Morning sings through the river,
Sun penetrates the moving water,
blessing all the river stones beneath it,
Otter swims upstream, osprey wheels above,
Light dances in the ripples
Sun on cedar evokes its perfume,
on apple trees, incites the juice
to flow into the waiting, glowing orbs,
Insects flit about their constant business
thrumming to the morning’s tune.
©Wendy Mulhern
August 9, 2014
Perspective changes
like molten lava
flowing out of the middle of itself,
entrancing, ever moving
And almost frantically
we throw our stories
on the shapes,
try to define them,
try to find a narrative
that can explain
how we came to feel
so volatile — hot and liquid and
so rapidly falling
to fill the space before us
till it’s gone
and we feel set in stone,
for a while,
until the winds of story
start to blow upon our forms
and break them down.
©Wendy Mulhern
August 7, 2014
I’ve been doing battle with you
all day, in my mind.
I force myself to stop
and then I notice
I’ve been at it again
I don’t want to fight this battle —
I want it to turn out to be
a non-issue, want to find
that an inner voice
has whispered to you softly,
convinced you in a way I never could
I want to pay attention
to my own battle,
where I need to stand up
against insinuations
that I could be justified
in thinking I am right and you are wrong,
since in the final resolution,
when my mind picture of you
sees you innocent,
I won’t need to fight with you at all.
©Wendy Mulhern
August 6, 2014
We don’t need
many sizes of patches
for all the holes in people’s psyches,
all the rips and rifts,
the things that they may hold
now in their bodies,
that make them stiff,
that make them limp
We don’t need to figure out what’s wrong
so we can mend it, don’t need
to set them on a course of self-correction
No. We only need
to shine a tender light
on the tender bright
place of their regeneration —
what can image them new,
image them free.
That will fill in all the holes
with its abundant suppleness,
with its effulgent strength.
©Wendy Mulhern
August 5, 2014
I was walking looking backward
because my work was beautiful
and my friends were beautiful
and oh, my love was beautiful
and I didn’t want to leave them
But there are turns along this path
and footsteps that require my attention,
There is so much to keep learning —
Things I don’t even have names for, yet
So I will look forward, and trust
that love and friendship,
like the moon,
will still preside over my days
and not be lost
around the many bends ahead.
©Wendy Mulhern
August 4, 2014
I’ve been going to these wonderful, intimate poetry open mics at the Bai Pai lounge and reading from my books. Here’s a video of my second appearance, where I read poems from my book Cuddle your Curmudgeons — domestic storms and sunbreaks.
We are blessed —
Blessed by the way summer
flits around us, holds us light
in its chime-full, fragrant air,
Blessed by the sudden
wistfulness that rises
in the lengthening of shadows,
Blessed by the lofty clouds
and the fingered rays
that stream upward and eastward
from the sun
Blessed by the freedom
that hovers about us
in this moment —
brief as the weightlessness
at the top of a jump
but euphoric nonetheless.
©Wendy Mulhern
August 3, 2014
Every one of us is drawn
with lovingkindness
to our truth
There is no need to push each other,
no need to direct, persuade,
cajole, dictate
another’s course
There’s no perspective
held by any one of us
that is the one
that everyone should use
We each are drawn
from where we are
to what we are —
Our truth, our love
will guide us
And we can trust each other
to be led,
however blind we may be
to each other’s leadings —
We can wait, and watch to see
the growing masterpiece
come in to view
in how we all are drawn.
©Wendy Mulhern
August 2, 2014
Summer blazes on
day after sun-ruled day,
Night’s sweet release
comes late
We start to wait
for the wind-chime heralded
south breeze,
to signal change,
to signal rain
For years we wished for this,
A summer we could count on.
We can’t complain —
Every day is splendid
and their still are places
we can hide from heat
And the city haze,
though it accumulates,
has mostly blown away,
Our slightly sun-stressed
crop of gratitude
still sturdy.
©Wendy Mulhern
August 1, 2014
I wait for inspiration
as cedar boughs wait for dawn,
foreshadowed in a subtle definition,
a whispered dark emerging
from the darkness,
imperceptibly gaining clarity
until they stand in silent, muted green
And then suddenly
dawn blazes through,
lights them up with gold
suffuses them
with incandescent glory
I wait, for
sure as dawn,
it will come.
©Wendy Mulhern
July 30, 2014