Tag Archives: weather

In front of the fire

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This will not be lost
(phrases snatched
like images from dreams,
nothing predetermined
nor tallied, after the fact)

This doesn’t need to be a riddle –
it can be the sweet way you find yourself
after a full day – weathered,
suffused with heat,
dry after the day’s cold wind,
feeling the strong contrast of the indoors,
thin but solid shell against the roving night

You find yourself within,
at peace, clean, ready for sleep,
willing to let fears and worries go,
learning to trust what holds you safe.

©Wendy Mulhern
January 23, 2023

Light Show

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Now it’s evening. The light show is over,
its last act, some pinkness in the clouds …

The light has gone to gray,
the gold is gone –
though dark has touched down many times today,
this time the rain will not blow through
with sun fast on its heels,
brightening the rain drops,
nestling shimmering clouds among the hills

Now the clouds have tucked themselves in,
pulling darkness over their heads,
letting the last light slip away
into the west.

©Wendy Mulhern
November 28, 2022

A touch of melancholy

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And yes – could be my tears
are self indulgent  –
they haven’t risen, anyway,
but hover somewhat below the surface,
a slightly troubled pool
like the puddles were this morning,
with just a little rain

Rain and sun have beat
through the day,
rainbows have refereed,
raindrops have glittered,
falling against the blue sky,
winds have whipped around

And also there’s been stillness,
those moments met with something
a little less than spirited within me,
to pass without analysis or comment
like twilight into night.

©Wendy Mulhern
February 3, 2021

These Clouds

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These clouds that silently appeared
along the western ridge,
that quietly amassed
until they owned the sky,
at least the half of it
where the sun had been

These clouds that signify a turn,
prospect of rain, a wrinkle in our plans,
still paused to let the late sun through
and let themselves be cast in blue

And my desire
is for the same kind of peace
to rule my day –
whatever comes in later still offering
the same generous expanse
of presence and acceptance
and release. 

©Wendy Mulhern
December 5, 2020

Late November, 3:30 pm

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An hour until sunset,
and the fog returns,
swallowing the hills again,
and then the trees,
just like this morning
before the few hours around noon
when the sky revealed itself
the very definition of blue
and the sun coaxed the temperature
a few degrees above freezing

The fog closes our landscape in,
leaving us here among the rafters
failing to hold up the sky
as darkness falls.

©Wendy Mulhern
November 21, 2020

Weathered

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The cold sun has weathered me today,
leaving me attracted to fire,
to radiant warmth,
though it washes me
in sandstone red, muting
my thoughts and feelings,
wearing down my words

Sleep will be easy
as the outside cold
sucks the heat out of the cabin
once the fire is gone.
We will stay warm wrapped in blankets
and dream on through the darkness
to the cold dawn.

©Wendy Mulhern
November 8, 2020

Working in November

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That we can work together
through rain,
that we can be cheerful
as puddles form
and gloves get wet
gives me a chortle,
a bright warming,
an inner heat source
to counteract my dampened clothes

We kept on working
while the rain came harder,
and then it stopped, and we continued,
the appreciation that we had
each for the other
as strong a structure as the frame we built.

©Wendy Mulhern
November 3, 2020

Cold Night

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I thought I saw a little cat
sleeping in the end grain of the wood,
glinting orange as coals,
a little gray around the edges,
but my camera couldn’t catch it,
focusing instead
on the licking lights

And then the image faded from the wood face
and the warmth that filled the room
during the roaring of the fire
kept getting sucked out
to the coldness of the night.

©Wendy Mulhern
October 25, 2020

Bright and Dark

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Our days are marked
by bright and dark,
just like this weather
that blows through repeatedly,
tipping the trees and pummeling the ground,
then giving way to steamy sunshine
through which the fox trots alert
and turkeys roam in gaggles

I seek to be as unmoved as the landscape
when the rain and sun rolls through,
I seek to feel the shine of bright and dark
all the way to my core.

©Wendy Mulhern
May 21, 2020

May Rains

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This is the kind of day the land needs,
drinking the rain, soothed and eager,
catching a different kind of breath
when the rain stops, and sun catches
the bright raindrops on leaves and flowers

As for us, we try to do our outside tasks
between the showers, sometimes successful,
sometimes caught, while our dirt road
swims with red-brown rivulets,
and plants flatten for a moment, till the next,
when we can almost see them growing.

©Wendy Mulhern
May 14, 2020