Harvest

I kept walking through spider webs.
Even when I tried not to,
even when I held out my hand against them,
still I would feel the sudden threads across my face,
hear the tick of breaking strands,
feel the sticky tickle in my hair.
As I’d recoil to free myself,
I’d hit another.

Yes, they were busy.
But I still got a free harvest
of sour purple-blue berries
pulled from their red stems.
I boiled them with sugar
to obtain a bright elixir
And I felt rich
and grounded,
at one with the earth
on which I have a right to walk,
on which I belong.

©Wendy Mulhern
August 8, 2013


Summer Snapshot

It’s spider season
which may not help against aphids.
It’s a time when beauty pushes
against the back side of my eyes,
suggesting tears —
Beauty of guitar sound through the open window,
cloaked enough by outside noise
to only come in snatches
that remind me of the boy inside,
bittersweetly soon to leave for college;
Beauty of slightly drought-stressed flowers
heading towards seed.
It all looks rather wild,
and the yield is less than perfect
but the bees don’t care.
Lazy beauty of summer
leaves me with some scarcely defined longing —
Maybe the plants can understand it more than I,
Maybe the crows know.

©Wendy Mulhern
August 3, 2013


No Regrets

No regrets
for life falls like water
down its course —
The same law always pulls us,
The same law always rights us —
What we choose in any instant
is the product
of precisely where we were,
and from precisely where we are
we always choose
what seems essential

No regrets
in the wild space of now,
suspended in air,
in vapor or in free fall,
in current or in back flow,
or sucked up in the taproot of a plant,
We still are held
in Life’s law,
and Life will always see us through.

©Wendy Mulhern
July 21, 2013


Resistance

We will slide
with the weight of water
out from the grasp
of all that sought to hold us.
We will collect in pools,
we will run in rivulets,
very quietly at first.

We will hide
in soft hollows
and be taken up by roots.
We will engage in cycles
that can’t be regimented.
We will use the tools
that can’t be taken from us —
gravity and surface tension,
super qualities inherent in our molecules.

Without our presence, all the structures —
every edifice of fear and guilt,
all the avenues of shame and blame,
all the lies that say we need their toxic brew —
will tend towards dust, becoming very dry,
will grow more brittle, and will start to fail.
It won’t be long before they blow away
and cease to plague our world.

We will slide softly
but with growing power.
We will build with what’s alive.
We’ll own our moments
and claim our hours,
and in our reclaimed truth,
we’ll thrive.

©Wendy Mulhern
July 4, 2013


Succession

(for Edward)

In the way that ecosystems climax,
You and I are most-enduring trees,
surviving fires, holding the soil,
spreading our crowns
to shelter and extend
life’s dear elixir

And you have been
my strong companion,
filling in where I have faltered,
anchor of my habitat
throughout the years.

In the way that Life designs us
brought forth where our purpose can be met,
So, now, I see it finds you
in the time where you’re uniquely set
to bless

It is my privilege
to witness you, and your unfolding,
and to hold with you
and keep on holding,
while all our former fetters fall away
and we stand splendid
in the dawning truth of day.

Happy birthday, love —

©Wendy Mulhern
July 2, 2013

The rhythm of summer

Everything is moving in the rhythm
of summer —
sound of wind chimes,
scent of privet,
transfixing flit of
not-quite-random insects,
play of light on spider webs,
crows in conversation —

There is something to learn from this,
something to take with me
from the unhurried connection of events,
the space between
that’s long enough for slack,
supple so it ripples smoothly.

Here where it’s too hot
for spiking urgency
or any worry,
things still progress
prodigiously,
with ample room
to take their perfect time.

©Wendy Mulhern
June 30, 2013