Looking Forward

We stand at the brink of August

and consider the color changes —

grass from green to flaxen,

daisy stalks to brown

Sunflowers dominate the garden,

tomatoes coming in,

red tassels forming on the corn,

unknown peppers in dark green

There will be other years

when we can shepherd this,

when we have time and infrastructure

to tend the land —

for now we’ll do the work

to make us ready for it,

so we can read the signs

and understand.

©Wendy Mulhern

July 31, 2019

Hymns

We found songs in the wilderness —

some were left for us

by ones who had traversed the path before —

they told of things

we hoped one day to see

Others rose out of the rock

and the work, and the constant travel,

and the bone pure perception,

in the air, in the stillness,

of the Truth that guided us

along the searing way

We sang songs in the wilderness,

and as the land began to green,

we recognized some things

that we had sung about so often,

only guessing and imagining

how they might be

We sang songs of the wilderness

resting in the promised land, rejoicing in the gardens,

learning the things our songs had named,

also remembering 

how we were inspired

when we were headed here

from far away.

©Wendy Mulhern

July 30, 2019

Regeneration

Come back home, little one —

it isn’t far — it’s right here, in fact —

let your curled up body

feel the comfort of the floor,

the cradling earth beneath,

the sky blanket above

You can come back

into yourself, you can feel

strength flowing to you from within.

You don’t have to put on a perfect face,

don’t have to feign invincibility.

What you are will bring itself full circle,

as you wait for it,

when you’re ready,

you can stand up whole.

©Wendy Mulhern

July 29, 2019

Your Spirit Today

The trees give shady respite —

I see their gentle breathing

in the rise and fall of limbs —

they are at peace with wind,

with Spirit

You are like that today —

in the calm of your demeanor

I feel the day breathing,

your spirit a balm against the work,

your steady motion

bearing us forward

along the course that we are learning

not to plan so much as ride,

not to engineer so much as live.

©Wendy Mulhern

July 27, 2019

Crickets Returning

We looked up, delighted to hear

in small strains, the refrain

of crickets returning

Soft, intermittent, rising and falling,

not in the trees where we heard them

in previous years,

not as a constant, a chorus that stretched

through the days and the nights of the summer

But cricket song, still, here in the fields,

slowly increasing to fill up the late afternoon —

a light recompense

for things we have lost,

a reminder that everything changes,

and things that are missing

can also return

to be loved and rejoiced in once more.

©Wendy Mulhern

July 24, 2019

The Place of Adventure

This, right here, is the place of adventure,

here with the hole in the clouds

where blue sky sounds through,

here with the broken bootlace

and the black bugs that ate our greens,

here with the work that needs to be

pried and prised from our powers of invention,

and then, on top of that,

needs to be done

This is the place of adventure

where we plumb the depths

of our understanding, then go deeper,

where we live in the light

as far as we know it

and still keep going

There may be other adventures,

years down the line, lifetimes away,

but this is the path by which we’ll get there,

placing our feet down

in every step of today.

©Wendy Mulhern

July 23, 2019

Quick Release

Today I see the value of a quick release,

the way I can unhitch myself

from trains of stories, when I feel them

careening towards a cliff,

when my emotions

have set up camp

and prescribed a course of action

that entails me crouching in the mire

of hurt

I asked myself,

which would you rather?

This, or being strong, resilient,

competent, and free?

— That was my quick release —

my choice was clear —

to leave the crouching mire

and center, here.

©Wendy Mulhern

July 22, 2019