The lush green
from so many weeks of rain
pushes at the windows,
invites a quiet escape
from the room of classical music
and the old man dozing and rocking
and too much heat
To where everything is too long
for the well-groomed yard,
too wild for easy tending,
and birds and engines vie for prominence
in the suburban soundscape
and I haven’t really escaped anything
by stepping outside.
©Wendy Mulhern
May 18, 2017
My mind is full of open spaces
from the day, from being out in it,
from garden work, its loamy satisfaction
The raspberries and I
were rough with each other —
I shoved their cane tops into the ground,
they marked my arms with scratches.
We ended with them backbending neatly,
lateral buds poised to grow and fruit
The crows are nesting,
the air is kind
and the evening is stretching out long,
promising excitement for those who seek it,
and sweet dreams for the likes of me.
©Wendy Mulhern
March 31, 2017
Smell it first.
The unmistakeable scent of plum
rises from its smooth surface.
Feel its taut firmness
against your lips
Suck as you bite —
the juicy sweetness
flows into your mouth,
followed immediately
by a complex tang from the skin
It’s only a few bites.
The pulp around the pit
is brightly sour.
The tang of the skin lasts longest,
curling toward the back of your tongue
long after the fruit is gone.
©Wendy Mulhern
July 1, 2016
I love the way our yard is now
with the kiwi vine pushing through the artichoke,
heading up the cherry tree,
with the honeysuckle in full bloom
(rhodies now spent)
and the chickadees flitting back and forth
to their vociferous young
I am happy with the lush greenness
of all the weeds, and the upward insistence
of herbs gone to seed
and the young trees offering young fruits,
feeding us now with hope
I recognize it will be daunting
when we need to bring it all in line,
a task I’ll face next year, perhaps —
for now, for me, it’s fine.
©Wendy Mulhern
May 27, 2016
Everything bends to our desires —
trees grow plump fruit
because we ask them to,
leaves yield up
what they know we need
This is true for everything
that walks or flies or swims
in this world —
they are all celebrated
And the plants appreciate
the mobility and immortality
we so easily grant them in return,
spreading their seed.
©Wendy Mulhern
February 18, 2016
It’s not quite time
to settle
into the coziness of darker days,
the smell of inside heat
while winds blow outside
and the sun comes just
in scattered, rapid glances,
and rain spatters
and there is no guilt
in staying inside all day
Now the squash have played their hands —
some will roll in flush and full to harvest,
some are banking on a longer season,
their fruits now small and hopeful and daring
And the heart race
of this span of opportunity
pulls me forward —
right to the edge of what I can know,
right to the hungering yearning urge
to keep leaping, one bound after another,
into open space.
©Wendy Mulhern
September 15, 2015
Go easy with the plans.
Grand plans can crash
through the fragile screens
of our connections, the web
with which we anchor our experience.
They can crash through
the wispy wefts of imagination,
the ones we use to build our vision
There is a place to plan big,
but then we must come quickly down,
for seedlings have different needs
from saplings, which have different
roles from trees,
and fruition requires
many conditions
to come about
You can imagine an orchard and a harvest
in an instant
but how to make it grow
robust through all its stages,
through the years —
more than big plans,
that is what we need.
©Wendy Mulhern
August 9, 2015
Picking raspberries, I consider
that writing poems is just like this sometimes —
There’s sight involved, but picking
comes down to touch most often —
a gentle grasp that doesn’t bruise the berries,
just firm enough to pull them off,
and knowing to desist if they resist too much,
to wait another day until they ripen
I stoop down to peer beneath the leaves
and spot the hanging red,
then my hand goes in almost blind
to feel if it is ready and to pick it if it is.
Some berries fall apart in my hand,
some years, some are mushy
(but not this crop)
We’ll tend them well to keep them plump
With poems I do the same thing,
with the initial spark, with words,
with images —
I move focused along the canes
and fill my basket.
©Wendy Mulhern
June 15, 2015
Today my pleasure was
weeds and a shovel,
and a job that required
that I keep on working
long past my usual
sense of endurance,
past being tired,
past making choices —
at the command
of the process at hand,
focus and repetition,
into the place of
not thinking anything
I have certainly earned
the rise and fall of my breathing,
the languor of abandon,
this feeling of being stretched out
like long winter grass
pressing into the earth.
©Wendy Mulhern
June 4, 2015
photo by Edward Mulhern