It’s a mockingdream
Not quite
Not quite
It calls
From branches swirled in mist
An almost gathered wish
A yearning still within
Insists things could have been
Why not
Why not
Implores my heart
But dreams are such
And clutch at visions of the vast
Imperfect past
And mimic me
In my desire
Almost
Almost
I reach
I reach
My mockingdream
Flies higher




Sara Mathews     February 2016

Photo by Ricardo Perini

The children now 

Below my window call

No woodland here for miles

Just chirping voices

Trilling past

And car horns blast

Instead of cawing crow

The sidewalk grows a row

Of various pedestrians

In flocks

They come and go

And wander by 

In search of sun

And rain

And country sky

And only deep inside

They know

The concrete isn’t real

It isn’t  fresh turned earth

Or soft green meadow grass  

Or gravel road

Don Bishop Fine Art, Portland Oregon

Sara Mathews     February 2016

A snowy road
That went towards home
Began to bend and sway
And disengage from solid ground
And like a drawbridge
Rise
To take me on a different route
By way of moon
Where craters
Swallowed me in silent realms
Of deep and frozen
Sound
And foreign hills rose up
Before my eyes
In spectral shapes to
Blindfold me
With lunar winter in the blackest
White
I whispered prayers and
Gave my fate to those inclined
To throw me back into the earthly
Light



Sara Mathews     February 2016

A kite of pigeons swooped
And dipped
Across my window
I grabbed the string
And flew them
Back and forth
Obligingly
They circled low
Above the cityscape
I steered them through
The houses tightly rowed
And sent their souls aloft
In search
Of field or pasture
Then wound them down
Into a solitary elm
Where branches caught us
With nostalgia
Momentarily
But with a gentle tug
I disentangled our desire
And with my rural heart
Tied to their tail
I let them go



Sara Mathews     February 2016

You wrote a poem
Forty years ago or more
When you were in the middle
Of your journey
You saw an apple tree
That struggled
Toward the sun
And you captured it’s life
Beautifully
In written word
And we turned it to calligraphy
And gave it back to you
Within a frame
And placed it
There among your
Memories
And dusted round it
Carefully
But like anything that slips
Into familiar
We got so used to seeing it
And never really stopped
To read it anymore
It held it’s place within
The clutter of the
Everyday
Until you came
To lie beside it
In your final moments
When suddenly
It spoke to me
I picked it up
And read each line
And with a sense of awe
And premonition
Never realizing when you
Wrote these words so long ago
You were telling us the story
Of your will
Your reluctance to let go
Of life and all it’s beauty
You said you were not ready yet
There were things still left to do
And you clung to life
Beside the ancient tree
Within the frame
But when you left us finally
I had a reassuring feeling you were free
To follow and pursue
The dreams you left unfinished here
And your poem gained freedom too
We took it out from it’s four walls
And sent it’s spirit
And it’s words of joy
And hope
And life enduring
To all who loved and knew
The better part of you
And in a twist of fate
Or maybe this was orchestrated
Long ago
The apple wood
From your old friend
Who’d passed away just recently
Was there to keep you warm
Burning brightly in the stove
And holding out it’s light
To take you home



Sara Mathews     February 2016

ODE TO SPRING

By: Paul Gordon Mathews


In an old long forgotten orchard site
I stumbled onto in deep woods with pine
And poplar grown to overshadowing height
I found an ancient apple tree alone.
The gnarled and hollow hulk obliquely stands
Worm-riddled, weather beaten, gaunt as bone
But one branch high above where brief sunshine
Pervades the shade of forest gloom
Still clings to life and burgeons into bloom
As if in memory of loving hands
That nurtured it with care so long ago
I feel a kinship with this ancient tree
That clings to life with such a will and draws
It’s last ounce of sap through dying limbs
To worship life with fragrant sweet applause!
I too would tell life’s raptures in my hymns
And show the world in sorrow, pain and strife
The sweet and ever blooming joy of life
And to the end, with faltering fainting voice
Give praise to God - and with my dying breath
Would sing:  There is no death -
Rejoice - ‘Tis Spring!


In Loving memory      July 22, 1918 - February 3, 2009

You came to me last night
A little girl again
So small
I held you as I did
And showed you round to all
How cute she is
But why so young
I couldn’t say
Or know
Only that it could be so
In dreams
And it was sweet and wonderful
To have the time turn back
A glimpse of what so long had passed
A feeling visceral enough to hold
Within my soul
And oh, my soul
Was pleading for a way
To have you stay
And when at last we had to part
I couldn’t let you go
But you were brave and stoic
Resolving with the past
In whispers of
Don’t cry
And less the true believer
Of the mistiness of time
I watched you slowly drift from me
Oh, arms
Were reaching there
So desperately
Oh, heart
Was crumbling there
Unbearably
As current carried you
Away from me
On thirty years
Of tears


Sara Mathews     2/1/2016