Author Archives: Wendy

Evening in the house

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It’s evening, and the things I’d love to do
line up behind the chores,
which briskly assert
their right to go first,
and some of the other things sigh,
thinking they’ll fade away again
for who knows how long

Still I am grateful,
for the chores, too, and how
I’m well set up to do them,
and maybe one of the other things
will get the happy surprise
of being tended to –
mending, or reading, or writing  –
I’ll sit here by the fire and see what comes
to fill my hands and mind.

©Wendy Mulhern
January 30, 2022

What we are made of

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Joy is our carbon,
what we pull from air,
what we use to grow our essence,
what we use to make home
and sanctuary,
shelter and support
for all that we hold dear

We pull joy from the air
and give off that which blesses
other life, and, too, ourselves

Everything we’ve ever made
we’ve made from joy –
it is our gift, our legacy, our contribution.
Joy’s traces will forever show
where we have lived.

©Wendy Mulhern
January 28, 2022

The underpinnings of existence

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And when I look up from my pages
the evidence is everywhere  –

The psalm of geese
calling and curving
through the foggy frosty morning

The murmur of the fire –
its warming flames
an acclamation of release,
the gratitude to be delivered
into a lighter phase of being

A road into the brightening day,
fog lifting to reveal the opening  –
steps enough to know the way
to place my feet – feet flexing
in anticipation, journey awaiting.

©Wendy Mulhern
January 27, 2022

Rest

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I settle into my sleepiness
like it’s a soft chair
that sends rest up through me,
growing like fast vines
to form a cradling network

There is so much more to do,
but I’ve fallen, gratefully,
into the willingness to let it go another day,
to let the wave of eagerness
catch up to me again
so I can ride it
through the next phase of my work.

©Wendy Mulhern
January 25, 2022

Colors

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The eye can gaze on beauty,
on the dance and glance of color  –
how one settles into another,
how the conversation of contrast
and family membership
can keep one entranced

Well, me in particular  –
I keep delighting in the colors,
how enchantingly they blend
and set each other off,
and catch reflections of each other
in their sheen. They sing to me
as if I had chosen them,
as if I had planned this all out.

©Wendy Mulhern
January 24, 2022

Small green shoot

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I summon words to talk about
the place where words have crashed,
where I abandoned them
(a wing wrenched off, the fuselage burnt out)
and the entire arena (every place constructed
for the words to play)
now proven contrary to natural law

I summon words to hunt for hope,
and notice hope, in fact, springs eager
from the massive failure of what crashed

Everyone is so thirsty
for the sight of that small green shoot
and the taste of the water offered
in the place without words, without judgment,
where everything starts over with the truth.

©Wendy Mulhern
January 22, 2022

Walk Out

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When you find yourself alive
you still have to walk out

Once you’ve seen the overwhelming light
(not blinding, since it comes up
all around you, since it glows
through you and everything you see)

Once you’ve seen the light,
you still have to walk out

You have to go step by step
over the terrain of everything you’ve thought,
everything you’ve walked on
while not noticing its structure

You have to walk out learning
that every dogged step
can be reframed,
must be reformed,
must be transmuted by the light you glimpsed
first once, but then again
in every step that pulls light from the ground,
that grounds you in the solidness of being,
that makes real for you
the holy ground that bears you up

The light is there for you,
and still the journey’s yours  –
you are alive and so
you have to walk out.

©Wendy Mulhern
January 20, 2022

Packing

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Jewelry, small containers,
knick-knackeroo  –
we’re getting down to the small stuff
and we’re so far from through

I wonder, will we ever
open this  box again?
Will we ever want to use these things,
and if so, when?

These tracks, the leavings
of the course of our lives  –
perhaps that’s all they are
and we could leave them behind
like footsteps in the sand
to simply disappear –
Why should it matter what becomes of them,
why give them all this care?
And yet I keep on packing up the boxes

And I think: if I don’t free myself
then something else will –
this is something that I know for sure is true,
but this picture of my daughter in the frame she made –
that’s coming with us,
and this other stuff will, too.

©Wendy Mulhern
January 18, 2022