Sally Sandler Poems

The music of our friendship,
a symphony, I think,
of women growing older,
our hearts played in sync.
...

Yours is not a clear or classic beauty.
Nothing like the leaves of liquidambar,
the flowers of the purple jacaranda,
or stature of the regal redwood tree.
...

The day I knew I'd fallen out of love,
immune to fascination of your spell,
I wasn't rocking with the wind above,
intoxicated drinking in the smell
...

That you could whisper through unseen webs
and care for the earth with a mother's love—
I didn't know, I just didn't know.
...

I long to hear the ancient wind that sighs
throughout the tops of old forest trees
and fills the primal canopy of leaves
with melancholy echoes—hollow, high.
...

The moon invites herself into my room
and stirs me from a deep and rumpled sleep—
a mythic mistress climbing from her tomb,
or silver siren rising from the deep.
...

Like spirits, they will dart across our path
in drifts, and zig-zag past our cheeks and hands
just out of reach, and whirling toward a land
far north of us, by predetermined math.
...

The grass won't grow where you were laid to rest,
though years have passed since you were buried there.
Other's graves are green, while yours is bare.
I feel this with a new ache in my chest.
...

Perhaps this grief was not meant to be shared—
not meant to be examined, or assuaged,
or black and white, like print upon a page …
not even by the ones who truly care.
...

Place no limits on this grief of mine—
don't try to cheer me out of feeling sorrow.
I need to wear it for a longer time
and won't be ready to let go tomorrow.
...