Tag Archives: daily living

Garden Smiles

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Even in my shady and neglected yard
Tulips are starting to smile,
Pink edges showing forth seductive lips
against their otherwise inscrutable green.
I know this feeling —
They won’t be able
to hold their laughs inside much longer:
They will burst out, bright color
suffusing them entirely,
No longer able, or willing
to hide anything —
Letting themselves go
with the sheer joy of spring.

©Wendy Mulhern
April 3, 2013


Things come together

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Things come together
Sometimes it only takes
a few extra hands
to wrestle the springy withes
into place, to get them to
the latching interlocking
where suddenly the boughs
support each other and become
a basket, or a shelter

Sometimes it takes
holding a gaze long enough
that there can be no doubt:
This smile is meant for you
This welcome
recognizes you
Yes, you
with joy
for what you are

Things come together
Efforts of days
Sproutings of far-flung hopes
unfurling daily:
The fruits of your sweet intentions
nourish your soul.

©Wendy Mulhern
April 1, 2013


Going Under

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I close my eyes and watch the scenes that rise
My mind makes stories
for the sounds it hears —
A not-too-terrible retreat
from the bizarre intrusion —
Two heads intently staring down at me
Two pairs of hands with instruments employed
Where they have safely cordoned off
the messy natural functions of my mouth
My tongue sits under rubber,
too numb to do much.

Best to go under —
To watch dancers
And parallax of buildings’ walls
as I approach them
And flowing swirls of river water
Best to relax
into the yes I’m learning to lean in to.
Wake me up when it’s over.

©Wendy Mulhern
March 27, 2013


Spring Signs

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The kindly moon
Riding almost full
Through the shell-pink sky
Presiding over all the arc of night
On leaving, drew a blanket
Over the sleeping earth
To keep her warm till morning

The softness of today
Attests to sweet sleep
The birdsong finds the air gentle
As it lifts its clear tones across the breeze
The bulbs are up, and many trees are greening
Shoulders lift in lightness
At the day’s ease

And in the bustle of the evening
We see each other cheered
By the enduring light
That spreads benevolence across the traffic
Extending hope and welcome towards the night.

©Wendy Mulhern
March 25, 2013


Vignettes from the day

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1.
The nappable sun
on the bench in the park
found me mellow
while boys and their fathers
launched out in a red canoe
fishing gear ready
for bonding and adventure

2.
An elderly lady and I
raced our shopping carts
down the aisle
I pulled back to not collide with others
She laughed and pulled ahead
I squeaked out through my door ahead of her
but her car was closer, so she won.
I kept laughing all the way home.

3.
This coffeehouse is empty
but for us, and the owner
and the western sun
that gleams through the windows
which frame out different sections of the sky.
Day flows into evening,
We pack up and head home
Plum blossoms scent the air —
Sweet delicate spice of Spring.

©Wendy Mulhern
March 25, 2013


Strategies

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I could go off into drift
I could let the sense of disconnect
condense,
fog up my sight with sadness,
close me in,
make me curl up into a small place
to collect the seeping darkness
in my body’s still,
to manufacture tears, perhaps
and soft howls.

I could wait there for you to notice.

It could be a long wait.

And it would start to seem pointless
after just a little while.
Plus if you did see me there,
what would you do?
I would be
one more unpleasant task,
another instance
of the universe’s obstinance
or bland indifference.

Better to laugh.
Better to consider
that none of this was made with me in mind
There certainly was no attempt
to cut me off
And maybe all of this was an illusion anyway —
Emotional hallucination
of an errant tooth.

©Wendy Mulhern
March 17, 2013


Visiting hour, King County Jail

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None of these restraints are what they seem:
Though we may feel the structure is
the walls and doors, the iron and the glass,
the heavy locks,
They only are projections of the barriers inside —
The layers upon layers of revoked permissions
set down since toddlerhood,
And the narrow mazes of propriety
inculcated through all our years of school,
Reared up here as final ultimatum:
Stay in the lines, or you will crash, hard, here.

But none of these structures
are what they seem.
Such a surprise to see the guards,
The sentinels of good-defined-by-evil,
Jealous keepers of prescribed morality
Receiving our sweet, wilting, proffered flowers
and stepping over
to our side.

The power of the truth within,
The still, small voice of liberty
Autopoiesis of each living thing
Must overcome these walls and set us free.
Yes, we will pray.
That’s where we must begin.
Against these odds
it is the only way to win.

©Wendy Mulhern
March 12, 2013


Moments

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I find myself collecting these family times
like sunshine,
basking in the glow of evening lamps
and in the mingling sounds —
music on the radio,
dinner preparation,
the squeaking rocking chair,
and snippets from a laptop —
Drawing warmth from our collective presence.

Knowing it’s as rare
as sun is in Seattle.
calling me to cherish it the same,
Entrancing with the shimmer
of that which is ephemeral,
Gone almost before it can be named.

©Wendy Mulhern
February 25, 2013


White Noise

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The page wasn’t blank from nothingness
But, like white light, white noise,
It was blank from all the disparate pursuits
that sent their separate threads across my mind,
Each tugging in a different direction:

The thread of memories and learnings
from recent days,
The thread of long exertion
sweeping needles off the roof
The thread of hopes and plans
for the not-too-distant future,
And needed tasks to make tomorrow
roll in smooth

Which all resulted
in a cancellation of the crossing waves
And the illusion of an emptiness
that really was a fullness
(and, perhaps, a need for sleep)
that kept my cogent thoughts from forming here.

©Wendy Mulhern
February 24, 2013


Decisions

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In the shifty space
between the invitation
and the leap,
where possibilities, like magnets,
jostle with invisible forces,
jockeying to make the most appropriate alliances,
we wait.

At some point the field will clear,
the dance of alternate attractions
find resolve,
or not,
and we will stand or dive or tumble
into the decision,
carried on swiftly
in the river of time.

©Wendy Mulhern
February 22, 2013