Tag Archives: house

Framing the Barn

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It was a good day’s work,
however many times I had to recut the boards –
Recut, remeasure, try to find the place
where my precision slipped. Eventually,
I got them all done. Well, all but one,
which was persistently too short

It was a good day’s work
because I could contribute –
things I could do helped us get through
to the almost where we hoped for
place we ended up

We were a team, and we will be
an even better team tomorrow.
That, as much as structure,
is what we build each day.

©Wendy Mulhern
October 9, 2020

Best Served

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The dream of finished work
is dangerous. I start imagining
how it would feel
to wash my dishes in a sink,
to take a bath,
to walk on clean smooth floors
with bare feet, to see the brightness
and the color in the walls

Better to step back and be glad
that on a rare cool summer day
I already can bake,
and light a fire,
and watch the mist
from a dry place inside

Everything will come in time,
and I’m best served
by living in the glory of today,
by giving what is asked of me
and counting that for joy.

©Wendy Mulhern
August 6, 2020

Sharing

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I haven’t yet lived in a house
that birds want to fly into –
this one, being unfinished,
seems to offer enticements,
all these rafters, all these open spaces,
and the wind that makes itself at home here

These structures we make for ourselves
are not unnoticed by others –
they move in, they make a place for themselves,
as has always been intended
through all the time of living –
we make room for each other,
we share the land.

Going Home

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Long we have imagined being done
(not even comprehensively, but with a phase)
Long we have imagined going home.
But there’s a truth about the process
we didn’t know to picture —
how we don’t go back the way we’ve come

We have been honed, we have been humbled,
and the things we’ve learned
are more about perspective points than anything —
not that we know more things
but that our lenses
have somehow shifted everything we see

And being done — I now don’t know
what that would look like,
and going home — I’m not sure
where that is,
but in the learning and the leaning
I can say
I’m more myself than I have ever been.

©Wendy Mulhern
November 4, 2019

Us in the morning

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You: What are you thinking about?
Me: Same thing I always —
You: Oh, God …
Me: That’s exactly right
You: And me, I’m thinking about
what I always think about, too …
(a pause, we snuggle in)
…the house — how to build it,
what to do next

The wonder of it is
that we can come together,
or almost — good enough
to keep the project going
day after week after year.

©Wendy Mulhern
October 17, 2019

The Work Progresses

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Subtly, the palette changes —
bracken ferns to brown,
grasses back to green,
gold and orange along the river,
water vapor’s silver sheen

We raced the rain
all day yesterday
while the sun slowly made room
for more and more clouds
and the cat hunted happy in the field
and the needed tasks got done

And this morning,
rain holding off for just a while,
you added final touches
so now we can look up
and see the colors
and watch the rain.

©Wendy Mulhern
October 16, 2019

Building

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We go each day to the house
to see how we will be built,
what skills and insight, what endurance
will arise in us to meet the day’s demands

For we do not come static
to any task, nor do we come
with a collected stash of virtue
to test ourselves against what is required

We come to grow, we come to change,
we come to learn,
we come to be made new,
to be transformed,
and more than what we make
with wood and nails and stone,
this will be our building,
this will be our home.

©Wendy Mulhern
September 24, 2019

Circuitous

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Well, a straight path
to any goal
is either an illusion,
or the path and goal
were made by someone else,
and so the goal itself
is really not a goal

We must be kind
both to ourselves and anyone who’s striving —
no one arrives without
what could be seen as setbacks —
there probably was really not
a better way to go,
and where we went
(and where they went)
is also probably
not what it looks like
to anyone observing from outside

That’s what I tell myself
about our roof —
so many storms, so many leaks,
so many temporary measures
which made their own troubles,
until we finally — let’s hope it’s sometime soon —
arrive at where our house is safe and dry.

©Wendy Mulhern
September 23, 2019

Between the rains

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The rain has given us a break —
we work in silence,
finding it more harmonious
than the questions and projections
that would otherwise fill up the space

No need to annoy each other,
no need to talk about the things we cannot know.
After the window closes,
we’ll do the next thing that makes sense,
taking in the necessary factors
that will reveal themselves by then.

©Wendy Mulhern
September 16, 2019