The long awaited rain
comes down softly,
gentle on the dry grass,
the hardened ground,
giving everything a chance
to open up, to take it in
And we could say we’ve earned the right
to soften, to rest from all our work,
behind the droplets on the windshield,
becoming rivulets now,
becoming drumbeats,
till they convince us
to make our way home.
©Wendy Mulhern
September 18, 2021
The windshield melts the image
but not the trees
into the soft wet of the afternoon
We have retreated
into this decadent warmth,
fleeing the frenzy of the work
and the chill of the dampness,
choosing this luxury bubble
which proves
we aren’t wholly rooted
in the rigors of homestead living –
we can watch it
like reality TV
through the glass
at least for a while.
©Wendy Mulhern
February 18, 2021
The rain moves through in waves –
crescendos and diminuendos
with or without wind
from a random direction
That we are loved is as apparent
as that the grass is, and the springing trees
that drink the rain,
less because of this dry place to watch from
than because gratitude
moves through us
just like that.
©Wendy Mulhern
April 22, 2020
I look for what is framed
in the constancy of rain –
the trees down by the river,
the box that shelters us
We may trade it in
for a surfeit of sleep,
a slacking off of work
(on cue from the sun)
We have music
in lieu of warmth,
warmth in lieu of light.
Robins and deer and turkeys
have what they need
in the wet expanse
of the wide outside.
©Wendy Mulhern
March 30, 2020
There might be other rhythms here,
rain in the gutter, metallic tick and trickle,
rain on the window, the hum
of spaces in between —
rhythms to hear when the stereo’s off,
music against the quiet
You get your message across
by listening, more than by speaking,
by finding, like these raindrops,
the place where understanding trickles in,
and where it glances off,
and needs to be collected, redirected
You listen, and your message finds its way
like water, into the waiting ground.
©Wendy Mulhern
October 27, 2018