In surprise moments
stepping out from a room
or coming around a corner
I breathe home
There is a kind of home I take with me —
a comfort on the bus, and walking unknown streets,
There is the home of outlook,
the flavor with which my eyes frame everything
But this kind of home
jumps into me,
a complete surprise,
gift from the land, the air:
the scent of belonging —
not me claiming it,
it claiming me,
gathering me
calling me its own.
©Wendy Mulhern
May 30, 2015
I see the day in criss-crossed lines,
plane paths and train tracks,
intersections, patterns in the carpet,
smiles of strangers, laughter, conversation
surfacing, submerging in the roar
of subway cars, their bright rectangles
gliding in and out of darkness
Absences, reunions,
moving in a blur across my mind,
enhanced by music from my headphones,
the clack clack of my rolling suitcase
over the sidewalk,
the dig of my backpack strap at my shoulder
No lines of deep thought here,
just the echo of clatter
and the city’s traffic
mellowed and now lulling
through the open windows.
©Wendy Mulhern
May 29, 2015
The poetry of today
is in the gentle wind
and in the feathered shadows
cast by cedars on the house wall
The view from the cool shade
is lush, made brighter
by the slow closing of the sun’s window
as the tall trees
stretch their long influence
across the afternoon.
©Wendy Mulhern
May 28, 2015
Here’s what you need to know:
You can stop fretting,
stop playing back the pain,
stop trying to corral it in a story,
assign it causes, seek solutions for it
There is a refuge from
the tug of sadness
that circles and strains
behind your eyes
and tenses like a sea urchin
in your throat
There is another place within,
and the liquid weight of you
always pulls toward it,
the gleaming quicksilver of you
slips through your structures
but is not lost
Be still — this essence of you
delivers you shining
to yourself.
©Wendy Mulhern
May 27, 2015
It does no good
to lock your doors
and man your fort
when the enemy
has made itself
your trusted confidant,
sits there behind your ear
accusing,
criticizing everything,
infusing all your thoughts
with the putrid stain of rot
which you may mask with sadness
or with anger,
from which you seek escape
with sleep, with drugs, with pain
Fear not,
for what destroys the enemy
works even here:
The truth of your unstained and perfect love
which flows out from your essence, strong and pure,
will wash away the lie and all its voices
within you and outside,
and you’ll see clear.
©Wendy Mulhern
May 26, 2015
Pasture, like water,
changes color with the hours,
the days, the seasons
Fog nestles in, and rises,
dew falls, and sparkles,
wind strokes the shafts of grass with light
under the half sun
Greens and reds from this year’s growth,
purples and silvers from last years,
shimmer in the full sun’s late appearing
No wonder I find myself
soaring. Joy bubbles lift me
(despite ungainly boots)
along the stream of bird song,
pure and high and clear
(sound of wingbeat in my ear)
the seething breathing of everything
filling me up whole.
©Wendy Mulhern
May 25, 2015
We never walk through life alone —
the stream of us is intermingled
with the stream of others,
the eddies of our presence whirl
in curving curls, within the common current
The molecules we breathe
and every inspiration
have made their constant cycles
throughout the years,
and carry with them memories
of other journeys,
thought patterns of the minds they have traversed
And our desire to bless
seeps through our days
and through the things we touch
and finds its way
to where it meets the need that calls it forth
and so fulfills our elemental worth.
©Wendy Mulhern
May 23, 2015
or Getting the Backhoe out of the Mud
Today, in shelter from the rain,
wet clothes hanging and slumped around,
wet gloves and boots
not getting dryer in the damp air,
I perceived that I am a firemaker
I felt the heat my body makes,
its quiet fire within
working the magic of chemicals
with deft precision
I thought about the fire my kind has learned to coax
from tinder bundles, wood and friction
(for which I carry memory
and latent skill)
Then there’s the fire that we have later
turned to big machines, which,
though they now seem to hold a power
of their own,
must still be subject to our mastery of fire
And quick as that, I understood
that we could not be stuck
although the backhoe sat
enmired in mud, its wheels dug in
I knew that we are firemakers
and so have power
to move the things we’ve made from fire,
that with the same intention
and persevering focus
and hard committed work,
we could do it —
and so it was.
©Wendy Mulhern
May 22, 2015
The unpredicted sun
presiding over fragrant spring
is tender toward the youthful leaves,
bathing them in incandescent brilliance
The air still holds coolness
except for where there’s neither wind nor shade —
Most of the day is dancing
in the freshness of the soft north wind
There is no hint here
of tomorrow’s showers —
It’s hard to prepare
for what seems so unlikely —
surely this perfect blue
will last forever
©Wendy Mulhern
May 20, 2015
So I kept looking back at my email
and my website
to see if anyone had said
“You are wonderful”
(in a specific way that showed
the words had substance)
even though I knew
it was ridiculous to.
At the store earlier
I was grateful
for everyone I had to wait for,
everyone who gave me the chance
to make space for them,
to give them room
in my thought
to reveal themselves
in their unique, bright glory —
it was the least I could do.
Perhaps it’s best for me
to get no feedback
lest I be wrongly trained
to keep returning to that site
like a once-fed raccoon
pawing, ever after
at the back door.
©Wendy Mulhern
May 18, 2015