Fire’s heat
has filled the stones,
lulled our bones,
defended and defined our home
The rain has likewise
owned the outside,
sending its grey waves
across the hills,
softening the earth,
raising the green
Now night has fallen
upon us all,
and we’ll range
through concentric circles
of every here we may remember
or imagine.
©Wendy Mulhern
October 10, 2023
Evening comes. Red disk
sinks behind an invisible hill,
showing its trees’ silhouettes.
Smoke sits between us and them,
flattening and fading the landscape
I seek refuge in humility,
so I can feel the lift
of the Mind that breathes all things,
the Life that lights awakening,
that leads to where we all forgive
and are forgiven,
and so relearn the way
to reestablish heaven.
©Wendy Mulhern
August 20, 2023
What is true about this day –
smoke filled, a sullen oven,
suffocating yellows, wan sun
still punishing?
What is true? – the conflicts
and the inner raging? A sinking sense
of falling down in flame, face of futility,
large numbers of enumerated fears?
Or is it the intelligence I see standing
in the stands of trees surrounding our abode?
And every living thing, which,
with its being, affirms the present mindfulness? – And so remains alert,
and can’t be swept up
in mindless conflagrations
In this awareness, I briefly glimpse
the basis of true fearlessness –
Love which is Mind
holding every mote in place,
intelligently placed
to form the priceless whole.
©Wendy Mulhern
August 14, 2023
Wind blows smoke up the valley –
rain will take it down,
rain will take it down
This day pristine and lovely –
sullied by slag,
sullied by fire
The promises of spring –
trees leafing out,
luminous green,
the clear sky and the sun,
still here but now hooded
The wind comes from the south –
they say it will bring rain –
it may take spring back a notch
but clear the sky again.
©Wendy Mulhern
April 29, 2023
We stretch out nodding off
before the fire’s dry lullaby,
our toes up close
The cold wind that blew all day
keeps trying to snatch the heat
from the house
And the smiling setting crescent moon
casts its pale light
through the window
We have ways to keep warm
and ways to keep busy,
one of them being
to tuck ourselves in till tomorrow.
©Wendy Mulhern
February 24, 2023
The maple burns clean.
We, too, can catch each other up
in fervency, can find the
eager smooth burn
that speaks of long lives
lived with whatever grace we can find
through the turns of time and season,
growing solid and weathered
under the sky.
©Wendy Mulhern
October 16, 2022
I looked for a way
to kindle a small fire,
I sought to nudge the glimmering coals
close enough together
to keep each other warm
so that between them
a flame would dance again
Here, too, I seek the dancing flame,
a thing shared,
enough proximity
that we’re reminded
we share this hope
and when we see it in each other
it will rise.
©Wendy Mulhern
March 14, 2022
I lay by the fire
absorbing warmth like a coal,
and even marinating
in all kinds of sorrow
the cracks of light glowed through me
just like embers
attesting to what I am made of
and what will sustain me
through this and every passage
to the dawn.
©Wendy Mulhern
December 5, 2021
The sun and wind rest on my skin
like absolution,
the memory of fear of fire receding,
and in the place of what has burned away,
I’m walking in this newly minted freedom
Beyond all words for this, the sense
that passing through
is worth whatever’s lost, and all it cost me,
and here the holiness of being born anew
completely has outshone what I had called me
There is no going back,
for nothing past remains –
my feet step, awed,
on new terrain.
©Wendy Mulhern
August 27, 2021
This evening features
the soft conversation
between the stove and the roof,
their metals interacting respectively
with fire and rain,
a series of clicks and taps
I was thinking this morning
how little is random,
how hard it is, for instance,
to generate random numbers –
in this case the sounds
are not random either,
though they defy prediction
as they lead me, pitter pattering,
towards sleep.
©Wendy Mulhern
March 14, 2021