In this fluid shift near the balance
of night and day,
the contrasts move past each other
in intricate dances –
fog licks in wisps around the drier air,
warmth blazes through the cool,
cool wafts through warmth
All the scents of change rise up,
morning sun and shadows interlace their fingers,
grass gleams with dew,
new green shoots amid
summer’s darkening brown.
Joy rises unbidden as the dawn,
sense of adventure
sweetening the day.
©Wendy Mulhern
October 6, 2023
Summer yields abundance –
the daily vegetables,
the daily herbs,
the daily use of them
The wide swing of the day before me,
the wind that bends these trees,
day after day,
and cools the house
The slow build now
of what will yield later –
in shade, in fruit,
in magnanimity
All these things breathe
as one, they join hands
in their common purpose,
they knit together to show us all
how we can do it,
how we are one.
©Wendy Mulhern
July 28, 2023
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
I learn these things in tiny steps,
yet suddenly it seems,
after so much effort falling short,
things in my life are starting to come green
Shortcuts I took that lost the vital nuance,
the gaps that books’ advice would not fill in,
structures that I needed to acquire
in order to successfully begin …
This lack is slowly being overcome
by working long enough to start to see,
by putting in the steady, faithful, time
and learning how things grow and what they need,
by twining my own life in with this place –
leaf, tree, and vine, and daily grace.
©Wendy Mulhern
July 3, 2023
At the end of a day of
working like a farmer
(though a farmer would say
I don’t know the least of it)
I wait for my strength to return –
flow back along the watershed
to the pool of my presence,
gradually fill up
and become limpid,
ready for me to drink
deeply once again.
©Wendy Mulhern
May 31, 2023
Not an emotion, this sorrow
is structural, comb drawn out
in my heart, white etchings
a bare start, arrested
before they could take form,
long before they could hold anything
These hopes, like queenless bees,
huddle in small patches
as the memory of why and where
disperses
But a stronger structure,
as yet unnamed, is taking form –
I wait to see what it will support,
what it may contain.
©Wendy Mulhern
May 21, 2023
I drift into afternoon,
high on the scent of bees,
frayed hope bannering in north wind,
waiting,
Filled with aromas, intelligence
being the one most strong, most enticing flavor –
so many different forms of it
melding together,
Summer is on my eyelids,
and the weight of it, collosal and sweet,
I can feel in my chest’s rising,
rising and release
I will understand my life sometime,
all the glory of it,
the colors and textures,
all that weaves and interlocks,
bee mind, and mine.
©Wendy Mulhern
May 20, 2023
My arms hold the memory
of taking big clumps of turf by the hair,
beating them against the ground or each other,
grains of dirt flying up
My eyes hold the memory
of thick webs of roots, intricate when exposed,
after I’ve beaten the dirt off
My mind takes these images,
matches them with things in my life,
tenacity, stories, things people try to explain,
it matches them up and drops them
like clumps of sod,
to be considered later.
©Wendy Mulhern
May 5, 2023
Tucked between the spans of rain
and the subtle give of spring,
where morning’s chill yields sooner
and evening’s chill comes later,
I find I can imagine ease,
where needed tasks make room for each other,
and we can grow abundance,
and manage it,
and bring the blessings in
and share them fully –
seeds can bring forth a hundredfold,
and as we learn their rhythms,
maybe we can, too.
©Wendy Mulhern
April 5, 2023
We walk the fields together,
and many tasks could dog us –
dropped projects, ones we haven’t even started,
things that once were done
but now must be maintained
We see the green
that sprang up after snow,
we see the slope of ground,
the rise of trees
There is a way to look at all of this,
that we may master
as we practice with ourselves and with each other,
there may be
a way to harmonize all this
and see the springing grace inherent here.
©Wendy Mulhern
March 28, 2023