This is proof
that there is no arc of death,
that death is not a place
where life ends up
This is proof that life
is always what’s here to notice –
that in spite of death sentences,
life is what speaks to us
Before, it seems, all we could notice
was that the tree was dying,
but now, each spring, each year,
we celebrate persistent life –
these leaves, as fresh as ever,
coming out gracious
beside the hollowing trunk.
©Wendy Mulhern
May 12, 2021
You talk to the trees at night
and their silence – maybe it speaks to you –
maybe their response –
of presence without words –
is in the language you are searching for –
something that won’t get caught
in the filters of the mind,
that will go right through
to where you’ve been waiting
all this time –
waiting to hear the deep tall message
that recognizes your soul.
©Wendy Mulhern
February 6, 2021
Teach me to wish for good things,
for there is plenty of power
in the framing of what is good,
in noticing
how eloquently each good thing
speaks for itself,
not needing to be defined
by absence, or by otherness,
not needing to be specified
as change from what has been
or what has been imagined
Each note of blackbird song,
each creaky goose call,
each evening frog chorus
shows the nature of good things –
finding their perfect tone
in the breath-held air.
©Wendy Mulhern
January 31, 2021
The path I walk
so many times.a day
(and now at night,
my lantern faintly
showing me the way,
soft clouds lit up
by just a touch of moonlight,
soft air against my face)
is not without its thoughts of future –
what this place may sometime be –
but seems to have less of the past,
our forward press so steady on,
and, too, the sense of dissolution,
of all the past now found
to have been founded on illusion,
and the need to step ahead
lest my dissolving footprints
catch up to me.
©Wendy Mulhern
January 21, 2021
As I looked up
and saw the dark clouds
riding on the north wind,
there was excitement in the air,
something I noticed
as I walked with purpose
in my course of work
And the narrowness of the moment
of looking up from work
to see the clouds and feel the wind
made it a sweet song,
much like a flute
pulls sweet music
from the smallest places.
©Wendy Mulhern
January 17, 2021
The season’s comfort
is no more suppressed
by ignoring it
than rising water
finding its way up
through grass, through stones,
to catch and reflect
the light of the day
to flow down in richness
through courses before unseen
I’ve been ignoring the season
but not its comfort –
making no efforts to celebrate,
carried along just the same.
©Wendy Mulhern
December 19, 2020
One of the deer
regarded me through the window
for a long time
before it moved off
stepping stiffly through the light mud
and paused again, until another
came and nuzzled it
I think these were the twins of summer,
their mother coming up behind,
their coats now in the duller
shades of winter
to better blend with spent and battered stalks
Our walk through winter
is not unlike theirs,
our first time through this passage,
following signs we haven’t seen before
but which are clear enough –
foraging the prospects of the day.
©Wendy Mulhern
December 10, 2020
I will not talk about
things that are not mine –
what I have not proven
will stand out like sticks
that pontifications
can never clothe
I’ll let the colors fall
and let the branches
speak for themselves –
these things I think I ought to know
but don’t
still stand out clear
and I will see them
as I keep seeking.
©Wendy Mulhern
November 5, 2020
It may be a great gift
not to have the choice
whether to notice
the specificity of days –
the arc the moon takes through the night,
the temperature, whether the fog will lift,
or if it settles to a soft drizzle,
slowly saturating gloves and cuffs
In many striking moments
we look up from our work
and call out to each other – look –
the way the light is sitting on the field now,
the way the moon peaks through –
It is a gift,
though we may wish it otherwise –
it makes us richer,
despite how we may feel.
©Wendy Mulhern
October 30, 2020
The trees took my thoughts,
spun them up through the lights in their branches,
sent back an illustration
that clarified everything
In that way, it was a conversation –
what they told me, what I told them.
Between us, there was much uplift,
in gesture and perspective,
depth of dimension, colors, light,
exaltation in what, together,
we came to understand.
©Wendy Mulhern
September 29, 2020