But to wake up with the sun
Glowing through my veins
In shades of pink hibiscus
Purple phlox
And morning glory



Sara Mathews     August 2017

Artwork by Duy Huynh (used with permission)

                                                      Photograph by Dheny Patungka


When a friend asked me
If I missed you
I didn’t know what to say
Or how to explain
The murky depths of missing
How I search the hollows
Of the night for you
Trying to pull you back to clarity
To find your entity
Your expression
Your being
And how the fear of losing you
Once more from memory
Is what can break my heart
I stretch into the caverns
Of my mind
I strain my inner sight
To raise you up
To summon you
But only do I get a glimpse
A suggestion of your face
A trace of what you were
And I cannot sleep for failure
Of my recollection
And when my friend asks me
If I miss you
I want to tell him
How I leave my bed
Saddened that I need to do this
Once again
And hold your photograph
Your paper soul
Before my eyes
Imprinting
Imprinting
Imprinting
So tomorrow night
You will not slip away



Sara Mathews     August 2017

                                                        Photograph by Ingrid Mathews


When I forget to listen
And all the little miracles fly by
When I forget to be
And the day slips under my feet
When one petal falls
And the softness of it’s message
Escapes my mind
Then this world
And all it’s fantasy
Spins me round
Unsteadies
Gives a gentle shake
Awakens me
Ah, hear
Hear what the little sparrow
Has to say
Hear the silver in the rain
The whispers
In the shape shifting clouds
Have reason
Let them speak




Sara Mathews     July 2017

Photo by Ingrid Mathews

                                                                   Brenda Wilbert


The possibilities of the day
Are many
It seems a bit too bright for gloom
Too grey for celebration
A little too soon
To slip into a mood
Or choose a face
I talk to the flowers
They know weather
We go round and round
About the chilly Spring
Too cold for tulips
They admit
Too wet for the giddy lilac
But hope explodes in the pink azalea
And the climbing rose
And now the sun sallies in
Without excuse
Just as we thought
We whisper
And the poppies regroup
As we greedily fill our lungs
With gold

Sara Mathews     June 2017

Artwork by Brenda Wilbert (used with permission)

The sky is lowering the boom
That is the expression
My father used
When we told him
I understand it now
The feeling of it all
Coming down around
A final curtain call
A premonition of a
Last goodbye
And yet
I see a comfort
In the envelope of fog
Like a favorite blanket
Come to wrap itself
Around your shoulders
Embracing
With familiar touch
Enfolding you
With warm
Companionship
So you are not alone
What made me think of this
Looking out the window
At the rain admonished rose
The wrap of mist
The lowering sky
I look up to the heavens
And smile
Because I know
They hold you close




Sara Mathews     June 2017

The full moon
Knows my missing
My sadness
My indecision
My halting step as I pass your door
Wanting to stop
Not wanting to bother
Is it for me or you
That I long to console
The full moon gives me confidence
Like wine
I am full of myself
And my good intent
But I can’t hold my feet from moving past
As many nights I’ve tried
So my heart lingers round
Your little house
Pressing at the pane with sympathy
And only the moon knows
Full truth
But he is my moon
And forever takes my part
As I miss too deeply
The love of your life




Sara Mathews     June 2017

                                                          Cardinals by Lois Armstrong


Cardinals round my windows fly
Like a snow globe of red feathers
I am happily caught within
They circle my room
Where I’ve made my escape
From horrific things

It’s too privileged
My daughter says
To choose oblivion
To be protected
By only good
And beautiful birds




Sara Mathews     June 2017
Artwork by Lois Armstrong  (used with permission)

                                                          Photograph by Ingrid Mathews


To the little bird
Who sang outside my window
And heralded my morn
I give you thanks
When I tossed and turned
My chance of sleep
And the gilded envelope of dawn
Silvered on the hills
And cracked the sky
To just a glimmer of beyond
And drew from you
One clarion note
One clear resounding call
Of awe
You sang for me
A sound Eve heard
And the immensity
Of  your tiding
Struck my soul
I felt your chest expand
I felt the trill within your throat
~ the song burst forth
~ the joy
I felt the world
A million times reborn
In that one note!




Sara Mathews       May 2017

Ingrid Mathews Photography

When you fly away from me
Oh, how my heart stretches sore
With a sadness jogging solidly
In place
No wings to follow
All hands to wring and worry
But in a calmer heart I know
Your flight is fair
And when I see you go
My eyes snap longing photographs
With every blinking tear
To blur the margins
Of my solitude
And I turn softly to myself
In clipped
Responsible lament
No wings
No wings






Sara Mathews     May 2017

I am swallowed
By this day
Devoured in the grayness of it
The leaden drops
Of introspection
Weigh me to my bed
But not unhappily
More like a sleep
That overtakes me in a pleasant
Numbing of the brain
A buzzing of the atmosphere
A blurring of the need
To move
And my body quiets to the rhythm
Of submersing in the womb
I will abide here softly
Like a tiny leaf
I curl
And feed the ravenous hunger
Of the rain




Sara Mathews     May 2017

Grey like a pearl
Comes the morning
Washed up on the sand
Handled and worn
Turned over
And over
And over again
Polished and gleaming
With worry





Sara Mathews     May 2017

But it’s after the rains
When things really happen
When the seams break open
Spilling forth
All that is pent up
When the ground swells
In uncontained revelry
Exploding with riotous voice
It’s after the rains
When the walls
Crumble in
And the very foundation of you
Slips back to mother earth
Only then
The true healing
The Spring of you
Can rise up greening
Beside the new rose
More vibrant than before
More alive
In boisterous ascent
With the wakening world




Sara Mathews     April 2017

I can see myself
On that sunny hill
Part of me
More than a shadow
Maybe a heartbeat dropped
In the twisted vine
The wild bramble
Caught to the hem
Of this long lost soul
A wisp of my breath
Still flutters the copper leaf
A trace of my step
Lingers soft
In the burnished pine
And I can hear myself
In the wooded glade
My whistle lives on
With the raucous jay
The notes suspended
All these days
Waiting
Waiting for my return





Sara Mathews     April 2017

Photograph by Martha Andrews Donovan

A wisp of broken morning
The stars still speak of night
The moon
A remnant memory
The clouds
A fleeting dream
And I
The solemn innocent
Bathed
In beginning light







Sara Mathews     April 2017

I couldn’t sleep last night
With the fretful wind
Too close to my heart was she
Her indecisiveness I knew too well
The sudden fits
False starts
Headstrong gusts
They rattled at the brain
And shook my solid hideaway
Unleashing beasts of memory
I joined her rousting of the night
We beat our chests with savage strength
We howled and shoved and hurled the air
And spent the last
Of every little breath
Every unwept tear







Sara Mathews     March 2017

When the sky is grim
And the rain is sad
And I wake to the reluctant day
The heaviness becomes me
My face as pale as the missing sun
My step as soft as the muffled hour
And the slow rolling mist
Is my ally
We don’t disagree
But share our dreary company
As two grey souls
The day and I




Sara Mathews     March 2017

The day my father died
Was a cold day in winter
Brittle
Gray
Unyielding
Like a fast approaching storm
We shored against
With some small hope
But the sky leaned in
And took him
I held his hand
'til it went cold
And still I couldn’t leave
There was a certain peace
But not enough
To let him make his way
Alone




Sara Mathews     March 2017

He did not look like death
His eyes were much too kind
His voice too light
Compassion in his soul
The morning did not feel like death
The sun too strong
And bright with promises
No shroud of mist hung round the door
No fog
Despairing us with hopelessness
Instead
A gentle breeze
Played with the leaves
A joyful bird
Sang pretty tune
And time chose not to stop
The way I thought it might
And when he came into the room
No gloom licked at the corners
No somber forces elbowed in
Just golden shafts across the floor
And dust motes sparked
As tears fell quietly
In prism drops



Sara Mathews     February 2017
For Charlie

                                                                 Photo by Ingrid Mathews


I cried one solitary teardrop
Like a cloud
It gathered all my hopes and fears
In unshed tears
And delicate as it was
It carried the weight of the world
And as it traced it’s way
My face became the story
It scrolled my cheek with songs
Of victory
Regrets
And Joyous memory
I caught it carefully
And cradled it within my hands
I sought my visage
In the rainbow bands
And then the tear transformed
Into a crystal ball
Revealing days ahead
And past
Daughters
Mothers
Grandmothers
Greats
All the similar triumphs
All the same mistakes
We were an army in a prism orb
I knew my mission then
I held the future of my children
Of us all
Within this tear
I walked my offering to the sea
My salt of sorrow
My vigilance of tomorrow
I slipped our teardrop
To his care
And prayed
Arms wide
He caught us on a rising tide!




Sara Mathews     January 2017

Photography by Ingrid Mathews

What’s the Phoebe doing here
In coldest cold
And barest bones of year
A sentinel on skeleton of
Boughs that crack the brittle air
And where’s his little mate
He calls for so beseechingly
Has he remained to look for her
Phoe-be
The depth of winter swallowing his plea
Phoe-be
Phoe-be
His two note song deep frozen there
Wrapped in winter’s will
No other music to be heard
But one lone bird
We wait together
He and I
Though all in vain
No answer comes
No sweet reply
No love to keep him warm
And Spring too far away




Sara Mathews     January 2017

It’s as though it means something
This gentle snow
The wide eyed flakes
So quiet in descent
Gaining ground
Gathering soundless
Heartbeats
Like separate letters falling
The lacy thoughts collecting
Sifting memories
Softly
Softly
They pound like hooves
Upon the stillness




Sara Mathews     January 2017