We’ll ride on the memory
of a tree full of birds,
We’ll hold it to us
amid the roar of traffic
as hearth to our hope fires,
promise of home,
a place for our dreams to be landing

Many a span we have to cross —
seasons and processes,
efforts, expenditures,
many occasions we’ll have for rising
to feats that we’ve never yet dared

Far away, in a pasture
that old oak stands
and the birds come and lodge in it
singing and flocking

Later, the quiet night
will rest in its branches,
wind-sighing lullaby
soothing its sleep

It will wait for us, too,
standing through rain,
through spring kissed air
till we return
to breathe with it again.

©Wendy Mulhern
March 20, 2015