Author Archives: Wendy

This year’s tomatoes

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I didn’t have the heart
to kill them outright,
or leave them to die
in their four inch pots,
though my neighbor said
they were too stunted
to be worth the effort

So I took them out
(feeling  vaguely like some servant
in a fairy tale, who doesn’t want to kill the child as ordered)
I dug a place in last year’s garden,
wholly overtaken by thistle, sorrel, blackberries and grasses,
robust and deeply rooted,
eagerly becoming meadow

I plonked in the tomatoes,
wrested last years cages from the weeds
to keep myself from stepping on them
(and in case they find a way to grow)
Sorry, little plants. Good luck.

©Wendy Mulhern
June 14, 2021


In Retrospect

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I guess there were beautiful, important things
about being head over heels in love
with myself

(Though, granted, at the time,
I didn’t recognize
I was the object of my own affections)

It was important, I expect,
to know myself as loving,
(thinking I was loving them)
but loving that which I imagined
other people saw in me

I’m coming to see now that there is more  –
more scope, more purpose for my love,
greater opportunity to lose itself in service
and find the sweet fruition of its work.

©Wendy Mulhern
June 13, 2021

Thank you

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Thank you for standing in the rain
with a lantern,
trying all the known tricks
to make the hot water work for me
after your cold shower
and even after all efforts had failed
and I was starting with my cold shower
in the cool rain

The hot water that suddenly came
was so lovely, so welcome,
and the chance to get fully clean
after this muggy day
so appreciated!

As are you, in your rain jacket and boots,
having put things right,
climbing with your lantern to the well house
to turn the power off.

©Wendy Mulhern
June 12, 2021

Benediction

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I will not wait to receive
a benediction from my God

Instead I will be the face, the front,
of my God’s wind, I will go forward
in the might of my God’s breath

I will know Love by loving,
I will know Life
by feeling the aliveness
that empowers me within,
I will know Truth
by being true to the imperative
that names my hope and purpose,
that is my God, my grace.

©Wendy Mulhern
June 11 2021

Town Pants

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I’ve got my town pants on,
which renders me a little helpless,
in the can’t get dirty kind of way

To tackle tasks around here
it seems essential not to care
about a little soot here, a little mud there

And dust – this time of year, and, too,
this phase of project  – one or another
kind of dust will get all over everything

As to the matter of grass seed
and how it sticks in socks – even boots,
it seems, can’t keep it wholly out

But town pants have their own troubles,
being prone to spills of chocolate,
and pizza, it seems. Whatever.

©Wendy Mulhern
June 10, 2021

We will rise up and build

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This is not the end,
nor is it the beginning

It is neither a race
nor a time of foot dragging

It is both urgent
and commanding utmost calm,
the work of now
and of a lifetime

We are not moving in a plane
where we are judged by or compared with others,
this is our own imperative
so we will rise and do it.

©Wendy Mulhern
June 7, 2021

Variations on a Theme

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In the place where it was said,
you are not my people,
there you shall be called
children of the living God

In the place where it was said,
who do you think you are?
In the place of
you do not belong,
there shall you be called

Called up from what you were doing,
how you were holding to a set of actions
with their related words
that hid you safely (ish)
between the bars of the grates

Called up from what you were thinking  –
schemes – some of them,
justifications  – oh so many,
stories, however convoluted,
that carved a space for you,
however small

In the place where it was said
(not by anyone who knew,
not by anyone who said it for the first time)
there you shall be called children

Therefore expected to need care,
therefore droll and dearly loved,
you will be called children
of the living God

The living God,
the power of the essence
of all that is alive,
all that precisely gives what blesses
in this and every moment

You will be called to feast –
children, you will multiply
the ever growing light of life.
You will be called home –
in the source and cause of all life,
beloved living jewels.

©Wendy Mulhern
June 6, 2021

Visiting

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I brought my goal –
to weave the threads of happy,
to make our hosts feel seen and heard,
and glad that we were there

In doing so, I found myself happy  –
through places where our conversations
swooped and soared, and opening
of ways to see and understand

And the delight of receiving
a gift freely given – days
filled with beauty and joy
and opportunity
to leave our former stress –
really, why would we bother
to pick it up again?

©Wendy Mulhern
June 5, 2021

Beach Walk

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The sea air enwraps us in its world,
taking us in like breath, mingling us
in the salt, the moist and sparkle

The sand receives our footprints,
settles in around our toes,
comes with us

We are dampened, we are lifted,
we are washed through with the wind,
the gift of this most needed renewal
resting lightly on our skin.

©Wendy Mulhern
June 4, 2021