Wind blows leaves silver,
rain silvers windows,
silvered flute tones
riff among the horns and strings
on the radio
I seek something similar,
silvern, shimmering,
slick as bright fish
darting flashing in my
rippling waters within,
a prize worth keeping,
worth keeping my streams
pure for.
©Wendy Mulhern
June 15, 2017
Come out into the green —
there is life here, in the leaves
and under them,
there is fresh air,
there are myriad surprises
Come where you are free
of all the tyrant screens
that seek to program us,
to sell and drive us
There’s something unsurpassed
in knowing without media,
communing — just you —
with other life forms
If it is left unphotoed, unrecorded,
it will keep on touching you —
the haunting song of your connection
reaching deep — deeper than anything
anyone ever told you.
©Wendy Mulhern
May 31, 2017
The tiny spiders
have left their tent.
They stayed there for several days,
making short forays
into the broader world
It’s said they’re born
knowing how to spin,
with the geometry
of their own span and cubit
expressed in perfect webs
that match their size
When I consider
the range and scale of life,
it strikes me as impossible
that things so small
can be so intricate
Yet it is so,
and maybe I’d do well
to step back from the snobbery of size
and seek to learn
from anything that teaches.
©Wendy Mulhern
May 27, 2017
Sun sets painterly,
hawthorns converse,
reaching blossomed limbs
across the street,
buds bob on kiwi,
cascades of golden chain
wink beneath the green
One by one, each bloom and color
radiates through its arc,
splendid presence
in this last glow
before the dark.
©Wendy Mulhern
May 24, 2017
A day like this
it’s easy to understand perfection,
how things live at the crest of their giving —
nothing tentative, nothing restrained
It’s easy to understand
fear is no part of being,
doubt is not a concept
that life comprehends:
each electron gives its all
in the imperative leap
of this moment’s equipoise —
I can understand
this is what is happening now.
©Wendy Mulhern
May 19, 2017
Four of these lines have been in my head for over 25 years, after I composed them in a bout of bad singing in the car, just having fun. This morning I decided to see if they could be fleshed out to a legitimate song.
Woman’s Way
(a song)
Time and tide wait for no man
but woman flows to fit them in the way she can,
gentle touch over the land
and things that live come eager to her steady hand
She’ll help them grow,
she’ll watch until she knows
the ways to softly, firmly nudge them
as they want to go,
she will provide,
she’ll be a guide,
unafraid of growing with them
she will match their stride
Breathing in, breathing out,
what is speed to the seeds as they sprout?
Each is met in its own time,
so they fulfill the rhythm and the moment’s rhyme
The seasons speak
and she is meek,
she’ll hear their music
all her days and in her sleep.
This is the dance
and this is how we live,
this is the way of woman
and what she will give.
©Wendy Mulhern
May 8, 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
Rain on the windshield,
people in the parking lot
walking with their choice of
hurried, cringing, or nonchalant
I imagine rain
soaking into their sweatshirts,
I’m hoarding warmth
as my parked car cools down
People find ways to survive
or they don’t. They find resilience,
they choose laughter, or they let rain
soak into their bones
and let their spirits be dampened
Me, I’ve done both.
It’s a choice I make
in all those times
where I’m not immediately overwhelmed
by some external magnificence,
when it’s up to me
to bring my shine into the day.
©Wendy Mulhern
March 17, 2017
It’s February
but the yard is fragrant
with sweet box
and small birds are chattering
and the air is balmy
It’s not yet time
to go inside
though our outside tasks
are done —
It’s time to breathe this day
a little longer
while the tops of the fir
and the pine and the cedar
are full of sun.
©Wendy Mulhern
February 13, 2017
This morning I woke up remembering a poem about snow I wrote some years back. Then a friend wrote asking if I had any snow poems. I went and found it (preserved on paper!) It was from 2002. It violates a couple rules I have for myself now about writing poetry, but I still find it sweet, and it sings itself to me in the tune of Tallis’ Canon.
Oh night! hold snowfall, soft and wet,
do not give up your magic yet —
bring us your silent world again,
stay white — do not succumb to rain
When daylight next suffuses skies,
let white on white enchant our eyes,
let all be softness, all be still,
your clean caress our senses fill
Oh night of snowfall, soft and wet,
do not give up your magic yet!
Lace in sweet cold to hold the spell,
to keep each snowflake as it fell.
©Wendy Mulhern
January 27, 2002