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