poetry – TheWisdomYears.org

beauty, poetry, reflecting, Uncategorized

“I think that I shall never see

October 28, 2025October 28, 2025 Mary Elyn Bahlert

a poem lovely as a tree…” – Joyce Kilmer

One of the pleasures in my life is the pleasure of having lived in one place for many years. In 1995, Jeff and I moved to Oakland and we have stayed in Oakland, and moved into our 1915 Craftsman Home about 2005. Over those years, Jeff has worked hard to steward a beautiful garden – a garden which we enjoy every day. We have hosted many gatherings and dinners with friends here in the house – often in the garden. I expect those times of hosting have attached us even more to this place. And having lived in one place for so many years, and having seen the seasons – slow and sacred in the Bay Area – pass to us and away again all those years since 2005, I have come to know very well the passage of time in one place.

In the yard of our home are several trees that I see from one of the windows: the listing birch outside the living room, the apple tree whose trunk and branches seem to greet us – bowing – when we sit at the dining room table, the maple that shines into our bedroom window in the autumn.

I have a refrain that I say to myself often about the birch: “I love that tree and that tree loves me”. And if saying it often makes it so, then it is true: that tree loves me. Silently and with grace the tree stands and waits for me as I lounge facing the window with my morning coffee. Silently and with grace the tree has sparked my mind as I sit on the couch, writing a sermon, reading a book from the local library, chatting with Jeff. The tree is a steady and beautiful companion to my life. I’m grateful for the tree.

And if gratitude is a poem, then that tree has sparked whatever poems are resting inside me, waiting for the right time to come out.

And it’s autumn again. The slender maple outside our bedroom window is shining with the light of autumn. And the slender maple is so beautiful: a beautiful, silent, stalwart companion.

My stalwart companion in autumn. photo by Mary Elyn Bahlert, 2024

beauty, poetry, reflecting

The sky in autumn

September 15, 2025September 16, 2025 Mary Elyn Bahlert

The sky, deep, in autumn
rests deeper in the heavens,
deeper as if it has reached a peak,
the peak of color, of light,
deeper as if creator’s brush
has found the darkest color
and presented it to us for our delight.
If we are watching,
if our eyes are open, waiting with great patience,
if we are watching, waiting –
we disappear into the deepness,
we are set free from the troubles of earth,
we fly into the freedom.

September 15, 2025

Mary Elyn Bahlert, 09/15/2025

Photo by Mary Elyn Bahlert, 11/11/2020

beauty, poetry

For a moment

August 25, 2024August 25, 2024 Mary Elyn Bahlert

For a moment the city is still,
the rush of cars silent, 
the air full of silence, holding
as we hold this second, we stop this second.
A towee stops, too, on the back stoop 
and the cat, stealthy, climbs the steps to watch,
      careful.
Then the feathered one flies past the cat.

We are waiting for the appearance -
     the Blue Moon -
to show itself above the houses,
the lush summer trees,
to hold still for a moment
as we hold our breath.

               ---Mary Elyn Bahlert, 8/2024

photo by Mary Elyn Bahlert, 8/24

Waiting for the Blue Moon

beauty, poetry, remembering

This morning, a walk up Mount Wanda

June 12, 2022June 10, 2022 Mary Elyn Bahlert

This morning, a walk up Mount Wanda,

summer brown – early this year.

Up the long path to the top –

A windmill, high and lonely,

Turns and listens

As the earth crunches beneath our feet,

and as we circle, again and again,

The azure sky draped overhead.

Here, tired from the climb, the trees our companions –

our lives have come to this! –

We stop! We breathe. —Mary Elyn Bahlert, 6/2021

On Mount Wanda, photo by Mary Elyn Bahlert, 06/2021

beauty, nostalgia, poetry

Longing

March 6, 2022March 26, 2022 Mary Elyn Bahlert

Days before she died, 
Mom sat, legs over the side of her bed, 
gazing out the window onto the sunny street: 
"I wish it would snow once - just for me," she said.

I think that, too, sometimes.
There is a longing in this dry place:
when life is dry, empty.
I'd love to see the snow then,
flakes falling, silent, to the ground,
the heavens shaking their down pillows.
I'd like to be in that quiet place for a few moments,
surrender my busy mind to it,
welcome the holy silence, the emptiness -
                     all that space. 
          
Mary Elyn Bahlert, February 27, 2022