Tag Archives: nature

One bright moment

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The sunlight glided beautiful
into the afternoon
which before was cloudy,
and it may have been my music
that made the cows come running  –
in any case, I was delighted to be there,
the tones of my recorder clear
if sometimes hesitant
(me mostly avoiding forgotten high notes)

The deer also took notice,
though they swung a wide arc
around my sound,.heading in a line
farther up the field

And I thought the bluebirds noticed, too,
though maybe we were all doing
our own celebration
of one bright moment
in this October day.

©Wendy Mulhern
October 10, 2021

The Knowing

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There was space in the morning
to allow
for the tiniest of yellow flowers
to open
just half way  – a trumpet bell on a stem

And space,  in that tiny harmony
to account
for all the interweavings, subterranean
and above,
all the ideas that had to be here first
for all this to unfold,
from the smallest to the largest

All of this
had to be known,
and this is our gift,
that we are the knowing.
This we are given,
and this we give, in turn.

©Wendy Mulhern
September 22,  2021

Crescents

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We walk in the smile of the day,
feet touching down along its curve.
Songbirds and crickets,
turkey and deer –
all the usual inhabitants  –
move in the same grace

We revel in crescents  –
the arc of temperature,
the waxing moon,
the hammock of tenderness
we offer each other
during and after
the easy swing of the day’s work.

©Wendy Mulhern
September 11,  2021

Tree Talking

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You talk to the trees.
They won’t preside
over your rush of memories  –
if they hear them, they don’t judge

Some of them have been here
a long time. If not as long on the earth
as you, still long enough
to keep on reaching up,
to have lost branches
but not the branching impulse,
not the surging
expression of their being,
not their place among the living
or in the land

They may have things to tell you
about roots, about service,
about the inevitability
of being true to the seed you grew from
and true to the seeds you bear.

©Wendy Mulhern
September 2,  2021

Saturday night

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Saturday night and we crashed out
after our swim, before your supper
(but not before mine)
and didn’t get up
till I had to get lanterns
to see to prepare your meal

Saturday night after the wind
blew the bank of clouds in,
trees dropping needles,
lifting their limbs,
sending the rush of the wind wave
like stories through their throng,
standing still afterwards,
drifting towards darkness

Saturday night and you thought
you might like
some people to talk to,
some night life to see
but the life of the night here
is coolness and crickets
and what we can find in our dreams.

©Wendy Mulhern
August 7, 2021i

August

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It can still seem like a long slow trek
through heat and drought
till the rains come,
but August also starts to offer
glimmers of civility  –
dawn a little later,
sunset sooner,
the beat of heat
a little shorter,
and these weightless moments
where time floats in golden glow,
and crickets and grasses,
turkeys and deer,
bracken and fir
go about their lives,
where presence is sufficient,
holding and deserving all attention,
compelling us
with the eternal now.

©Wendy Mulhern
August 2, 2021

The Ocean’s Answer

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Ocean wraps its arms around us,
waves embracing shore,
in comprehensive constancy
of ever changing motion

And it erases,
like waves erasing footprints,
the constructs and the posits of my mind  –
no rocks concern it –
it flows around them
or bursts and sprays, but never is deterred

No long-entrenched beliefs can stop it –
it wears them down
even as it covers them completely,
and as for me,
I will sleep well,
cradled and rocked
in the forever faithful
rhythm of the tide.

©Wendy Mulhern
July 15, 2021

Summer Storms

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The house catches the beauty of the evening sun
only for a moment – a cloud at the hilltop
snatches it up, uses it for a lining

Tears can gather on anything,
easy as raindrops, easy as a squall
appearing at the hilltops, then rushing through

There is beauty in the streaked view
after many tears, the way the landscape
multiplies emotions, the way the thistle
embodies such elegance,
such confident self-knowing,
how its elongating leaves point up
with a symmetry recalling snowflakes

I can go through a storm, I can do it
as often as I need to. When I come out,
the land will be here,
offering its tender lessons.

©Wendy Mulhern
June 15, 2021

Beach Walk

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The sea air enwraps us in its world,
taking us in like breath, mingling us
in the salt, the moist and sparkle

The sand receives our footprints,
settles in around our toes,
comes with us

We are dampened, we are lifted,
we are washed through with the wind,
the gift of this most needed renewal
resting lightly on our skin.

©Wendy Mulhern
June 4, 2021