Tree Full of Birds

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