On the Lord’s Day
(after church)
apparently
it is the custom to go out
and shoot at things —
we hear the sharp report
across the hills
It must fit in
to the same leisure
of wind chimes
and great trees waving graceful limbs,
it must be part
of insect hum
and the bright chatter
of extended family visits.
We may get used to it at length,
this signature sound
of Sunday afternoons.
©Wendy Mulhern
August 5, 2018
Today I am grateful
for small mellowings,
a little less edge to the heat,
a welling of happiness
softening the ragged edge of torment,
a day to be less driven from within,
to enjoy putterings
and how the moments knit themselves together
constantly, in wind rustles
and insect buzzing
and the contented chirping
of a few small birds
living, as always, for joy,
joying, as always, in life.
©Wendy Mulhern
July 28, 2018
Any of these floors
can drop away —
no one is more solid
than any others.
The graceful thing appears to be to fall
rather than casting about
for a better place to stand
In fact this knowing
of where I may fall through
may be a blessing —
sometimes the free fall
is the best way to remember
the depth of being.
©Wendy Mulhern
July 10, 2018
It isn’t that I’ve lost the will to live,
it’s just that I’m so tired
of how I keep on running back
to the same old holes,
empty though they’ve always been —
keep on anticipating
that my thirst will finally be quenched
What does it take
to not be left again along the bank —
to ride the flow all the way down
to where I lose those habits
of seeking where there’s nothing
and missing the deep healing of the day?
©Wendy Mulhern
May 24, 2018
I learn the nature of myself
by what floats
and what sinks,
what opens up a grand expansiveness,
what traps me, lost, within its maze
I let each feeling have its say —
some leave me helpless,
some make me strong,
some will remain and some will pass away,
some are empowering,
none are wrong
I won’t direct the process
but I will be sifted,
I will not save myself
but I will still be lifted,
I’ll let the truth distill
the deeper gifts,
that shine the will to live,
that fill my life.
©Wendy Mulhern
May 22, 2018
I walk these steps as if they were floes,
shifting under me like something
that sits on liquid —
I am surprised I don’t feel more jostled
Something steadies me. Something like
light projecting my image over this surface,
so I’m never really needing
to catch my balance
Where I am exactly
is not clear to me, nor am I sure
of where I’ve ever been.
But it feels right to be here
and to keep walking.
©Wendy Mulhern
May 19, 2018
The day has stretched out long,
we have worked, we have prayed,
we have been busy, and also listless.
The sun is still splendid,
low through backyard trees
as the clock rolls past seven.
We will eat, we will cry,
we will clean up. A day
between the days,
a day with no name.
©Wendy Mulhern
May 11, 2018
Alone, I find myself drifting
in some odd space between hunger and tears.
The day is benign, and everything is breathing —
Clearly, it all knows that breath is gratitude,
and that it’s enough to fully engage with it,
taking in and releasing
in the dance of mutual blessing
It almost seems I could join with it.
It almost seems like something I could never leave,
something I have never left.
©Wendy Mulhern
May 7, 2018
In this time of shadows,
how shall we measure progress?
the competing accounts
of cause and effect
point to different courses,
different outcomes. And the lack
of referents obscures the sense
of if we’re even moving
and whether winds are stronger
or the currents
So we do what we do
in this moment, what seems right,
and we wait, without being able
to say what we’re waiting for,
only knowing
that when we know, we’ll know.
©Wendy Mulhern
March 27, 2018
The sun, in its soft patina,
is almost balmy, deflating the last
dirty pockets of snow.
We have shored up the larder, ready
for yet another snow dump,
another Nor’easter
It may be equinox
but these things are not divided equally.
As always, we ride along close to the ground,
feeling every bump of the season,
not seeing the longer view,
not really minding, either.
©Wendy Mulhern
March 20, 2018