Tag Archives: daily living

Mooning

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morning window

A handful of families
had come to see the blood moon,
standing around outside their cars
(like us)(children hopping around
and talking loudly)
And there it hovered
just above the trees,
just around its maximum shadow —
a smudge, a smile, a whisper

But every day has something singular —
a dance of clouds, a curve of leaves —
and every night holds out the opportunity
for moon, for stars, whatever brightness
the city’s glow may let come through.
Many people raved over this one
on the internet.
We got back in our car
and drove home.

©Wendy Mulhern
September 28, 2015

Well Drillers

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Well drillers

I recognize the goodness
of your sturdy strength
and your willingness
to get completely dirty
and to muscle the heavy equipment
into the ground,
your endurance
and your experience
and the way you signal to each other
above the motor’s din and through your earplugs
and you both know
what you need to do

The joy in this shows through
like the brightness of your eyes
in mud-spattered faces,
and how you hold yourselves
after the heat of the day
and the hours of work,
fortified instead of slumped by labor.

©Wendy Mulhern
September 11, 2015

Building

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big fir

“You almost always plant
for people coming after you,” he said.
“The trees we now enjoy
were planted here by others,
Your vision will be seen, perhaps,
in thirty years (except for fruit trees —
they may bear in two or three)”

The things we’re building now
will be loved by others,
and maybe that’s the reason —
Maybe when that impetus is gone
and what is left is just the search
for what to do today —
what entertainment, what exotic play —
we find our colors cooling,
and the urge to live
to gradually begin to fade away

But as long as we’re impelled
to keep on building,
we’ll be living in the timelessness of love,
blessed by others who have built before us,
blessed by what we give to future years.

©Wendy Mulhern
September 6, 2015

Settling Accounts

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sky clearing2

Well, in fact,
it’s not possible to waste a day
but if it were,
it might be like this:
too caught up in chores to notice
how blue the sky was, how crisp the air,
how clear the sun . . .

Since it’s not possible to waste a day,
I’ll cash in the recollection of my moments,
I’ll pull something up from within
that wasn’t even there
(at least, not that I’d noticed)

I’ll remember
the attentiveness and power
invoked by driving
a borrowed stick shift car,
and the sweet search for humbleness
that followed a rejection,
and the glimpse — twice —
that acknowledging the hold on each identity
of the one sovereign, infinite Mind
makes a difference in the thoughts and actions
of individuals and the collective,
and it’s something I can do
today, right now.

©Wendy Mulhern
August 25, 2015

Prosaic

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sky clearing

There’s still some value
in these prosaic days,
full of tasks and timelines
and hanging suspended
between past and future

There’s still time here
for the gathering
of news from friends —
children’s accomplishments,
parental worries put to bed

There’s space to rest,
if only for a moment,
in the feeling of having done well,
or at least well enough
to roll over into the next day.

©Wendy Mulhern
August 24, 2015

Reset

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reset

I have my reasons
but they are no reason,
I have this judgment
but it’s not mine,
I need a reset,
a way of seeing
to put my thought scape back in line

There is no purpose
for poison pockets,
no-trespass sections
within my mind,
no animosity
has any value —
it would just keep me
from being kind

And someone with a life that looks to me
like they have tied themselves in knots,
closed others off,
needs, just as much as me,
a gentle touch
to reach beneath the snarl,
to wake us up.

©Wendy Mulhern
August 16, 2015

Parade

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cloud

In certain moments we can sit and look
at floes that float down rivers,
clouds that ride in great flotillas
across the sky,
lives that roll
down the slope of time,
accelerating in the weight
of all they have accumulated,
bringing the past with them,
slowly melting in the heat
of the present

What is actively alive here?
And what has settled
for the insulation of memories,
referencing states of being
which themselves, perhaps,
were all caught up
in the glamour and swirl
of confections of stories?

Is this a picture
of how we all go,
or is each of us, in our true selves,
something else entirely,
bemused by the illusion of us
in which we sometimes see ourselves
and which it sometimes seems that others see?

©Wendy Mulhern
August 13, 2015

Partly Cloudy

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front door2

I feel a little like this day —
partly cloudy, beautiful at times,
finding myself wishing
less for sun than rain

There is, as often, the scent of tears
that won’t quite precipitate,
a subtle suspension
that holds me from the lusty
and definitive bounce
into the fullest stride of life

Nothing to howl for —
All is in order —
This sense of dispersal
will, in time, resolve,
and I will leap and laugh
like sparkling sun, like rain.

©Wendy Mulhern
August 10, 2015

Divisions

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richmond driftwood2

Some of these lines
were drawn a long time ago
and which side you were on —
bumbling, refined,
golden-crowned, pariah,
may or may not still hold sway
within your mind

I’ve been surprised at times
to see how little difference
they have made
along the longitude of lives —
ways I’ve shined anyway
(despite predictions),
ways I’ve failed to thrive
(despite achievements)

Some of these lines
are drawn daily
in the shifting sands of internet
and in our thoughts —
benighted or enlightened,
savvy or snookered, blessed or damned

They could criss-cross us
into tiny boxes,
or perhaps we’ll see
there are so many that they cancel out
and we’re just standing,
feeling alone but really
right next to each other
on the ever-tousled but resilient shore.

©Wendy Mulhern
August 3, 2015