I start to see
my life is more
than finding ways to feel fulfilled,
more than arranging energies,
emotions, thoughts, and movement,
metabolism, focus for my days,
more than finding ways to feel OK
I was made to bear fruit.
My life feels good when,
in essential interaction,
I engage cooperation
with the life around me
and we all thrive
My life is working
when Life’s work
is manifest in me —
The works define
what I’m meant to be.
©Wendy Mulhern
February 8, 2015
The wind tunnel here is strong —
shrill blasts along the sheer and sterile buildings,
loud streaming of the ads and football chatter,
straight lines of life-suppressing roads
and matching suppositions of acceptable life-paths —
It’s no surprise we all should feel
weary, aimless, craving sugar
In this place I summon
everything alive
to help me —
the brave trees at the edges of the parking lot,
the smiles that people sometimes find,
the memory of winter reds against the gold
of winter grass
on the wise land
where we will learn to reconstruct the patterns
which show us how to live,
which give us peace.
©Wendy Mulhern
January 11, 2015
We are made to speak with the earth,
Soles to press to loam,
Skin to sing the pure vibrations,
Tongue to taste the curling air
that bears the tale of everything alive
We are made to speak with the earth,
Eyes as emissaries, catching shafts of light,
relaying truth of all that lies within —
blue cast in the scent of oceans,
red in sun-warmed soils,
green and russet wetland grasses,
silvers aromatic in pine and sage,
rosemary
This has long been hidden
under roads and floors,
the pictures all presented
through small and separate windows
so we haven’t known
what they all mean together,
haven’t known how they comprise a whole
But still the earth will call us,
pull us out from where
the dry pursuits have trapped us,
Lead us by some image, by some zephyr
to the place that owns us,
to our land.
©Wendy Mulhern
December 13, 2014
The rain holds conversations with itself
and with the wind,
falling down on several metal roofs,
tapering off, then thinking
of something more to say,
The over-full river
occasionally adds a murmur
We eavesdrop for a while
inside our cozy cabin
until lulled toward sleep,
our minds washed with visions
of the beckoning land.
©Wendy Mulhern
November 29, 2014
They were tired of living on a set,
Tired of days under electric suns
in houses with cardboard walls
with all their plastic food and friends,
their plastic props, their plastic topics
They found themselves longing for loam
with its uncompromising scent,
and wood fire — how these things
cling to your skin and get inside your dreams —
for true work and true harvest
And ways of moving with the land
that leave little need for words,
and no time to worry at
nit-picky issues of their egos
and their relationships —
Finding their unity and their identities
in concert with the present forces
and today’s insistent needs,
the smell of leaves and rain
and the sweet falling to rest
at day’s end.
©Wendy Mulhern
November 22, 2014
In the sun and wind
In the rain and sun,
Rainbow touched,
touched by inner truth
In the squares of sun and shadow
and windows framing vines and shingles,
In the quiet space between the action
we focus in
Could this tiny frame be a doorway?
Could it take in galaxies and light years?
Can we take off from here to fly infinity?
Could any starting point achieve the same?
In the rain-wet grass
and in a dog’s face
and in the happy glow
of well-contented cats
we witness grace
We will move forth from here
for here is where we are —
Our inner balance and our outward
will inform each other
forging the unity of hearts and stars.
©Wendy Mulhern
October 11, 2014
Dear leaves,
I’ve come to gather you
I’m not concerned about the grass beneath,
I don’t need tidy strips of even green
It’s you I’m here for
I had hesitated
because I love how
when you fall
you carpet swaths of ground with brilliant red
I didn’t want to take the feast away from others
But I know the crew will come
with leaf blowers
and mulching mowers —
You’ll be gone anyway,
They won’t mind my intervention
So I rake you up
and then I gather you with my hands
admiring your prodigious flame
thanking you
for the earth gift
I’ll bring you to bestow
upon my garden.
©Wendy Mulhern
October 6, 2014
This loneliness is proof
that I can’t be allelopathic,
can’t live producing patterns
that keep others at bay
Let me be tangled with vines
Let violets grow around my feet,
Let many eager plants all grow together
and let me be one of them
fitting my growth
to share the sun with many.
©Wendy Mulhern
October 5, 2014
Hope is not dashed —
Though it be cut down,
all green sprigs gone,
its truth remains
persistent as mint
sending runners wide
throughout the underground of thought
In its inevitable time
it will surface
in strength collected
from the soft release
of everything that dies.
Vigorous in fragrant, purpled green
hope will rise.
©Wendy Mulhern
October 3, 2014
Hum of the earth,
web of life —
No need to assert yourself,
no need to fight
against relentless chains
You meld into the strength
of all that holds you —
It will affirm you
without your needing to break anything
It folds you in,
you take your place —
It holds you so true,
all that was false about your life
must fade away
So we return,
so we arrive for the first time,
breathing the ever new
ancient
rhythm of all that is.
©Wendy Mulhern
September 21, 2014
photo by Heather Mulhern