The smooth hardness of the maple wood,
its solidness as I split it,
the songs I played while wielding
the axe and hammer
The little towhee
who flew into the window,
who I set upright and warmed
for a moment with my hand
before it flew off
Enough laughter to fill a face
so full that tears ran out,
time to listen and tell stories,
time to feel at home.
©Wendy Mulhern
February 18, 2022
Almost full moon
rises to a chorus of frogs,
dewdrops on grass
lit up like so many
tiny nightlights,
secret silver
waiting for morning's frost.
©Wendy Mulhern
February 17, 2022
Let me lay down these strokes of absolution
like paint, colors sinking deep
into the paper, spreading out
at the edges of the lines,
color changing what you thought
had been the story, what you thought
was the starting point,
color saturating you until
you are wholly changed -
no untouched spaces,
every part rendered brilliant,
none neglected,
none shut out
And whatever amends are called for,
you are now well equipped
to make them, cozied up,
as you are, in the inclusion
of every last corner of you
in the color that's given you,
the love that is yours.
©Wendy Mulhern
February 15 2022
I guess there's really no need
to be embarrassed by my former self,
to cringe at all my blindnesses,
to understand, as I didn't at the time,
why people said no thank you,
why they slipped out of my life
Now I've conveniently forgotten
so many of them, lost touch
with almost all.
Not that they'd be eager
to hear me say
how I was thoughtless -
this was something they knew all along
But I should know -
all our lives
have machinations
that keep grinding us
through unexpected turns,
churning us through changes
we never would have asked for,
never would have thought that we could bear
When they spit us out, maybe we're better,
reciprocal receptors better honed,
maybe we appear more as we felt ourselves inside,
more how we had hoped we would be seen.
©Wendy Mulhern
February 14, 2022
Every beast of the forest is Yours,
which means,
there where they stand -
this one I'm imagining, for example,
a stag -
As Yours, he must possess
the radiant belonging, the sense of right,
the unassailable
delight of being.
He must know for certain
that what he is
is exactly perfect
for his place and time,
that his presence
is designed and desired
and celebrated. This must exult
throughout his form and breath,
must fill him with Your power,
must halo him in peace.
©Wendy Mulhern
February 13, 2022
You could throw some huge ball of metaphor
up on the roof, throw your speculation
out of sight,
and days later, ramifications
could come sifting down,
mundane meanings
needing to make place
for shifts in thought,
questions of what's important
being reconsidered,
and finally things will start to settle,
maybe some truths have been uncovered,
maybe some clarified, some polished
Everyone who does literature
is trying for some such effect,
trying for truth, anyway.
It can be my job, as reader,
to receive what is offered,
to integrate it, whatever way I can,
with what I know.
©Wendy Mulhern
February 12, 2022
After the audiobook,
the cadence of the author's voice
still echoes through my mind,
asserting its abstract imagery,
braids of sound like water
or like flame
I think her voice was speeded up
a little, and traces of the on-edge sense
her speed induced
still spike my mind,
though I am sleepy,
and I want my own room back,
the gentle rhythms of my own thought,
my own words -
I want my dreams to run clear
so I can nestle once again
into my own peace.
©Wendy Mulhern
February 11, 2022
