have you seen how hope
gathers at the edge of pain?

how like first light, it graces
the thin lip of the ridge
before sweeping wholesale
down the slope?

how sometimes it is slow
to gather, and even slower
to rise up over the noise
of our daily just-eking-by?

love, too, is like this –
it should spill over like time
that can’t be bound by hours,
it should shake your petals

© Sarah Whiteley

**Image taken in her yard by Natalie; text added by Natalie

I hold in my hands this evening

With a closet full of clothes
unworn in years
or even never
I challenged myself this past twelve months
to buy no new clothes

Invited to a gala
to celebrate a new year
I searched my wardrobe
for something festive
black of course
but with sparkles

There it was crumpled
in the back of the closet
an old black velvet dress
inherited from my mother
and a gauzy black cape
speckled with glittering threads
bought years ago when my girls were teens

I’ll be dressed tonight in the depth
of a year of seeing the old, the wrinkled,
the forgotten, the out-of-style
with new eyes for new potential
to start fresh with what’s
already here now

I challenged myself in 2017 to only buy the necessary, like socks or a replacement water heater. It was an interesting experiment.  I didn’t spend time looking at ads or stressed about deciding which…