ghosted west to the sea and I missed my off ramplike most of the others who prayed to the fire godsoh please, not me, and I saw from a distancethe mean residue of burnt chaparral andblistered black trees, the carports and cribsof suburban tribes who fled with heads downfrom their choked memories and the burnt-out… Continue reading A Column of Smoke
Author: Sally Sandler
Sally Sandler is a poet, biographer and children's book author.
But I Heard the Rushes
You didn’t hear the breeze through the rushes—the sifting sound, like sand through your hands— or linger for a breeze to come againto hear them whispering and feel their hushes as calming as the ripples in the creekthat washed around their deeply secret feet. Voices that the towhees heard—and me—once upon a morning, like a… Continue reading But I Heard the Rushes
Of Shortened Time
Mine to have but not to keep—the long view, looking out at time,the future from a mountain top,the grand vista, the view non-stopof lofty peak and far outcrop—the only limit was the climb. I owned the possibilityof what was on the other sideof any hilltop, any year,across an ocean, beyond there,the future huge and little… Continue reading Of Shortened Time
Crossing the Street on Wing
There's something free and airborne in this child—she flings her arms and spins when she moves,hands arched and reaching for the sky,hair blown like feathers on a breeze,flying to a destiny up high. I hold a wing to save her from the wildand heedless world, though it’s a brief favor—the restless hand she's briefly granted… Continue reading Crossing the Street on Wing
Synchronicity
When you think of her one day,say, twenty years after you last saw her,and you had heard she let her hair gosnow white at age forty-somethingand you wonder if she's still workingand how old the twins are now. When you discover a trail the same daythat you didn't know anything aboutand it leads you across… Continue reading Synchronicity
An Old Woman Answers
Ask me my age and I'll tell you to startby counting the smile linescreasing my face;when that’s not enough,the cracks in my heart— sure, you can’t see thembut here in my chestthey ache like broken bonesfor old loves, for all the lost mothers,all the dogs gone; count all my gray hairs,count all my scars—the purple ones, too,where babies once… Continue reading An Old Woman Answers
Losing Things
(A hasty bit of fun, in the style of Poet Laureate Billy Collins, not my usual at all, but sometimes we need the lighthearted): .................. I might as well begin by sayingI’ve lost my keys again.It’s the second time this monthwhen you get right down to it. Poets often write about losing things—like life and… Continue reading Losing Things
To Our Beloved Dog on Your Last Day
I wonder if you understandwhy my voice is low and broken,why we tiptoe through the house,what hangs in the air, unspoken, why we softly shut a door,close the kitchen drawers more slow,and like a final offeringplace the breakfast in your bowl. Why the boy and young girl pausejust before they leave for schooland look behind… Continue reading To Our Beloved Dog on Your Last Day
Election 2020: An Allegory
It was a bloodless kill—the copper hammer barburied like fate and still gripping his flattened neck.One quick snapof an old wooden trap, the word “Victor”painted bright redjust below the spring and the trip hanging loose,the rat hanging dead.His eyes were black as unlit lamps,their fuse burned outin the metal of night just after we twistedthe… Continue reading Election 2020: An Allegory
Something about a Boardwalk
reaching over a salt marshthat invites me to hoverabove the great tangle of earthlike a mote that floatsover the madness. A bit of architecturethe forest offers of itself surrendering its sun-bleachedcedar smell up throughmy pilgrim feet, the perfect warmthof horizontal planksfragrant as the woodin a Swedish sauna whereI huddle naked, small. Here a mallard paddles… Continue reading Something about a Boardwalk