Tag Archives: work

As work continues

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The night deepens in,
the moon starts its climb,
you have gone up to the work site
to look at the low fog and the high stars,
up to your ears in cricket song,
your thoughts pulled back again
to the progress of building,
all the little steps and things to think of,
things to redesign, things to figure out

Till the fog and stars and crickets
call you back again
to the pure magic
of where you are,
till the coalescing chilliness
brings you home.

©Wendy Mulhern
October 2, 2020

By lamplight and by moonlight

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By lamplight and moonlight,
cricket undulations coming to the fore,
we settle into day’s end, sit on the porch
for just a little more

Cooked from the high arc of the day,
cooled by darkening evening,
we feel the equanimity
from work and well earned rest

There’s more to do tomorrow,
there’s a night’s sleep to slide into –
cushion for the coming day,
so little time to find a rhyme
before I slip away.

©Wendy Mulhern
September 28, 2020

Time Off

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Somehow we needed to take a pause
from the colors of duty
which are the colors of
everything we see in our day,
the chores to do, 
the work to prepare for,
and encamp within the colors
of other worlds — of fantasy,
of music, of time off
from our trajectory,
to drift in the colors 
of movies, and shows,
and the sense that
if we don’t leave tomorrow
we’ll still arrive.

©Wendy Mulhern
September 18, 2020


Float

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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

Trundle Through

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We get tumbled together again,
where the web of grief
catches us up in its snare –
not the whole of us, but certain aspects,
such that we move through the day in a fog,
trying to work as usual,
going so much slower

Things clear up a bit
at end of day –
we find some comfort
in our togetherness,
we find some peace within the progress
we tortuously trundled through to.

©Wendy Mulhern
August 31, 2020

Competence

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Unlike tomatoes, competence grows
without regard to seasons.
It may have cycles,
like roots extending underground,
where it is growing steady but unseen,
a skill then suddenly emerging as a new tool

Or it may be like adolescent roosters,
whose early crows are rough
and oddly off key,
who still persist till various refinements
crow forth, though intermittently

No coach, no teacher
tells them what their crow needs,
but after many, many calls
they gain more confidence.
So, too, my competence may find
its early-rising, clear strong calling.

©Wendy Mulhern
August 26, 2020

Best Served

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The dream of finished work
is dangerous. I start imagining
how it would feel
to wash my dishes in a sink,
to take a bath,
to walk on clean smooth floors
with bare feet, to see the brightness
and the color in the walls

Better to step back and be glad
that on a rare cool summer day
I already can bake,
and light a fire,
and watch the mist
from a dry place inside

Everything will come in time,
and I’m best served
by living in the glory of today,
by giving what is asked of me
and counting that for joy.

©Wendy Mulhern
August 6, 2020

Chores on the Land

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We spent three days
thwarting the plans of tansy,
pulling it by the roots,
cutting its yellow heads,
filling the plastic bags

There was time in the work for thinking –
how you spend so much of your life
trying to prove
to yourself and to others
that you are worthy,

And when you discover
your worthiness never was doubted,
always was secure,
there’s still a sweet desire
to be of service,
to lend your gifts
to the great unfolding
of every day.

©Wendy Mulhern
July 22, 2020

Artifacts of our presence

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The wind through the fence
as vocal as any bird
speaks of the artifacts
of our presence –
not yet picturesque
except perhaps from some perspectives

Trees we’ve planted –
some of them rise
above their blue tubes –
others we take on faith
or on imagination,
visualizing groves

We have made mud swaths
where there was grass,
we have made piles –
of tools, of compost,
of equipment

Things are still beautiful
in varying lights of day and night.
We’ve made them less so,
but hope that’s only for a time,

©Wendy Mulhern
April 7, 2020

Day’s Report

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The wind began to blow cold
though the day was still sunny,
and we delayed our work
and then had to persist
through windblown bands
of overcast and sun,
and after awhile
it felt good and fresh to be working

And then it started to rain
and it started to get dark
and we kept working
till the plants were planted
and deer-protected —
less than we’d hoped
but enough to be satisfied.

When we had dried off
and started a fire
and stoked it till the cabin warmed up,
and scrounged some food
and tended to the water
we were too tired
to do anything else.

©Wendy Mulhern
February 28, 2020