Greetings and Salutations

It’s me, Mary! I have not sent you any poems for awhile, but that doesn’t mean I haven’t been writing them. Just as the most profound truths often come to us in moments of silence, wisdom doesn't shout. It whispers. And that is how this idea came to me.

A daily meditation practice helps me to tune into those soft, insightful voices within me. I believe our life has gifted us with unique perspectives, hard-won insights, and a depth of understanding that deserves to be shared somehow, especially with the children in our life.

One of my new love projects for 2025 is “Wisdom’s Whispers.” It’s five little poems each month for twelve months. I am in month eight now.

Over the coming year, my intention is to build a collection of sixty poems (12 months x 5 poems) which capture my answers to life’s deepest questions. The questions are in white text above the resulting poem.

Please feel free to join me in this little adventure, or to share one of your poems with me. With your permission, I would publish it in the Guest Poet’s section online.

But if you don’t fancy writing poems, I hope you enjoy reading them. — Mary

We used to climb trees and draw maps in the dirt,
Now we just scroll 'til our eyeballs both hurt.
We tap and we swipe ‘til the day disappears
Feeding the beast we created from fears.

We used to take walks, play games without rules,
Our brains are all numb from those digital tools.
It’s not that we’re lazy or lacking in drive
The apps were designed to eat us alive!

They beep and they buzz with a million alerts,
Each click is a hook in our brain (and it hurts!)
They told me to focus, to schedule, to track,
To train my attention and claw my mind back!

No screens in the bathroom, the kitchen, or bed…
I did everything that my therapist said.
I tried every trick, every tool, every hack,
But still I was stuck in that vapid feedback.

Then came the great day when I simply stepped back.
I locked up my phone, my iPad, my Mac.
I walked through the door and I felt myself sigh,
Trading scroll for my soul, this I could not deny.

I breathed in the trees and the cool morning air,
And guess what? My worries were not even there.
No likes, no alerts, no clickbait to dread,
Just me, and no thoughts making noise in my head.

I sat very still looking up at the sky.
The birds weren’t mad when I didn’t reply.

The sculptor’s chisel strikes and splinters
each blow a wound
a shattered prayer
loss and sorrow carve the stone
until buried beauty awakes

so too, I break
yet in the breaking
I am shaped by suffering
deepened by destruction
and purified by pain

despair unmakes me
yet I am reborn from flame
forged into strength

sculpted by light
carved into grace.
I rise from ruin

On the road a squirrel
dead

This is what my husband
said:

All that breathes will soon lie
there

Fear of death lays all hearts

bare


Gift of life unbroken
shared

We weep and pray to be
spared



All that breathes is one day

still

Despite our strength, despite our 

will

We both know life, we both know 

fear

The veil between us, thin and 

clear

We touch the web that binds us
all

The living rise, the living 

fall

Lifeless squirrel to him
forebode 



We're all soon dead on our own 

road

Those who are cruel
are also cruelty’s victims

we choose to set aside
our heartbreak and outrage
to reclaim our centered peace

we choose to understand
looking past the face of viciousness
to see the face of pain and fear beneath

compassion has power
to stop the wheels of iniquity
to soften hardened hearts

even when kindness is undeserved
compassion transforms
in ways cruelty never could

we choose kindness
so even in small and quiet ways
we tend to healing and love

He stands in love
unshaken, unwavering,
without demand,
without exception.

He sees my worth,
even in discord,
even in doubt,
even in disappointment.

He remains
through storms,
through seasons,
through struggles.

With quiet grace,
with steady hands,
with a heart that asks nothing
but my joy.

A love that trusts,
a love that transforms,
a love that transcends,
a love without conditions.

This love is not a feeling.
It is who he is.

Dear Grandchildren,

I hope someday
you can watch Paw work the fire,
see him take cold, hard metal
and make it glow
like captured sunlight.

The hammer falls,
the sparks fly up,
and something new is born from heat.

This is what we want you to know:
you are both the metal and the smith.

Life is baptism by fire.
Misfortune, failure, heartbreak
they’ll heat you
until you think you’ll melt.

The hammer blows will come:
loss that strips you bare
and leaves you kneeling
in the ashes of your dreams;
moments when you feel too soft
to hold your shape.

But here’s the lesson of the forge:
only in its fire
do you become who you're meant to be.

Every strike that tries to break you
makes you stronger,
shaping you into something
beyond your imagination.

Watch how Paw works
patient with the process,
trusting the transformation,
knowing that what emerges
from flame and pressure and time
is always more beautiful
than what went in.

When the heat comes,
you will not be broken.
Walk through.
Not around.

There is power waiting
on the other side of pain.

Resilience is not a birthright.
It is forged.

And you, sweethearts,
you are the blacksmiths.

Walk into the ocean
feel the resistance
washed from your soul

let yourself sink

listen as stillness
quiets your voice
and its fading stories
told in fear and air

fall deeper now

beneath your name

weightless

floating

dissolve

remember you are not the wave
you were water
all along
infinite and eternal


know there was no you
just the nameless force

The voice that said “I”
grows faint underwater

Here,
beneath the naming,
at last you remember:
you are not the wave.

You are part of what moves the tide.

When welding under a boxcar,
molten drops fell
into the sleeves of his leathers,
burning their way deeper
as they cauterized his flesh.

Maybe it was the day he told me
about the metal breaking free,
clinking on the shower floor
when he washed his arms.

Or maybe when his friend was crushed
under a huge metal door
from the side of a boxcar
that was just moved by a crane
and caught by the wind.

Or perhaps it was the derailment,
with unsteady train cars
kittywampus in the aftermath,
and the order he refused:
”Get under there and brace that one,”

as it teetered.

Or was it the time he told me
about the carman caught
between two boxcars
and how his boss cried
as he ladled the man’s brains
into a bag.

I don’t remember when,
but I decided to change our ending.

To rescue him.

I got a job

so he could end this gamble with death.

Men desperate to feed their families
work in places where
safety
is a tattered poster on the wall.

Age 1:
The cookie was eaten.
No level of sobbing
could bring it back.

Age 3:
The cookie was eaten.
No amount of thrown
Minnie Mouse dishes
would materialize another.

Age 7:
The cookie was eaten.
I proposed a deal:
“I’ll clean the toy box
if I can have another.”
Bargaining failed hard.
Had to clean the toy box anyway!

Age 14:
The cookie was eaten.
I threw myself on the bed,
wailed,
and said I was too fat and ugly
to deserve another.

Age 74:
The cookie was eaten.
I thought about the tendency
of all cookie systems
to move toward randomness and disorder.
I thought about the constant flux
and cookie decay in the universe.

Recognizing our shared impermanence,
I felt sad
the cookie and I,
each facing entropy alone.

I thought all this
while I enjoyed my second cookie.
And even more
with my third.

Every morning after I make our bed
I turn in the doorway before leaving
I take stock as I pause and listen

As I peruse this room, 

my gaze rests on the fireplace he refashioned
to match this perfect bed he built for us
the table he made eons ago in shop class
the art he painted along the way

It is our sanctuary, our tiny place on the planet
To be still, safe, and quiet, together
To dream, to plan, to whisper secrets,
to remember



He is in every nail, every brushstroke,
each crease on his pillow
I picture one of us laying there someday
Facing the rest of our journey alone



I close my eyes, clasp my hands, and bow deeply
In thanks for this room, this life, this marriage,


This man

It is the simplest of rituals: a bow
Yet this small act gives shape to the invisible
And reminds me something precious
is always close by



Even ordinary moments can be sacred.

If you’re wondering what got me started writing poems, you’ll find the story here. Or, if you’re wondering why this collection is called Slender Stalk, click here. If you’re wondering where you can read the past issues of Slender Stalk, click here. If you’re wondering where you can read more of my poems, check out my website: Life at 240. If you are specifically interested in reading more Wisdom’s Whispers poems, click here.

If you know someone who you think would enjoy these poems, please feel free to forward this email to them. If you’re reading this poetry letter for the first time, you can subscribe here to get ten poems emailed to you at random intervals.