Things that are not quite storms

Let this flow through me
like virga —
like rain that doesn’t touch the ground,
that falls awhile through the sky
but then evaporates
leaving my feet dry

Let it be that I perhaps feel
a cold shaft around my ears
Let me raise my eyes
to see a span of rainbow
or some amazing rays
sifting through lines of gray

It’s OK
if all this is sublimated
and tomorrow
Steam rises from the earth
to meet the morning sun.

©Wendy Mulhern
April 10, 2013


Indoor Saturday, Seattle

Rain pelts down in some of the scenes,
Falling thickly onto the parking lot,
Rolling in sheets, low waves
following each other
down the broad slope
towards the near edge.

And elsewhere, it high-fives the waving leaves,
with patter-smack repeated in cascading rounds
as the wind rolls through.

In other scenes, the rain is tucked away
for interludes of wind alone,
Gathering the landscape
in its casual repetitious circles,
Sweeping it up in preparation
for the next course of rain.

The sun is not pictured here;
To find it, you must go back in memory
to earlier this morning, when it splashed
a few sweet swaths of warmth
across the land.

No matter, we warm-blooded creatures
And all the swelling seeds —
their code of growth impelling
their own kind of heat —
Will tend our inner suns
until the outer sun returns.

©Wendy Mulhern
April 6, 2013


Garden Smiles

















Even in my shady and neglected yard
Tulips are starting to smile,
Pink edges showing forth seductive lips
against their otherwise inscrutable green.
I know this feeling —
They won’t be able
to hold their laughs inside much longer:
They will burst out, bright color
suffusing them entirely,
No longer able, or willing
to hide anything —
Letting themselves go
with the sheer joy of spring.

©Wendy Mulhern
April 3, 2013


Spring Signs

The kindly moon
Riding almost full
Through the shell-pink sky
Presiding over all the arc of night
On leaving, drew a blanket
Over the sleeping earth
To keep her warm till morning

The softness of today
Attests to sweet sleep
The birdsong finds the air gentle
As it lifts its clear tones across the breeze
The bulbs are up, and many trees are greening
Shoulders lift in lightness
At the day’s ease

And in the bustle of the evening
We see each other cheered
By the enduring light
That spreads benevolence across the traffic
Extending hope and welcome towards the night.

©Wendy Mulhern
March 25, 2013


Days like this

Days like this,
It’s easy enough to understand
how a springing plant
can do nothing all day
but bask and expand,
reaching out the pleats
of newly unsheathed leaves,
drawing water up,
making sugar from the sun

And it’s easy to sense
that it’s enough
to lie around like a cat,
every rise and fall of breath
a purr of gratitude
for how it feels right now.

There’s a full job description
in the attention
to the precise gift
of this moment —
The need to witness it
can’t be neglected.

Days like this
It’s easy enough
to claim the task of being —
A sweet duty
not to leave undone.

©Wendy Mulhern
March 23, 2013


Taste of spring

Days like this
I remember
How the sun can come for me —
How, even if I face it from a place of stress,
Numb to any radiance or peace,
Its shining will start to reach through —
Soft warming on my face,
Dazzle of water sparkles on my eyes,
Subtly winning ground in my attentions
Till I am undone,
Abandon all preoccupations
And stretch, catlike,
Into the luxury of its gift.

©Wendy Mulhern
March 8, 2013


Standing

We’ve been through this before
but this time we’re wiser
and will stand unflinching
as all those shapes pass through us —
those illusions of ourselves,
walking and moving
but absent our deep desire —
ourselves moving in tracks
set up to have us shuffle
mostly mindless,
mostly lifeless,
through our days

This time we won’t 
fall in step with them
For our roots reach down
so much deeper —
through rocks, through magma,
to the mingling with the very core of things,
And our crowns,
full as the most established of the guardian trees —
Our crowns dance with the stars.

©Wendy Mulhern
March 5, 2013


Sanctuary

This is a poem I co-wrote with a friend. We alternated lines. Then had just a little tweaking to make it fit together. And brainstormed the title.

Sanctuary

I sing love shapes onto a canvas of stillness.
Slow ripples blend outwards, overlapping
As galaxies of air expand and contract.
We are here! breathing this moment,
Lost in a timeless sanctuary
Found in formless unity,
Emptiness dancing with ineffable being.

Softly, the love shapes of my song return
As if they were the only thing I’d ever seen
and wrap themselves around me like a lullaby —
A warm blanket in winter
of velvet midnight sky.
Higher light dives into mysterious depths
Aurora borealis for my love-struck eyes.

©Chris Capogna and Wendy Mulhern
March 3, 2013


Breathing

I am entranced
by my breathing.
It is like the surf
that flows in as a wave
but whose return,
steady but delayed,
entails a seething seeping,
down and in,
permeating, lubricating,
bringing life.
It is like the boughs of cedar
in the wind —
how they give and give
in gracious bend
and then return,
a calm reception and unspringing
of the wind’s impulse.
There’s nothing mechanical
about this body.
Its breathing makes it one
with the one sweeping flow
called life,
that owns everything —
galaxies and microcosms,
sands, skies, seas,
forests and rivers and plains,
and you and me.

©Wendy Mulhern
February 21, 2013


Basking

Sun shines clarity
through every vision.
Painted interplay of light
along the walls
brings out relationships
unseen in shade.
Earth warmth makes spirits rise
like air
in soft molecular expansion,
a floating in of possibilities
unconsidered hitherto.
It is enough to be here
basking in the magic
of the moment
while potent promises join hands
in co-creation of the gracious day.

©Wendy Mulhern
February 19, 2013