Look up,
or close your eyes —
it doesn’t matter
You can breathe this green
through your lips, through your pores
you can feast on light
You can sleep
or keep on looking
here in the presence of infinity,
here in the closeness
of this embrace.
©Wendy Mulhern
August 22, 2014
The air was poised
in a feather balance
between warm and cool,
shifting one way or the other
with the sun and breeze
And I had to go out
where it could dance
across my skin
and I could take in all the scents —
dried leaves, ripe blackberries,
sprinkler systems, roses and mimosa —
and the longer shadows
and the exhilaration
of this visibly shorter day.
©Wendy Mulhern
August 21, 2014
After the rain
while the summer air
still hangs heavy,
some little birds break through its shroud
with happy chattering
A slight aliveness of breeze
brings the scent of
just a little rain —
wet dust, the smell
at the mouth of garden hoses
The day is still pregnant
and the great unknown
of how the birth will actually occur
stretches its vast belly
over everything.
©Wendy Mulhern
August 12, 2014
We are blessed —
Blessed by the way summer
flits around us, holds us light
in its chime-full, fragrant air,
Blessed by the sudden
wistfulness that rises
in the lengthening of shadows,
Blessed by the lofty clouds
and the fingered rays
that stream upward and eastward
from the sun
Blessed by the freedom
that hovers about us
in this moment —
brief as the weightlessness
at the top of a jump
but euphoric nonetheless.
©Wendy Mulhern
August 3, 2014
Summer blazes on
day after sun-ruled day,
Night’s sweet release
comes late
We start to wait
for the wind-chime heralded
south breeze,
to signal change,
to signal rain
For years we wished for this,
A summer we could count on.
We can’t complain —
Every day is splendid
and their still are places
we can hide from heat
And the city haze,
though it accumulates,
has mostly blown away,
Our slightly sun-stressed
crop of gratitude
still sturdy.
©Wendy Mulhern
August 1, 2014
The divine law
has never sentenced you —
It won’t exact a penalty
of suffering,
It won’t impose a shroud of guilt
or shame,
It never has decreed a world
where you must bow,
a laborer where no one knows your name
The infinite has always celebrated you
in ways no person
can fully comprehend —
Their little glimpses
— the glimpses we call love —
are just a pale reflection
The divine law
has established you
with all your singularity
and all your grace,
Upholds you royal
(just like everyone)
in your exquisite timing,
in your perfect place.
©Wendy Mulhern
July 15, 2014
Motion makes connection known —
Trees with their shadows,
ripples with the sources of their color
The joyful dance of parallax
reveals a harmony before unseen,
And branches, rustled, show
the deep dimensions of their green
Everything moves, as everything breathes —
So many clasped and intersecting arcs
repeated down the nested scales
in harmony
from stars to quarks.
©Wendy Mulhern
July 9, 2014
Half moon hides among the clouds
in the surreal brilliance of summer afternoon.
There is a silent moment
between each sound —
too small, perhaps, to hear,
but clear enough
to send a sense of singularity
throughout this brief time
of the sky’s impossible blue
and the newly cool north breeze
that loves the weeping birch,
who loves the wind in turn.
©Wendy Mulhern
July 6, 2014
The baby flickers
consider fledging —
one and then another
sticks a head out, then feet,
breast, a shoulder
Their eyes dart around,
they blink,
They’re in and out,
in and out —
The one without the red cheeks
has been out longer,
come out farther
Yesterday a hawk came
and perched on their snag.
The jay made holy racket
and the babies hid
while mom and dad flew frantic,
making their decoy calls
Today it’s quiet.
The wind rushes through the trees,
crows and planes more distant.
I watch them watching everything,
weighing themselves
against the feat at hand.
©Wendy Mulhern
June 26, 2014
photos by Edward Mulhern
It could be called the moment
when Spirit appears on the scene —
That silent shift in everything,
where all the spaces and hollows
become more pronounced.
Things stand out from each other —
ferns in the sunlight,
waves cresting among waves,
and the whole dimensionality
takes on depth and richness
And things glisten
in the sure sense of being themselves
and being loved,
And everything moves
with a unity of breathing —
Grand inclusive rise and fall,
catching them up in its peace,
embracing them all.
©Wendy Mulhern
June 22, 2014