Sarah Burke Cahalan
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sarahbc.bsky.social
Sarah Burke Cahalan
@sarahbc.bsky.social
2.3K followers 3K following 27 posts
former/eternal librarian
…most of what I post here deletes after a few days ✨


https://sarahburkecahalan.com/poetry
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sarahbc.bsky.social
Virgin Mary, wood engraving, orig. 1921 (from "Songs to Our Lady of Silence" by Mary Elise Woellwarth.

Not an Annunciation scene. Actually from the section of the book on Mary in Ephesus.
wood engraving, black ink on a cream background, a woman seated near a window, ball of yarn at her feet, cat washing itself beside her
November 18, 2025 at 10:42 PM
sarahbc.bsky.social
nourishment
enrichment
replenishment
reclamation

I'm gathering words for the engineering strategy of moving sediment around to build up eroding beaches. 🌊 🏖 (This Cape Cod Times headline is a new take.)
Newspaper headline of an eroding beach in New England, everything gray, grey sky and a grey house. The headline reads "After more erosion at Cape Cod beach: 'Throwing money into the wind'"
November 18, 2025 at 12:25 AM
sarahbc.bsky.social
"Introduction to Economics" by Jen Hadfield (one of her Shetland poems); I love her language.

"and I try to make do but
you just can't subsist on light and raw colour, can you?

Can you?"
Introduction to Economics The sun is on a spree in town. It picks things up and puts them down. At the fleece warehouse, a mated cat says ow .. wow... and crawls on its belly to the thick, baled curds and the blackbirds chuckle and crash like coals and try to get it on. The sun spreads my shadow, edible. Ravens broal and spill their shadows like sump oil. A guy clears his throat like a speaking horse - broo-hoo! and this old wife in baby blue bares her teeth, and waves and I try to make do but you just can't subsist on light and raw colour, can you? Can you? Be they the Adam and Eve of yellow and blue.
November 16, 2025 at 9:49 PM
sarahbc.bsky.social
"Prenatal Polar Bear" by Jen Hadfield #smallpoemsunday
Prenatal Polar Bear He hangs in formaldehyde like a softmint or astronaut dreaming in his moonsuit - a creased, white world. His paws are opalescent and dinted with seedclaws - the flattened, unripe, strawberries-of-the-snows.
November 16, 2025 at 9:41 PM
sarahbc.bsky.social
Draught-horse "Our father" by Jen Hadfield, #poetry

"Heal the hoofprint in my heart."
Paternoster (for A.B.J.) Paternoster. Paternoster. Hallowed be dy mane. Dy kingdom come. Dy draftwork be done. Still plough the day And give out daily bray Though heart stiffen in the harness. Then sleep hang harness with bearbells And trot on bravely into sleep Where the black and the bay The sorrel and the grey And foals and bearded wheat Are waiting. It is on earth as it is in heaven. Drought, wildfire, Wild asparagus, yellow flowers On the flowering cactus. Give our daily wheat, wet Whiskers in the sonorous bucket. Knead my heart, hardened daily. Heal the hoofprint in my heart. Give us our oats at bedtime And in the night half-sleeping. Paternoster. Paternoster. Hallowed be dy hot mash.
November 16, 2025 at 1:35 PM