An osprey,
two blue herons flying,
a high hemlock perch
A swooping swallow,
a reflective river,
duck with two babies
enclosed in green concentric circles
The discovery of new territory
in the old bounds of my body,
heretofore uncharted ground
in places in between the known landmarks
Morning clouds,
south breeze sounding wind chimes,
fresh coolness to the air,
working and waiting, and
stepping forward intrepidly
toward the receding edge of tomorrow.
©Wendy Mulhern
July 30, 2016
Let my heart be soft,
let it release constrictions,
let me trade in my judgments
for innocence
Let my breath be full,
let my soul feel its expansion,
let me trade in my regrets
for forgiveness
This is a time of freshness,
two nights’ thunderstorms
achieving crispness on the second morning,
the hot thickness, for now,
cleared from the day,
This is a time for clear eyes, too,
scratchy opinions
all washed away.
©Wendy Mulhern
July 24, 2016
The wind has blown through the whole day,
tossing tree crowns and plastic chairs,
bringing mugginess from the south
but cooling it to bearable
Dragonflies have danced, devouring insects
who had found, perhaps,
a still point in the air
We have walked this day
with grace and finesse,
we have found ways to move,
ways to make others happy
We have kept listening
to the patterns of kindness,
passed from tree to tree, sung by many birds,
held in the dignity of each tousled head
that lifts itself to face the wind.
©Wendy Mulhern
July 22, 2016
I.
Today at the end of my bike ride,
enjoined from coasting no-hands,
I imagined wings at my shoulder blades.
I could feel them, and the way my lungs filled
as they opened. My breath deepened,
and emotions pulled at my chest
I could feel the work of muscles
down my back, I could feel
how wind caught
under their downstroke.
I felt myself lifted,
I heard the wing beat,
the rush at my ear.
It was more than enough to compensate
for my three fingers on the handlebar.
II.
I take it as a sign of goodness
that the air has cooled —
the wind has come around from the north
and the clouds have gone to cirrus,
still visible in pink above the afternoon’s
high cumulous, as twilight
wafts in on the drier breeze
promising deep sleep.
©Wendy Mulhern
July 19, 2016
The message is clear —
there’s time for what you need —
There’s time for you to nap on the shore
when the wind is boisterous
and the waves contrary
and the journey is too long for you
There’s time for you to tuck your head
and gather strength. Your parents
will wait and stand guard
while you sleep
Heir of grace,
you will be guided
through these ungainly times
before your white flight feathers.
You are every bit as loved
in your gray garb
as you have always been,
as you will ever be.
Months will deliver you
into your splendor,
but now you can take
all the time that you need.
©Wendy Mulhern
July 14, 2016
Days come, in their variety,
Everything living jumps into the rounds —
birth and renewal, harvest and rest
We find ourselves seasoned by seasons,
patina’d, weathered,
rising and falling with readiness
for the arc at hand,
new growth superimposed
on the memory of last year’s cycles,
becoming timeless with the ancient breathing
of what returns again, ever new.
©Wendy Mulhern
July 7, 2016
As the sun turns everything golden,
turkeys fly into the firs to roost,
full grown birds with their burden of feathers,
babies, compact and stubby
with necks like dinosaurs,
amazingly fly up, too.
They negotiate themselves
from branch to branch in the stand of trees,
gradually working their way higher
as more clamber in from the adjacent field —
much small peeping,
much loud fluttering —
not bedtime yet,
just time to be safe and high
for the large-family rituals of settling in
before the darkening sky.
©Wendy Mulhern
July 3, 2016
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
Summer days,
and if you want a shade garden,
if you want refreshing honeysuckle breeze
to float through cedar,
if you want the cooling
of eighty years of standing
through moisture nurtured northwest nights,
come join us — you are welcome
If you want to be lifted
in the bright bubbling release
of knowing you are loved,
and that none of your halting efforts
and unfulfilled resolutions
make any difference —
nothing held over your head —
we are here to love you — you are welcome
And if you want to feel your roots
growing thick and strong
in the rich, dark humus of home,
curling like toes in cool, damp sand,
kissed by mycelium,
if you want to know your purpose
is established and entwined with many others,
come join us — you belong.
©Wendy Mulhern
June 28, 2016
Quick as the asking, help comes —
It comes in myriad little ways
like each plant’s response to spring,
to summer, tendrils and leaves reaching out,
such a multiplicity of enlargement
that my field is overcome with green
So many individual gleams
from one sun. Look up, they say,
that is not you, the one that sits in misery.
You are up here, in elemental joy,
pure purpose, and the naturalness
of things being what they are,
perfect in that incomparable
(and uncompared) unfoldment.
Look up. She is not here. She is risen.
©Wendy Mulhern
June 24, 2016