“You almost always plant
for people coming after you,” he said.
“The trees we now enjoy
were planted here by others,
Your vision will be seen, perhaps,
in thirty years (except for fruit trees —
they may bear in two or three)”

The things we’re building now
will be loved by others,
and maybe that’s the reason —
Maybe when that impetus is gone
and what is left is just the search
for what to do today —
what entertainment, what exotic play —
we find our colors cooling,
and the urge to live
to gradually begin to fade away

But as long as we’re impelled
to keep on building,
we’ll be living in the timelessness of love,
blessed by others who have built before us,
blessed by what we give to future years.

©Wendy Mulhern
September 6, 2015