Evening light washes through the house,
most of its heat relieved by wind,
but apparently still able to zap me
with the memory of noonday sun,
the sweat and the burrs of the work with wood,
and how I wanted to sleep, after
So we will take a small rest,
wait for the sun to go behind the hill,
and then prepare for our day’s final task –
to heft the crusty dusty logs again.
©Wendy Mulhern
July 23, 2023
Let my prayer help still
raging wildfires of the mind,
rising climate of despair,
panic of trappedness
Let us turn to find the fruits
ripening steadily in Spirit,
long hidden by the workings
of frantic misdirection,
and from these moments, harvest courage,
wisdom, kindness, clarity –
use them to feed ourselves
and heal the world.
©Wendy Mulhern
August 14, 2021i
I kept following the water
down the braiding of waves, of sand,
pursuing the ebb lines
where the incoming waves were faint,
but watching for the buildup
where two or three would join
and I would run from them
up the beach, letting them catch me,
but not by much,
holding my skirts (mostly)
out of their reach
The children on the beach
jumped and ran
with the energy of the waves,
the same quick action,
the same total engagement
We filled up with their joy
and their abandon, and the steady
but ever changing
motion of the sea,
soothing us, bringing us,
though through shifting sands,
to firmer ground .
©Wendy Mulhern
August 12, 2021i
Come find me –
I’m stuck in this heat
like a fly in honey,
too sticky to move,
to trapped to sleep
Come find me,
move like melting ice,
like flowing water,
remind me why I’m here
and what I live for
Be my Mind, my Spirit,
be my breath, my cool,
soak me as with rain,
and give the land and trees
their needed drink, too.
©Wendy Mulhern
August 3, 2021
In the early perfection of the morning,
deep breathing while still half bound in sleep,
I felt the wakening hand
of what moves everything,
the easy all encompassing of harmony,
the power of waterfalls
and teeming life
And I felt that, if I had to face
the dragon’s breath again,
I would know what to say,
or not say, I would have the softening
that we brought back from the ocean –
soothing of clouds and waves,
comfort of heads resting on shoulders –
enough to dissipate what had threatened
to swallow us before.
©Wendy Mulhern
June 29, 2021
Morning, after a night
mostly too warm for blankets,
I’m banking up on cool,
wearing my long, light, sleeveless dress,
watching the hazy fingers of sun
reach across the shadows
Turkey families with their
thirst quenching chirps
trot up crosswise to the sun,
dogs bark beyond the fields
The day will steam and bustle
and then bake, the trees will rustle
in the hot winds. We will find a way
to drape ourselves through it
until the coolness
on the other side.
©Wendy Mulhern
August 16, 2020
Light answers light —
the brightness multiplies
Heat is not the same:
heat flows towards cold —
the same desire perhaps
but different mode
Heat spreads its blanket out
towards all who seek it,
cooling down with distance,
still too generous to hoard
We make heat inside —
we make it from our substance,
from our thoughts.
We feel and feed the small fire
that warms like coals
somewhere behind our hearts
So we come to know
the essence of this gift,
the little inner furnace
by which we recognize the sun.
©Wendy Mulhern
March 3, 2015
photo by Eric Mulhern