Tag: poetry

Uncategorized

If the world hadn’t stopped

Mary Elyn Bahlert

If the world hadn’t stopped 
its incessant orbit, 
its frantic motion – one day to the next –
if all the people hadn’t halted their wars, 
their value counted in barrels of oil, 
I expect I wouldn’t have seen the sun brightening, blue by blue, 
or known the smell of the morning air, fresh, 
as I go sniffing like a cat 
to catch a whiff of what has gone before. 
I would not have opened my window, grateful, 
or wondered at the sound of humans calling into the night to give thanks.

I expect I wouldn’t have stopped midday to pray,
my arms lifted beside the lonely tree, 
its branches lifted, also, in gratitude 
for the magic of the sun, the sky, the dusk and dawn. 
We would not have murmured together at the light 
of the lilies at dusk, 
at the quiet that hangs over the morning air, 
at the call of the crow hoarding its bounty: 
all of us inhabitants of this magnificent earth.






Mary Elyn Bahlert, 2020










Photo by Mary Elyn Bahlert, View Place, 2020

		


			
		
	






	
	

		Uncategorized
At Solitude Swale
	


	

							

			 Mary Elyn Bahlert		
		
		

			

We trek to a place of solitude,
this lonely place, to sit,
to listen to the water, to the wind, to the silence:
 the silence speaks to us as we walk, as we sit.





And in this lonely place the loneliness drains from us – 
 from our arms, our legs, our beating hearts –
richness fills us:
the voices of the pines, the balsam, and the birch
which call out to us in the wind.
Gentle, the breeze ruffles the needles, the leaves.

We have searched – endlessly –
for this place:
for the solitude that is in loneliness, 
for the depth that is boundless,
 without form.





Here, the emptiness fills us,
completes us.





              —Mary Elyn Bahlert, “At Solitude Swale,” Door County, Wisconsin, 5/2025  










At Solitude Swale, photo by Mary Elyn Bahlert, May 25, 2025

		


			
		
	








	
	

		beauty, reflecting, Uncategorized
Early morning, day light
	


	

							

			 Mary Elyn Bahlert		
		
		

			

Early morning, day light
hangs loosely on our shoulders,
in our hair
as we walk, silent,
sniffing like the deer who crosses our path,
who stops – still as a statue –
sees us,
darts away.





We make a narrow path 
in the darker places,
walking in a line.
We are One then:
     with the path,
     with the eager birds,
     with the sky,
     with the silence that holds us,
     carries us.





***





         “Early morning, day light,” poem by Mary Elyn Bahlert, May, 2025,
         at the Ridges, Baileys Harbor










“At the Ridges,” photo by Mary Elyn Bahlert, May, 2025

		


			
		
	






	
	

		Uncategorized
At Ridges Sanctuary
	


	

							

			 Mary Elyn Bahlert		
		
		

			

As the morning breaks and
the sky clears into light,
we move along the path, deep into the darkness 
of the trees.





We stop, then.
Our breath stops.
The birds stop their morning chatter, too.

A holy silence holds us.

and – the path comes alive as we move again, our footsteps 
on this precious earth:
this Giver of All,
this Holy Mistress.





           —Mary Elyn Bahlert, at Ridges Sanctuary, 2025





At the Ridges Sanctuary, photo by Mary Elyn Bahlert, 05/2025