Author Archives: Wendy

This Is For You

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Quick as color
spreads across the surface
of a water drop
instant infusion
strongest at the edges
May this touch spread across you
excite all your surfaces
so you know
as you ring like a temple gong
This pure sound sings you
Nothing stops this wave
spreading into the landscape
ringing floral bells
spilling out fragrance
calling up celebration
This is you
as everything recognizes
tunes in accord
and rejoices.


©Wendy Mulhern
June 23, 2011



Parental Fiat

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Words still crash upon the surface
though my attention is beneath
and my intention is for peace
and I don’t want to make this process
harder than it needs to be
But I will not be moved
I must insist
The line you cross
I must resist
You can’t just toss
all of this
to the abyss . . . .
This will be my discipline: I’ll wait
be careful not to outline or anticipate
the thrusts and feints of some imagined game
Instead I’ll hold the calm
that stretches out beyond
the quarrel of the moment to the wider plain
where who we are
and who we want to be
are one
and all the stridency
is done.


©Wendy Mulhern
June 22, 2011



Solstice

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Like a miracle
The celebrated day rose up, spreading its gifts
Bird song long before we truly woke
Then sky embracing early morning trees
with luminous touch of mackerel clouds
Then a stretching space of blue
desperate for warmth
yearned towards the cloud-clamored sun
Later, the day brought out summer
like a father returning home after too long
In my gratitude I forgot my suspicion that
he would not stay
I drank the scent of wild roses, sun-warmed
rejoiced in wind on my arms
a long bike ride
and work to do outside
and family differences to take in stride
as we tumbled to the end
too tired to attend to any more
(A meeting took a bite out of my evening
as if it were any day . . . )


©Wendy Mulhern
June 21, 2011



Thought Balancing

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Summer solstice:
We are called
to try to make something meaningful
of this blip in time
But stones laugh
like water tripping down them
and piles of stones fall
with no propriety
like clowns rolling
who know how to fall
by giving and giving
and not standing on ceremony
but letting their inner dignity
fall with them like water
so it stays within
growing stronger
as they sink to their source
And all my efforts can fall 
apart
ignominiously
like bits of fluff in the wind
but that which centers me
will draw everything back
to its compelling core.

©Wendy Mulhern

June 20, 2011




Summer Blooms

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I planted
by the light of low, puddly night clouds
reflecting back city lights in subtle pink
some little seedlings of connection
All night
while south wind blew the clouds
over the deep cuddle of my dreams
warmth grew, in orange and amber patches
buds of joy
So later in the day
after the morning’s tasks, the bright routines
the sturdy laughter with my lovely children
the solid circling of our family bond
the work, the play
Those seedlings I had planted caught my eye:
a patch of blooms thick as a pool
a fragrant summons — I could dive
into euphoria
any time I needed to.


©Wendy Mulhern
June 19, 2011



Power Lines

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It isn’t that I take them in my hands as threads
— the spinning lines of power —
Not that I grab and tweak and wield them
sending things where never sent before
Instead, the rushing law of harmony
owns me, as it owns everything alive
and every distant echo, every wave —
It tunes them, as to ancient memory
And so you see, the power that spins through us
and wraps us in our synchronistic movement,
coordinates the blessing, so it flows
all through us and beyond, in raptured union
is not defined by me, nor can I use it
but cleaving to its presence, I may prove it.


©Wendy Mulhern
June 16, 2011



A Need

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Too many nights, he said
we fall in bed
so late that sleep 
seems like the most attractive option.
We need to make the time
to let the sweet desires arise
to let our consciousness entwine
our skin to hum, our hands to find
each other, and our heat to press together
the compelling friction generate
electric sparks, rejuvenate
our sodden hearts, invigorate
the inner currents underneath our skin
the lights across the many miles within
so that we know
our next traverse of day
though walked alone
will call out chimes of common coursing spirit
in tones so strong that everyone can hear it.


©Wendy Mulhern
June 15, 2011



Shadow Day

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A day can seem the shadow of a day
when nothing new occurs, and all that stays
in thought is what came from the day before
the pleasure of achievement, or the sore
reprise of hard exertion.  As today –
which never rose beyond the cold and gray
and didn’t have a glory of its own.
till now, when with the penning of this poem
I hope to raise at least a little indication
that something worth its time here has arisen
that, though a very modest, small creation
one thing at least has exercised my vision
not some great burst of strength to rocket me aloft
just one small crust to feed my need to work my craft.


©Wendy Mulhern
June 14, 2011



The Shine of Every Day

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Consider this: the shine of every day
whether a glimmer, thin and filtered ray
or the mute glow of pearl grey under clouds
or bold eye-squinting light that visually shouts
Whether a slender reed that barely bears you up
or bubbles deep within that rocket skyward
decorous pleasure or a vaulting joy
where you’re not sure how you keep going higher
It all expresses something you must know
though in the rush of duties you may well forget
A presence in your life that always shows
you’re not alone, your need is always met
Does God exist? – It doesn’t matter what you say
Just that you see the shine of every day.


©Wendy Mulhern
June 13, 2011



Shaken World

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Can’t go another night without a poem
though, running on a path of zebra stripes
I feel I’ve quantum lurched to black from white
the image of my life now bent and curled
slow dawning sense I’m in a different world
a steely world where nothing fits
and bolts attempting entrance leave a corkscrewed sheer
of metal as they grind against the threads
and fail to turn, and ruin the connection
as things begin to flail and come unhinged
and catch the wind in awkward twists
that make them creak and bend
and crash in heaps, their virgin surface
unrestorable.
But can a world so horrible
become my sphere?
Can any scene sail in, take over
force its stamp of misery upon my day?
Can I not quantum leap back where I came?
A world lost in an instant is regained as fast
This scene may shake me but it cannot last.


©Wendy Mulhern
June 12, 2011