We are reminded that, this time of year,
starry nights can still mean frosty mornings,
pipes can freeze, precautions should be taken
Which seems hard to remember
in this last glowing part of afternoon,
the sun, hovering above the hills,
soaking everything with gold,
here where I’ve tucked the north wind
behind a corner
for the full impact of warmth.
©Wendy Mulhern
March 12, 2021
Rain rips across the land,
freshening the air,
wind tousles fall colored trees,
the days are getting dark around the edges,
it’s time for hearth fires
The frenzy of our project
needs to take a pause,
though to be honest, it was mostly
expectations that were reined in –
we hadn’t been progressing all that quickly
But now the walls are under wraps
(and puddles) and I’m lighting fires
to keep our spirits cozy,
and our schedule, once again,
will need to rearrange itself,
and we’ll pick up our feet and follow after.
©Wendy Mulhern
October 11, 2020
“Not one sparrow shall fall to the ground without your Father “
And so it is with falling,
with weather and with cadence
with things we see and cease to see,
windfall, rainfall, nightfall,
and things we hear – the sound of words,
rhythm of talk, of footfall
Nothing falls alone,
and everything is met
in the unknown place of falling
where no one can see it –
the story drops from view
but hasn’t ended,
the needs of each one there
tenderly tended.
©Wendy Mulhern
September 24, 2020
Blackbirds are back,
Crickets are still here,
The ferns are still green
but they seem more subdued,
sitting, perhaps, a bit lower
Needles drop from firs
from time to time,
Some maples are starting
to show fall colors,
Smoke came through
but now has mostly lifted –
there’s blue between the white clouds
in the upper sky
This moment’s pause in wind
portends that it may rain soon,
My skin is gritty
from airborne dirt and ash,
The work awaiting us is bountiful –
All in all, it feels good to be back.
©Wendy Mulhern
September 21, 2020
Things float into place. End of summer,
what feels like a pause in effort needed
(though it isn’t, though we have still failed
to run our full race)
Hint of sea breeze mitigates
what was predicted as a scorching day,
all the trees still green,
but fall leaves on the ground
Children on the swings
pump high, swing back …
Folks ride by on bicycles
and behind them I see trailing
a wisp of longing
for the imagined freedom
of being in their place.
©Wendy Mulhern
September 4, 2020
This morning the tomatoes told me
not to expect they wouldn’t notice
the year’s curve – how cold it was
in the early morning,
how the stretch of sun and heat
was shorter, how if I had wanted
a bumper crop, I should have done better
on the early side of the season,
should have given them
more high summer to work with.
As it is, they told me,
some of them will ripen.
Just maybe not as many
as I had hoped.
©Wendy Mulhern
August 25, 2020
It only takes one day
for us to start believing
in summer’s end –
some clouds and wind,
the possibility of night rain –
and we notice
a different tone across the fields –
though they are parched and seem set
for unremitting dryness,
a siege span they must cross
before the rains come,
some of the yellow is also
leaves starting to turn
here and there,
leaves falling and drifting in the wind,
getting ready
We are not ready,
but that has never
made any difference.
We will be there with it
when it comes.
©Wendy Mulhern
August 21, 2020
June suddenly starts steaming on towards solstice,
rain remembered only in the reaching roots
of grass seeds sprouting,
and the moisture in the air
that calls all plants to rise
Summer visits us in moments ripe with memory,
the feeling of the air, the taste of ice cream,
the sprint of possibilities,
the wide expanse of days,
our call to be here in witness,
to ride its spirit like breath,
to move like wind through trees.
©Wendy Mulhern
June 19, 2020
Spring steps easy
on the balance of the equinox –
this one step tips the scale
and opens up the time of daylight.
They say we will have snow tomorrow night.
I don’t believe it –
the sun so radiant
and so constant
in this stretching afternoon,
I feel it never will give up its reign
Evening, I’m sure, will disabuse me –
the wind that I have hid from
in this southern corner
(which still whistles, cools the air
around the north side)
will assert itself, and once again,
I’ll build a fire against the cold,
and we’ll work to get the trees in
before the dry season takes hold.
Wendy Mulhern
March 21, 2020
Frost lines the edges of our days,
encasing them with torpor,
lacing us with eagerness for warmth,
of which there is enough, still, in the middles,
for us to work, for us to dream
And in the morning and the evening,
fire is our friend —
it takes the edge off,
fills us with ease again.
©Wendy Mulhern
October 28, 2019