My mind is written through today
with double lines, as when you write
with broken chalk, where two edges
touch down at once,
my words over my words,
my thoughts looped back,
noticing the echoes

I don’t want to do it often  –
it has a graying effect,
like much-used blackboards,
or like checking my phone
far too many times

The afternoon is not like that –
each sun-touched fir and fern
floods itself with presence  –
no thoughts of past or checking for the future,
taking in each golden ray of now.

©Wendy Mulhern
June 1, 2021