The trees rattle with smoky memories
All hallows eve
Bonfires blaze up
In hearts of long ago
Little foragers
Traipsing woods for fairy fire
The goblins breathing trepidation
At our necks
Shadowing our garnering
Deep darkness swallowing our banter
Nipping our bravado
All hallows eve
You serenaded ghoulish wind
And pelting rain
Those lyrics that you treasured
Weathering all those years
I search them now
Sifting shadows
But I have scattered up the words
Left some back there in the forest
They swirl and echo miry mist
Just beyond my reach
And your sweet song
Gone with the gypsies 
Lost to childhood
Stolen by time




Sara Mathews     October 2019

And when the morning comes
That I cannot hear your voice
And you can’t describe the moon to me
The way it hovered at your window
Like a mother
Gathering silver tears
And sleepless nights
And how the fullness
Sometimes broke your heart

And when that evening comes
And the sun
Without your words to color
Slips down behind a quiet hill
Gone to rest awhile
Away from me
Away from me
My sun
My moon
What will I do




Sara Mathews     October 2019
Duy Huynh https://www.duyhuynh.com/artwork/

And now the days fly south
On the back of the wind
And they call like the last
Reluctant traveler
Wish I could stay
Stay
Dance in the flame
Rouse the final embers
Oh sweet summer nights
Sputter and dim
Brief as a brilliant hummingbird
You seemed
A flash and retreat
Just a feather of your soft
And languid moments
May I keep




Sara Mathews     October 2019

The day awakes in gossamer

With silver breath 

The satin drift of 

Autumn

Pads her way

Across an anxious lawn

Kneels beneath the trees

Teasing colors

Flares of ardent summer hearts

And balmy dark

Embrace a long farewell

Scarlet cheeks and golden 

Promise  

Sing sweet, the pretty birds

Rejoice, the last Nasturtium

Clutch the hem of life with us

Cling until the final 

Brilliant gasp

Sara Mathews     October 2019

Nasturtiums/Odilon Redon

Sometimes the river flows back home
And sometimes I take the long way
The go around
Those times when the current
Skims too close to my heart
Those laden waters
Too ready to sweep me along
The peach tree on the hill
Still blossoms with the hope
From little hands
That rooted it with grownup plan
That tree speaks fluently
Of love and loss
And when it’s pink with Spring
I hear the voices piping
Whistling the branches
Of the Beech
Traipsing wall and wood
Barefoot expeditions
Forest forts and fairy places
And every innocence of childhood
I see them clear as shadow
Darting in and out of memory
They scramble
Brook and boulder
Ripple every sandy shallow
And conquer
True and valiantly 
The reckless wandering
Of the river that brings me back



Sara Mathews     July 2019

The perfect breeze blew by

I almost missed it

I was just about to go inside

When then around the bend

She came

And lifted gently at my hair

Caressed my cheek as though

I were her child

She lingered with me momentarily

Then kissed a light goodbye

And wandered on

She rustled all the leaves

In me

And all the trees

A dusk enchanting song

And as she swept the clouds 

And flew the swallows round

I thanked the night 

For keeping me so long

Sara Mathews     June 2019

Boreas ~ John William Waterhouse

Sky of pearl

Whisper wind

Blossom blush

Morning hymn

Diamond dew drops

Lace the garden

Silver song from every tree

Breath is sweeter

Mind is forming

Clear and easy

Flowing free

Arms wide open

Face uplifted

Prayerful

Peaceful

Grateful me

Sara Mathews     June 2019

Don’t be sad
With my sadness
For I am a grey child
I thrive on the emotions
Of a rain filled morn
When the sky leans in
And the trees weep
In notes of plinking melancholy
And each breath tastes silver
And strong of misty memory
I am sister to the sullen sky
We traipse the tearful day
Replete with every sorrow
Arm in arm we wander it
And revel in the soulfulness
Of sodden
Solemn world




Sara Mathews     May  2019
Artwork ~ Maria Zeldis

A peaceful little morning
Taps against the pane
Come out
Come out
The gold is on the meadow
The green is on the tree
The blossoms burst with nectar
The buzz is on the bee
The birds are hushed
The flowers pray
And every breath is bated
Every nuance
Has awaited
Your arrival to the day




Sara Mathews     May 2019
Claude Monet ~ Garden at Giverny

To welcome death at our doorstep

Is a trick

To embrace it

Greet it with open arms

Offer it tea

And a comfy chair

We must

For it is a neighbor

It knew our parents

Remembers our grandmother

And when it slips into our midst

We must be kind

And respectful

And most of all

We must shower it with hope

Sara Mathews     April 2019

Albert Anker  ~  Ins, Switzerland

Once I was a bird

I can tell it by the way

My feathers ruffle

How the currents of the wind

Take me everywhere

How my little heart beats rapidly

When caught

I know it

By the way I like to perch

And observe

Head cocked

Hopping foot to foot

Ready for flight

Sara Mathews     March 2019

Art work by Marcia Blakeman

                                                             

We were so innocent
We planted bittersweet
My daughter cries vines of poetry
In words I once wept
I put them down
Silver and sharp as a needle
Mending
Mending
Furiously
What did I know of bittersweet
What did my mother know
Of the roots that follow
Any chance
Any chink in the wall
And all the best intentions
To repair
Stitch back to yesterday
And that one naive tendril
Carefully gardened




Sara Mathews        March 2019
(Artwork of James Christensen)

As the crow flies

So will I to you

When things break

And foundations fail

When one strange morning

The earth shakes

Dislodging all resolution 

When fitting in

Can’t mend the breach

And the wind comes 

Rattling that old tune

Of un-roamed hills 

Unbeaten truths 

And shores resound

In drifter song

Mayhem for the strongest will

And all signs point 

To hither 

And yon

When weeks stacked 

Neat and tall

Fall clattering down

Weary of conformity

And months loom large

Unnaturally  

When beasts bay 

And traipse the night

Beseeching you

Straight away

I will fly

And I will lift you up

To the wild currents 

Sara Mathews        March 2019

                                                                            Georges Seurat


I am sad for the words
That will never be spoken
They know who they are
They know the weight they carry
To utter them
Would cause a deep deep bleed
It would crack a heart
A fault line that may never repair
These words strung together
Even in the slightest disorder
Could cause an avalanche
Of broken sentences
Casualties
Frozen under forever
All opportunity misspelled
But still I am tempted
To let these words reach you
One day
Maybe I can find a manner
Of implying them
Offer them by touch
Expose the root of them
And plant them tenderly
In the silent garden
Where you nurture only goodness
Where words are seeds for birds
Maybe I can make a small marker
That you will find
In your morning affirmations
Weeding mistakes lovingly
In rows of carrots and parsley
A simple - careful array of letters
Just this gentle thought
You don’t have to be so quiet
So quietly good




Sara Mathews          March 2019

Melissa Anne Miller

~ For Melissa ~

The moon was almost full

And the lavender sky was almost

Scented 

The tips of the trees 

Almost on fire

And the night poured in

Where we shared an enclave

Of unfinished dreams

And shadows grew to stories

Like children leaning in

To hear us tell 

Of where they’d been

I heard them whisper in the arbor

Their step upon the rockery

They played and circled

As we reminisced

While the evening stretched a century

And it wouldn’t be that night

Without the velvet stirring of the breeze

That ruffed the feathers 

Of the mourning dove

Who fluttered round the edges of our tale 

And the fountain splashed 

A plinking soft refrain

Feeding moonlight to the Koi 

The pond was almost ebony

Forty three you counted

Deep corals

Pearly hungry mouths

And one lone magic

Midnight one

A brother gone

They rose and fell

In lustrous hope

Beneath the almost of the night 

And shone with wishes

And so we wished 

Like children

Sara Mathews          March 2019

Artwork by Melissa Anne Miller (used with permission)

https://www.facebook.com/melissa.a.miller.965

An ordinary rhyme 

There is nothing ordinary 

About the day

The sky of blue and peach

Has never been this shade of blue

 And peach

My frame of mind has never been

This frame of mind

My thoughts traipse high and low

In places

They have never thought

The pigeons cluck and coo to me

The morning news

We breathe the world together

Ruff our feathers

Talk the talk

The day gets busy going

The streets go buzzing by

While extraordinary people pour

From extra ordinary door

The houses hold some secrets

That are winking at the pane

The smoke is signaling weather

Will it snow 

Or blow with rain

The branches click and clatter

At the bones 

Of mother wind 

The squirrel is chattering metaphors

And leaps her tree

With nonesuch glee

~ this like a squirrel

~ that like a squirrel

Uncommon as a squirrel

I note them down in squirrel script

For future poems

Sara Mathews            March 2019

                                                         John Atkinson Grimshaw


What do you do with yourself
When the evening stretches long
Carved with hollow spaces
And the usual diversions
Don’t suffice
And the restless night
Lies down around your shoulders
Shadowing your thought
Heavying your hand
Waylaying your fortitude
You watch and listen hard
For any stirring
You weigh the wind
And sieve the dark for reassurance
That still
Something wondrous awaits
Your hope drawn thin
And waning
Like a fickle friend
Your ears pricked
To grasp the faintest whispering
The winnowing breathy promises
Of imminent reward
For all the earnest goodness
The almost always
Faithful heart




Sara Mathews     March 2019

                                                            Willard Leroy Metcalf


How is it
That I didn’t notice you
Advancing on my morning
My day
My well laid plans
You crept in
On whispery feet
My cats beside me
Fast asleep
No wind or rattle
At the pane
No sound of wintry battle
A snowy little strategy
A sneak attack
Of peace and still
You bend us lightly
To your will
Without much fuss
Or fight from us
Surrender
We concede




Sara Mathews     March 2019

One would think
To find the pigeons huddled
Close in
Tucked together
Head under wing
A tight muster in the corner
Of the cupola
The fierce wind gusting
And battering the evening
Everything hustled and blustered away
The less valiant
Beating a meek retreat
Before the onslaught
The tremendous bellowing blows
Anger
Frustration
Mere display of power?
One might expect to find the pigeons
Roosting in the far recesses of shelter
Praying for respite
One wouldn’t dream of their ecstasy
In the raw nature of things
Their joy in launching from safe haven
The courageous dive
Into the center of the wild
And ravenous wind
And one can only marvel
As they leap from the precipice
And loop and frolic the white capped sky
A wave of collective feathered souls
Thrown with abandon
And sheer tumultuous faith
Into the depths
Into the heartbeat
Of the monstrous disquiet




Sara Mathews       March 2019 

                                                 Roos Schuring  (used with permission)


Half pink sky
Half newborn blue
Half in blush
And half in bloom
Half baby’s breath
On infant moon
Oh lavender cloud
Oh golden bird
How streak of sun
Burns heavenward
How glint of snowbound earth
Below
Responds in prism afterglow
Half a morning in repose
Witnessing the world unfold




Sara Mathews      February 2019
Artwork by Roos Schuring  https://roosschuring.com/

Each breath rolls in
Gathering bits of worry
Tangled
Salted
Sand and weed
Shiny treasures 
All I must unravel
Discover
Believe
And each breath lays quiet
For just that moment
On my heart
Before it turns
In tidal tears
To wash me to the sea
Searching deep
Pulling soulfully
Every particle of grief
Every anxious moon




Sara Mathews     February 2019

The sky is perfectly pink
On Valentine’s Day
And the tiny flakes
Fly on the wind
In every direction but down
They buzz and swarm the window
Like little white bees
White hearts aflutter
With urgent messages
And I think of you
This was your favorite day
I remember
How you’d gather us at the piano
To sing Winter Goodbye
I always felt sorry for winter
Like she was a less favorite child
I remember
I was always alto
Even though I knew I could reach
Those higher notes
They were my sister’s
She was blond and beautiful
I was brunette
Which is just a kind word for brown
I remember
As a child
I was always dressed in red
Roses are red
But there were times I would have liked
To have been the violet
I remember
A song you sang at bedtime
About a lover who adored brown eyes
And could never love blue eyes again
My sister’s eyes were blue
And I cried sad and happy
All twisted together
My sister was born on a Wednesday
And full of woe
That troubled my journey for years
Being born on a Thursday
I carried that woe in a rucksack
Until one day I told her
And she laughed with her blue eyes
And with foolish relief
I put that burden down
Flakes of snow
That buzz like little bees against my memory
I hear your urgent Valentines
It was always and ever
Love
And now I sing your favorite verse to you
In my best alto voice
Father, I sing your favorite Valentine
And together
We remember
It was always and ever
Love




Sara Mathews    February 2019

                                                                        Duy Huynh


Sometimes it’s better not to see the moon
Or to see it when I close my eyes
And find a gentler accounting
Soft faced
Easier to look upon
Shadow boxed 
Edges filed down
And blurred
Less wise
Less knowing
Sometimes I have to speak
In sideways glance
As though she doesn’t harbor every secret
Hesitant advances toward her full approach
Blinking ~ blinking in protection
Like a lover probing through my eyes
To find that last and hidden
Piece of me
My summer moon is different
Those nights our talks drift pleasantly
She bobs the night and skirts the treetops
As we chat companionably
But when the stark and blatant
Winter pulling at my soul moon
Floods the fractured skies
I blanch beneath her blinding honesty



Sara Mathews     February 2019
Artwork by Duy Huynh (used with permission)
https://www.duyhuynh.com/

At first light
I look for the tallest tree
The one that towers
All else
And I climb
I feel the smooth skin
Of the pine
Green with spirit
And reach
For the next
Rung of my heart’s ascent
The black sap gum
Sticks like childhood
On my hands
The sharp scent
Of the needle
Takes my mind in a charm
I breath
And I reach
I pass the place of the blue jay
That flash of indigo
The strident song
That others cannot love
Is the favorite voice of the pine
And me
The forest floor slips miles away
And we climb
The Jay on my shoulder
And we call in raucous harmony
All the way to the top
Of this tallest tree
And together we feast 
On golden river
On mist filled meadow
Together we pledge forever
To our long lost child




Sara Mathews     February 2019

                                                                   Ivan Aivazovsky


I couldn’t take comfort in the wind
Last night it blew unease
And scolded at the pane
Outbursts of something unresolved
Something sad and heavy wailed
And pushed against my soul
I tried to turn my mind
Or turn the wind
To merely gusts of winter
Full moon tugs against the tide
But still it left my conscious dreams
Restless and admonished
And I woke up wondering
What I must have left undone
Unsaid




Sara Mathews     January 2019

                                                                      
The day insists
That I do nothing
The flakes sift down
Sigh against the sill
And beg
I not disturb
The light is fragile
Crystal
Breathing glass
With clear intent
And asks
I tiptoe
The world around
Spins sermon like
To solemn white
The mission
Requires
I conspire

Sara Mathews     January 2019

Claude Monet