They were tired of living on a set,
Tired of days under electric suns
in houses with cardboard walls
with all their plastic food and friends,
their plastic props, their plastic topics

They found themselves longing for loam
with its uncompromising scent,
and wood fire — how these things
cling to your skin and get inside your dreams —
for true work and true harvest

And ways of moving with the land
that leave little need for words,
and no time to worry at
nit-picky issues of their egos
and their relationships —

Finding their unity and their identities
in concert with the present forces
and today’s insistent needs,
the smell of leaves and rain
and the sweet falling to rest
at day’s end.

©Wendy Mulhern
November 22, 2014