The Daily Choice

daily choice2

In the riddle there are two knights —
One can only lie, and the other
only tell the truth,
In the riddle you don’t know
which is which
but in real life, you do

So stop conversing with the lying knight!
He won’t, at any given time,
decide to guide you right.
He’ll keep you rammed against the same brick wall
facing disappointment, facing blight

In the daily choice for joy or misery,
the misery will tell you you don’t care,
that nothing matters much, and death comes anyway
and nothing is worth trying hard for here

But joy waits too, in every moment
steadily affirming life’s sweet worth —
If you don’t want it for yourself,
choose it for others —
It will rescue you and bless the earth.

©Wendy Mulhern
November 4, 2014

Chautauqua, Boulder

Boulder leaves

The temperature shifts quickly with the wind
which now blows dry leaves,
in soft, autumn-scented rustling,
down the street

The leaves that haven’t fallen
soak sun, silent and supple,
butter-smooth against
the china sky

And in between the times
when the industrious homeowner
wields his leaf blower,
It’s quiet, and I hear crickets

When the sun goes down
behind the Flatirons
I’ll seek warmth inside,
Settle, like nestled leaves,
into the evening.

©Wendy Mulhern
October 29, 2014

Tired

grass sidewalk1

My mind slumps into silence
numbed by my body’s buzz,
the sluggish rumble following
a day’s hard labor. Thoughts
with lives like sparks
rise and dissipate, their continuity
too fleeting to record. My body
reiterates its day’s movements
much as a dog’s feet twitch in sleep

It’s time for quiet. Time for all that
chatter of the flesh
to cease. Time for sensation
to stretch and decompress
and drift towards dream.

©Wendy Mulhern
October 26, 2014

Slow Morning

sun squares1

Pale sun streams in
creating its geometry
on walls and floors,
revealing the certainties
and latent possibilities
contained in windows, corners, doors

What may the day hold?
Bird shadow flits across
the window’s sun patch,
Outside, the white pine
rustles slightly

Quiet cycles intersect —
they move along their courses,
most unseen,
Caught in small glimpses
as the sky flirts with drizzle and sun
and I, likewise,
in efforts to work and in reverie,
shift between silver and gray.

©Wendy Mulhern
October 24, 2014

Evening Scene

evening tree

Crows going home
rise like loosed leaves
between the trees,
lifted as if blown
taking a free ride on the elements,
moving together in clan familiarity

Jovial caws speaking of evening
interrupt the reverie
from time to time,
counteract the sense
of wind being the only force
now that the last sun kiss
has left the sky.

©Wendy Mulhern
October 19, 2014

crow

Night in

Articulated Tsunami On Base

There is a time of launching
and a time of waiting . . .
There’s a rhythm here
I need to learn to master

Quiet music and a night in
with the two men of my household
(one reading, one dozing)
may help me ease into release,
the resting, falling segment
of the cycle,
the homeward downhill coast
which takes the gathered energy
and forms it deftly
into what its hopes directed it to be

So I can wait for it,
the effort done,
for gravity will take my work
and bring it home.

©Wendy Mulhern
October 17, 2014

Picture: Articulated Tsunami Vessel on base, by Jennifer McCurdy. Photo by Gary Mirando

At Matthew’s Beach

lifeguard seat

The day, already splendid,
increased its level of benevolence
with the braided glow
of rippled sun reflections
patterned by gulls and geese
in intersecting circles
and in looping Vs

And with a toddler’s foreign language,
the newness of his speech
the only thing that I could understand

And with the ease of afternoon
that spilled into the evening —
mid-October
and still not cold.

©Wendy Mulhern
October 16, 2014

Today

meadow fence1

Today I walk
in the happiness that arises
from matter-of-fact acts,
the simple rhythm of daily rounds,
the deft precision
of casual mastery
of tasks performed without a thought
countless times across the years

Today I choose country tunes
to croon me through
this time of preparation
while the sun comes in the window
freshened from its morning wrapped in clouds
and may glint upon the unassuming moves
of boughs and beetles
and the chirping flit of squirrels and birds
and the quiet release of seeds
when they are ready
for their long, sleep-softened passage
into new life.

©Wendy Mulhern
October 9, 2014

Raking Leaves by the School

leaves

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

Tangle Me

tangle2

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