The heat will have its say
and tansy ragwort has had its way
with our fields — bright yellow proclamation
of ground disturbed, outrageous brilliance,
enough to out-radiate
the scorching day
We will wait in shade
and in the stillness
that allows the wind a voice.
Yellow jackets hum and then are silent,
and take up the buzz again
as the long afternoon stretches languidly
towards the evening cool.
©Wendy Mulhern
July 22, 2018
August takes a charming turn,
strong warm wind rattling
the early fallen dried leaves
orchestrating clouds for the sun’s
dance of veils, its radiant reveals
echoed in the shimmer of the trees
It tastes of something slightly serious,
a little exciting,
acceleration of increasing slope
down the season’s shoulder
It’s still summer, sun-warmed ripe blackberries
invoking pie all along the trail, and everyone
is hurriedly laying down memories,
like putting the summer’s fruits by,
catching the sweetness
so it can keep them warm
when winter comes.
©Wendy Mulhern
August 20, 2017
This early morning time
belongs to the geese, obviously.
There is no urgency to wake up,
though some are stretching
and some are blinking sleepily
and some are preening
The voices of the kayakers come first,
followed by the clunk of paddles,
followed by the view of them,
and then the water
circling and settling
after their turbulence
A man across the slough
fills water cans from his dock
and showers the green foliage
in his yard
Small birds sing rich songs,
light from the water shimmers in trees.
Summer will burn strong today.
For now the air is peaceful —
coolness of the breeze a soft benevolence.
Trees will hold its remnant in their shade.
©Wendy Mulhern
June 24, 2017
So, summer comes —
sweet streaming freedom,
if only for a moment,
the body memory of that release
stretching far into adulthood
infusing the smell of privet
with aching undertones
There will be years for engineering lives,
which still take on a life of their own
and fly along between the lurches
where everything falls down. We pick it up,
we readjust the load.
It now has all those memories,
each long enough to get lost in,
packed in bundles like a year of papers
to take home
to pack in bins
for some later reckoning
while summer sings its magic
through our bones.
©Wendy Mulhern
June 20, 2016
In this heat I find
a slight ache
at the top of my breath
like what’s induced by smog
or chlorine, fixtures of my childhood summers
where laughter bounced in water echoes
around the family pool
and the splashing plunge
brought sweet relief
from heat we watched evaporate
the water we spread thin
along the dark pool edge
while we rested, getting ready
for the next dip
Now I allow myself
the full breath, up and into the ache
because of that feeling’s bridge
to early days.
©Wendy Mulhern
June 29, 2015
We are blessed —
Blessed by the way summer
flits around us, holds us light
in its chime-full, fragrant air,
Blessed by the sudden
wistfulness that rises
in the lengthening of shadows,
Blessed by the lofty clouds
and the fingered rays
that stream upward and eastward
from the sun
Blessed by the freedom
that hovers about us
in this moment —
brief as the weightlessness
at the top of a jump
but euphoric nonetheless.
©Wendy Mulhern
August 3, 2014