At the call of rain
so much green springs eager —
it doesn’t calculate
its prospects for the season,
whether it will become
a spreading plant or just a small sprout —
the rain has summoned it
so up it comes.
©Wendy Mulhern
September 18, 2019
The lights are everywhere.
I see them, at times,
like chinks between the trees,
like smiles of pleasure and of recognition,
and at times like moonlight across fields,
silvery joy, opalescent peace
Sometimes I see them falling —
raindrops searching our their pathways,
sometimes I see them rising —
vapor in the morning sun,
in all the ways that they appear,
the same in essence,
ever called by hope,
answered in presence.
©Wendy Mulhern
September 17, 2019
The rain has given us a break —
we work in silence,
finding it more harmonious
than the questions and projections
that would otherwise fill up the space
No need to annoy each other,
no need to talk about the things we cannot know.
After the window closes,
we’ll do the next thing that makes sense,
taking in the necessary factors
that will reveal themselves by then.
©Wendy Mulhern
September 16, 2019
When I turned around to look at it,
I saw that I could not have seen
what I did not believe —
much as I wanted to believe it,
I really didn’t,
or I would not have missed it
It brings to question
what I believe now,
and if I now believe,
what that enables me to see
I see this day,
I see the peace in it —
what I may see tomorrow
is not for me to say
It will unfold
along the lines of my attention —
as I hold my source and center clear,
I’ll know.
©Wendy Mulhern
September 14, 2019
You come home to yourself
and you may realize
you didn’t need to play those games
of measuring, of shoring yourself up,
you didn’t need to feel attacked or slighted
The clarity you felt in moments
when you saw another from the inside,
when you understood a way of moving
in centered calm and mastery —
That’s you — and it can lead you
safely through the clouds of doubt,
it can deliver you
before you even fall into confusion
It is you, and you can stay there,
secure in what you ever more will be,
home in yourself, and royal
all along the colored roads of life.
©Wendy Mulhern
September 13, 2019
And if I ask myself
the reason for my joy,
I may consider how we breathe beauty
in sight and scent and sound,
and how we work humble —
ready to serve and learn,
and how in all this
(constant as cricket song)
we are borne up
by the presence we’re coming to recognize
as our own,
as it is given us
in the midst of every day.
©Wendy Mulhern
September 12, 2019
Day dawns,
rain gone
(if for a moment)
sun flirts with wind,
clouds glint and grin
We free a dove
that trapped itself
in our young cherry tree’s enclosure,
I try the spirits
and today it’s clearer
whence they hail
These things do not depend
on weather, or on any gods
society has shaped and propped up,
they don’t depend on how we felt
or what we said and did
It is the Spirit
that sustains us,
breathing what we are
into our consciousness,
planting the clarity of our cause
into our frames.
©Wendy Mulhern
September 10, 2019
I let myself fill up with rain.
It was an indulgence,
not something to sustain,
not something I have time for
in the day to day,
while the various buckets
we put under leaks
register their irregular
pticks and clangs and taps,
and hope seems to be leaking, too
We will get through this —
our source of strength does not depend
on all things rosy.
It will show itself steady,
well able to overcome
both internal and external rain.
©Wendy Mulhern
September 9, 2019
The straight line of our intent
begins to meet the season’s curve —
bracken fern starting to turn,
and trees along the river
Garden plants have given up,
the coming rain too late,
other factors we can’t see
informing them
their time of growth is over
No longer can we count on
stretches of long, sunny days —
they shorten, and the rains
begin to take their place
We will bend, because we have to,
we will find a way,
our intent will weave itself in,
for the circle belongs to us, too.
©Wendy Mulhern
September 8, 2019
What we’ve been taught to hope for
is so paltry, so far from being able
to deliver satisfaction, that it’s surprising
that we feel so disappointed
when those hopes are not fulfilled
If someone told you,
You can have the sky,
and free flight in it,
you can have fellowship
with all the thought, with all the music,
you can sing color and dance
the whole kaleidoscope of pattern,
would you believe them?
If someone told you,
You can be the love
that comprehends and celebrates
every small and large
impulse of being,
you can be the love that nurtures,
that engenders joy and exaltation,
would you embrace that hope?
Here is the voice telling you all that.
You don’t have to say if you believe it —
only notice if you want it.
That, eventually, will be clue enough.
©Wendy Mulhern
September 7, 2019