The morning’s soft rain,
heralded by wind chimes
at the open south window,
conversed about by crows,
welcomed by waiting seedlings,
settled in cozy,
the outside air still warm enough
to allow it the run of the house,
the gentleness of May
embracing the quiet wetness
as fully as it yesterday
embraced the sun.
©Wendy Mulhern
May 23, 2014
(Matthew’s Beach, half past noon)
My mind is quiet,
As quiet as this water
with its slow undulation
and its quicker shimmers,
As quiet as the glide
of goose families on the lake,
Open to sky reflection
and the darker view
(underside of ripples)
of refracted colors
from the bottom, from the shore
My mind is quiet,
and the gentle, ruffling breezes
that rise from time to time
and stir up little waves along the shore
Are as patient and as aimless
as the fluff of cottonwoods
drifting and resting,
and the shafts of rippled sun,
Oblivious to all the local chatter
and the drone of distant boats
Quiet as the depth of
no need for decisions
as the day flows along
its broad and open course.
©Wendy Mulhern
May 22, 2014
There is a time
when the goal comes into view —
When you first see it
it may be blurry
like the moon through clouds
but it will insist
And though you may resist
by picking up whatever else
had ever held your interest,
You will drop them
or they will fall away
because they lack the light
to capture your attention,
You will look up from them
and the goal will shine
That’s when you’re ready
to bring everything —
all your dedication, your humility,
your earnest perseverance,
your steady work,
your insight
and your eager readiness
to be forever sparked,
because this is your course
and you will run it.
©Wendy Mulhern
May 21, 2014
Oh, this life!
One thing I know —
Every separate thing
will come together
in some unimaginable arc.
Everything that seems so
out of whack
will still come round again,
in countless iterations, subtle shiftings,
till it turns out to be
the essential linchpin
of some delicious dimension
we’d never known before,
opening our sights,
vastly multiplying
the realms wherein we fly.
©Wendy Mulhern
May 20, 2014
The day knew how
to sit with me calmly,
to let me move
in my own rhythm,
to let me get better
in the company of plants —
tomato and basil and leek starts,
green onions, kale —
No demands were made
on my attention
while I moved slowly
in emerging sun
through tasks that kept my hands
in contact with the crumbly soil,
learning its nourishment,
approaching whole.
©Wendy Mulhern
May 19, 2014
Those who fight for freedom
to be themselves beyond the norms of gender
fight for us all,
for we are all constricted by the norms
Those who fight oppression against women
fight for us all,
for every slighting of the worth of any person
slights us all
Living in privilege
makes people stupid,
because, in that mythos,
it’s to our advantage
to simply not notice
that we are complicit
in others’ suppression
There is no us and them
and every one of us
who lifts a voice in courage,
to be heard and seen and known,
makes room for more of us
under the sky,
to find our voices
and to claim our own,
to lift our many-colored heads
and grow more free.
©Wendy Mulhern
May 18, 2014
(my sister’s words)
Who you are
is the same person
you’ve always been —
from birth, maybe before it
You’ve always been yourself —
you need not fear
that choice or circumstance
has made you less,
has trapped you into somewhere dull or damned,
or that by luck or narrow skill
you have avoided that so far
but that you might, at any moment, fall.
You are what you are,
and what you are is needed, blessed,
and is preserved, as pure as any element.
Nothing bad that’s come to you
has ever been deserved,
nor can it dampen you — your essence
is not suppressed
This is your life
and you know how to live it,
This is your gift,
and you know how to give it.
©Wendy Mulhern
May 16, 2014
vessel by Jennifer McCurdy; image by Julius Friedman
See how the colors change entirely:
At six thirty, the palette is silvers, bronzes,
olives, pale gold of early sun, mauve and pewter
in the water and the sky
At eight thirty, it’s all blues and greens,
sparkly water, tender glow of fresh young grass
with its russet seed heads,
white of beach plum blossoms, yellow dandelion
At nine, it changes again, as marbled clouds
roll in on mounting south wind —
blue water goes gray-green,
grass, by turns, is bright and somber
A seagull rides an updraft
upwind along the bank,
glides through time
as colors glide through the day.
©Wendy Mulhern
May 15, 2014
photo by Pam Cassel
Well, she said,
Perhaps we’ve given up
on solving all the world’s problems
before eight o’clock in the morning.
Yes, I agreed,
In our maturity,
we have determined
there is no solving things
for someone else —
The only place
we may have traction
is with ourselves
Later, as I watch the swath of sparkles
spread across the water
underneath the sun,
I think: These sparkles are a dance
between my eyes and the bright light —
They engage and spin together
in the nexus of perception
I will come away dazzled.
The light will keep dancing
with each living thing that receives it.
We’ll see it sometimes,
and not be aware when we don’t.
©Wendy Mulhern
May 14, 2014
Photo by Heather Mulhern
I.
The coffee shop hopped
with bright wait staff
and cheerful locals
and earnest banter
about music and ways of seeing.
People moved
in the rhythms
of their expectations
and their relationships,
and one young woman
moved with the detached slow motion
of someone overcome
with an internal passion,
from which she looked out
and saw the world
as if it were a movie.
II.
On Lagoon Pond Road
we hear the whisper of last year’s grasses
and the warble of this year’s blackbirds,
while the strong north wind
that came in with rain last night
is sweetened by the strong sun,
and we walk in the sure comfort
of hands that know each other
while sand blows along the road
into my shoes.
III.
Home for breakfast
Five of us around the table
gobble popovers, and laugh —
A time like the brief passing sun
through a window pane
to bask in as long as it’s here.
©Wendy Mulhern
May 13, 2014