Fire’s heat
has filled the stones,
lulled our bones,
defended and defined our home
The rain has likewise
owned the outside,
sending its grey waves
across the hills,
softening the earth,
raising the green
Now night has fallen
upon us all,
and we’ll range
through concentric circles
of every here we may remember
or imagine.
©Wendy Mulhern
October 10, 2023
We’re still delighted with the rain,
summer thunder heralding its coming,
gutters singing with the water’s running,
sun’s warmth still hovering
between the drifts of slightly cooling breezes
Five minutes and it’s gone –
subtle rumbles still retreating,
the highway sounding louder from its wetting,
and the end-of-summer smells –
dried grass, and mammal,
mix with the newer scent of dampened soil,
unpredictability now predictable
here at the cusp of autumn.
©Wendy Mulhern
September 2, 2023
And if the day let us be lazy
and mostly stay inside and read,
let cold and rain delineate our idleness,
this, too, is cause for gratitude
And when we feel the trees rejoice
at something we could not have given,
to see them make the grateful choice
to sink down roots, to grow, to live
Then maybe gratitude itself has been the gift,
and all these circumstances
combined, conspire to bring it forth within –
this sun-graced ending to the day,
the soaring swoop of unexpected lift.
©Wendy Mulhern
June 19, 2023
On some days
I let the soft rain
give me permission to be soft,
while the landscape fills in
with soft green,
and I do very little,
while the rivers move
under the whole ground,
pulling all water
to them and down
The soft clouds reprise their motion,
wind running through them,
their goal as drifty as my own.
©Wendy Mulhern
May 4, 2023
The rain reminds us
of our dependencies,
and how small our world can shrink,
and how easily the kingdom of mud
slides on in
We fortify ourselves
with wood and with frugality,
remembering how we honor this darker season –
in the way of its exacting, not our own,
finding our cheer in our plans for more inventions,
and in the bright fire
and the returning green.
©Wendy Mulhern
November 5, 2022
The sunset clouds looked like angel wings to me,
though my camera couldn’t see it –
I wouldn’t mind if they delivered rain
(more than the two drops that fell on me in the garden)
They could be angelic bearers
of needed cleansing for the air,
and moisture for the soils,
and quenching for the fires –
I would be happy for that …
Right now I’m happy for
a day with good work in it –
beginnings and direction,
enough labor to guess what it will take,
enough progress to make it seem possible.
©Wendy Mulhern
October 20, 2022
The day brought new landscapes
in most expressive watercolor
after the night’s rain,
and I handily forgot
my struggles of yesterday,
as if they were nothing,
though nothing had changed –
how blithely I forget!
and there may be a clue there –
perhaps I’m allowed
to be made new.
©Wendy Mulhern
September 30, 2022
I am glad for the light drumming
of rain on the roof, and its gurgle
into the waiting tank,
and the softening and greening of the land
We slide across the equinox
as quickly as a cloud shadow
darkening the valley,
our urgent journey unaffected
by season’s change,
our sense of home
enhanced by it.
©Wendy Mulhern
September 21, 2022
Caught between puddles and spray,
we squirt through anyway,
this being the last leg
of a circuit that started
with a light spritzing from wet road surfaces,
then a soft sprinkle from the sky,
till we were fully inaugurated
by a deep puddle spanning the trail.
So now, wet and sandy enough not to mind,
we coast to the end
and learn of the big sheets of rain we missed
but wouldn’t have minded either.
©Wendy Mulhern
August 23, 2022
Early evening rain sings down the gutters
and into the tank,
trees and garden stretch tall and strong and happy,
We have done well –
we finished our tasks before the shower,
we have earned our companionship
and our easy rest.
©Wendy Mulhern
July 5, 2022