Wednesday, January 30, 2013

Soaring


If you have flown in a flock
swooping and soaring
in the rolling undulations 
of a collective plane,
turning together
faster than a message,
faster than thought,
Then you know why,
when birds sing,
your heart flies up against your chest
in joy.

©Wendy Mulhern
January 30, 2013


Tuesday, January 29, 2013

Laundry


Here in these world-crossings
it seems important
(though I swear, it is not!)
that one’s clothes be clean
and free of spot
and so
although I know
for this old dweller in a former time
there is no way to make him notice
make him care
I treat his clothes with stain remover
as a matter of course
so we can be more comfortable
to see him walk
in this disinfected world
that is no longer his.

©Wendy Mulhern
January 29, 2013


Monday, January 28, 2013

Because you can


If you could,
Wouldn’t you use
all the tools you have
to feel love, to feel alive?

Wouldn’t you use music
and dance
and fantasy
and observation, jolted with
surprise,
and wonder,
and the tingling sensation
of remembered touch?

Wouldn’t you let
the padded feet of your affection
lead you down paths
of new connection?
— Hands reaching eager
even if you can’t see?

And if it doesn’t map
on what you’ve called your life,
Won’t you allow
your sights to be lifted?
— Step into the fullness
of everything 
this life, this love, imparts!

©Wendy Mulhern
January 28, 2013


Sunday, January 27, 2013

Pontifications


They had been taught to think
the truth was
an observable entity
that stood between them,
and one or another of them
could be more right
about what it was.

They were willing to allow
the actual truth might be subjective —
Her truth and his, mine and yours —
Colors and perspectives altered
by our points of view.

They didn’t know
that truth is not an object at all
but is a chord of harmony
that comes into tune
like a radio wave
and becomes the whole sound
and renders all vision one.

©Wendy Mulhern
January 27, 2013


Saturday, January 26, 2013

Depth


Here is permission
To let your body move
Here is permission
To sink
To let your thoughts
sift down and settle into stillness
Here is permission
for the clear pool of yourself
to mirror back
the full depth of the moon.

Yes, you can speak from here
And yes, you can be heard —
There is no shallowness
in the expanse of sky that you reveal.
There is no limit
to what you find you know
There is no limit
to what you heal.

©Wendy Mulhern
January 26, 2013


Friday, January 25, 2013

Parabolic Mirror


If love occurs in micro-moments,
Then it’s occurring
at this moment
as I lie here breathing you
while you are sleeping —
Feeling, in the rise and fall,
the intimacy of breath
and the warm firmness of your form.

If love occurs
in micro-moments of connection,
Consider this:
The whole parabola of my mind —
my memory, my current celebration,
my hope, my dearly felt anticipation
Will magnify this tiny spark
Displaying beacon lights across the sky.

And this moment
feeds a limpid pool
of many others —
All of them magnified,
All of them bringing light,
Lifting us in the divine,
Teaching us love as they shine.

©Wendy Mulhern
January 25, 2013


Thursday, January 24, 2013

A Vision


In the vision
I was mother,
and from my outstretched arms
flowed liquid light.
And many came to drink,
And I was Mother,
Held steady as the conduit 
of love
that those who drank
evoked in me.

Coursing mother-love
circled in a circuit
Filling me with joy,
with joy and fierce protection,
Joy and wonder.
And as I watched
One and another
filled with light.
They rose like stars;
We greeted each other as equals,
And they turned outward,
Conducting light,
Moving to serve it 
as they each were called.

©Wendy Mulhern
January 24, 2013


Wednesday, January 23, 2013

Presence

Through the night
Between my dreams
I feel you next to me —
Your solid warmth,
The smoothness of your sleeping form —
Comforting company.

Throughout the night
We hold each other in our trust
Our solidness 
less of our frames
Than of the blended habits of our thoughts
That keep us reaching for each other
Touching home across the wide domain of dream.

And so it is at day
When the harsh winds of your contracted duties
bear you away
While I attempt to find the heat
to forge my purpose:
Our thoughts reach out across the miles
to wrap each other up
Embrace each other in the shared support
of steady love.

©Wendy Mulhern
January 23, 2013


Monday, January 21, 2013

Episode


Where did you go?
Was it a casual drift
the molecules of your thought.
having lost cohesion,
dispersing
till the paths of your coherence
fell away
And you were left stranded
on a much earlier shore
where thought had long ago solidified?

We tried to pull you back
Remind you of the last ten years
The last twenty
The bridge back to the now
from what you last remembered
But the lines we tossed are tenuous —
You still seem lost, unsure
of where you are or what you’re doing here.

We hope that
once again
A night of sleep
will wash your tablet clear
And to its surface
Reset all the strands of your coherence
Retie the cords that hold you in our sphere.

©Wendy Mulhern
January 21, 2013


Sunday, January 20, 2013

Turning


In these times when light is mostly shrouded
(rain and fog and thick, low-lurking clouds)
We see no change, no movement of the seasons
No shadows marking progress on the dial

Till, on a day like this
Where some incalculable hand
has parted all the shrouds, so we can see
the sun, serene, in clear, surreal cerulean
And every limb, love-touched, in basking gleam

And know our land is turning toward the springtime
Her face receiving now, in every day
A bit more light, more ease,
More time to stretch out
In life-embracing welcome
Warm against the longer glowing sky.

©Wendy Mulhern
January 20, 2013


Saturday, January 19, 2013

Saturday Morning, Third Place Books


I watch you, my neighbors,
most unknown to me —
watch your lights rise up.
You come here for your joys,
for your reunions,
in your free time, for your friends
and for your hobbies

And as you walk
your bodies
show the many twists
the light needed to make
coming up through the burdens,
the rejections,
through the sense of failure
and the strategies you’ve used,
the resolutions, the regimes,
the marks which, though I can’t decipher them
hint of a tale
recounting why your light came forth
in this particular way.

And if you are like me,
You likely think
your story is invisible
And maybe you are right
For maybe, in the end
All these burdens will dissolve
And all of us will walk here unencumbered
by all the weights our bodies now betray

And we will see each other
as we now, in our best moments
see the ones we love:
Redeemed by light,
Brave and shining through their day.

©Wendy Mulhern
January 19, 2012


Friday, January 18, 2013

Cradled


Spirit is my cradle.
So many hands reach out for love
Grasp at each other, try
to find that solid holding
that can take their weight
and bear them up

So many hands
(mine included)
have felt the flailing
as the hands we reached for
were trying desperately
to have us hold them
And we all kept falling
through the emptiness
of our shared need

But Spirit is our cradle
Resting here, our hands reach out
and give each other
what we have so endlessly desired.

©Wendy Mulhern
January 18, 2013


Thursday, January 17, 2013

Slow motion


In slow motion
Everything moves with grace
Even something shattering —
the crazed fracture lines
forming, in an instant
along the paths
determined by the structure
that the molecules assumed
when the material was forged

In slow motion
There is grace
in the crumbling and falling
of an item
Each particle becoming its own agent
Free to fall along the course
that it, alone, is pulled
To roll, tumble, bounce
and settle, finally
in the place
where it has come to rest.

©Wendy Mulhern
January 17, 2013


Tuesday, January 15, 2013

Vocation


May you know yourself
May you have no doubt
That this you
This very one
Just as you are
Can rise, and must
To fill out all the edges
Of your splendid code
Will flow in your imperative design
Unfurl your lovely colors
And your fine capacity
Such that, in the niche where you are needed
All will see you from afar
And cry look!
The one we’ve waited for
Is here!

©Wendy Mulhern
January 15, 2013


Monday, January 14, 2013

Rising


When we both come up
Through the thick, viscous soup
That holds us heavy and slow
When we come up
Rising with the lightness
Of slow bubbles
Rising as we must
Because our light
Bears us ever up
When we break the surface
And ascend to brightness
Then our signals
Will flash instantly
Across all time and space
Our messages will already
Have coated all planes
Inside and out
With joy
We will be caught up
In that space embracing
All comprising
Pulse of yes
Exalting in eternal day.

©Wendy Mulhern
January 14, 2012

Sunday, January 13, 2013

The taste of life


Having tasted life
(even in a dream)
we will no longer settle for survival.

No longer put up with
the dry stand-ins,
trinkets, chores, routines,
dispatching of accumulated obligations,
points accrued for things checked off the list.

Having tasted
the electric connection —
the swift-coursing,
igniting, kinetic concatenation
of communion,
the lighting up of our being
in the hallowed glow of oneness,
we will never stand for tedium again.

©Wendy Mulhern
January 13, 2013


Saturday, January 12, 2013

Sonnet


There’s nothing new about this longing
How it rolls up, like mist across a lake
And hovers, haunting and etheric
Obscuring the horizon with its grey
This urgent need for contact and belonging
Cries out for feeding, many times a day
A quest for soft, shared heat, and mingled breathing
A constant call, that doesn’t go away
We once were weaned, or so we may have thought
To self-sufficiency, a virtue (so we’re taught)
But to remember, once, this grand connection
Sends our sufficiency to forge a new direction
To weave our lives so we can be together
In comfort and in shared support, forever.

©Wendy Mulhern
January 12, 2013


Friday, January 11, 2013

To free your soul


OK, first
you have to get it to be still
for a while:
Bring your hands in gently
on its crazed, self-harming struggles
Hold it so close that it can’t flutter,
till it calms.

Then all the loud repeating voices
pacing through your consciousness
inciting one another to a greater din
will cease,
startled to silence by the pause within.

They will look on in awe
as you take your soul
cradling it
to the open window
Reach your hands outside
And let it go.

©Wendy Mulhern
January 11, 2013


Thursday, January 10, 2013

The day flirts with snow


The day flirts with snow —
In the morning, lets some fall,
though it’s far too warm for it to stick;
In the dimming afternoon,
sports a portentous light
in the pockets of the clouds —
Shades of blue and cream 
between the stark, bare limbs of trees,
that calls for snow.

There is some sense of magic
in the stillness
where, at their tips
the white pine’s needles hold their muted pearls,
that makes me hope
for that white transformation
that stops time,
Makes me catch my breath
in the freshness and the sweetness
of the now.

The day flirts with snow —
It won’t deliver
But at least it kissed my soul
with its bright shiver.

©Wendy Mulhern
January 10, 2013


Wednesday, January 9, 2013

One Truth


Why should it seem strange
that for all our differences,
what we all want 
is the same?

Yet I find myself astonished
at how one truth
dissolves so many schemes,
Renders irrelevant the diets, the regimes,
the resolutions and the dogged efforts,
the striving to be marginally better,
the accusations, tit for tat, of sin,
the arguments on which approach will win —

Listen:
You are beloved,
You are accepted,
You are needed,
You belong here,
And your many gifts are priceless.
You deserve to live,
And you deserve
all you need so you can fully thrive,
And what your heart tells you is right
really is.

The moment we are each convinced of this
We leave all hurt and pain and grief
for bliss.

©Wendy Mulhern
January 9, 2013


Tuesday, January 8, 2013

The hand of Love


Yesterday I was looking over my old blog, Splash of Spirit, and saw two poems that I had written under the titles "The Hand of Love", and "The Hand of Love II," which I wrote in 2008 and 2009 respectively, before I knew I was a poet. The first one I wrote in a writing group that I was leading for homeless women; I think the first line, in the middle of the night, was inspired by something one of the women suggested. In the second poem, I think I was consciously echoing the first one, though probably not looking at it. Anyway, I thought it might be worthwhile to reproduce them here:


The hand of Love

I.
In the middle of the night
the mother comes and strokes the child’s hair
running her fingers through
gently smoothing the strands

In the middle of the night
the currents of dreams softly realign thought
disentangling the questions
deftly smoothing the strands

Soft as water
strong as currents
lifting the mermaid hair 
up from the rocks
smoothing it and holding it 
in disentangled ripples
The hand of Love lifts all tangled things
smoothes them
sets them right and holds them 
in shimmering order.


II.
In the dawning of the morning
Rays of light stream like combs through the trees
Freeing each branch from its background
Lifting sight
Inspiring the chorus of the birds

In the dawning of the morning
The fingers of Love reach every dreaming thought
Warming each molecule
Enlivening joy
Tuning the chorus of the Word.

©Wendy Mulhern
January 8, 2013

Monday, January 7, 2013

Sea Change


Everything has changed
on the inside.
Though forms remain,
the structure
has been vivified.

What once was thought etheric
is seen to be more solid
(substance now defined by what’s alive)
And what we thought were bars
we now can see
are merely filterings and siftings
of the light.

What we once thought defined us
has shape-shifted with our spirit
And we see it sets no limits,
being infinite.

Everything has changed
on the inside.
Our step is free, 
our vistas wide,
Though if we turn around and look again,
we may know
This is how we've always been.

©Wendy Mulhern
January 7, 2013


Sunday, January 6, 2013

When truth walks


When truth walks
Doors open
She is received
like a kiss
All resistance falling
to the yes

When truth walks
No matter how high
the lies are piled
How thick they’ve been amassed
She steps through them
Exposing them
as weightless shams

When we walk in truth
Though our steps are light
Our traction is momentous
for truth’s way is right.

©Wendy Mulhern
January 6, 2013


Saturday, January 5, 2013

Believing


Maybe
the greatest thing you’ve ever done
is to believe in someone.

Maybe
the anchor of that trust
led someone’s roots
to the deep place of sustenance
where they could pull strength
steadily up into their being
springing forth in beauty and blessings.

Maybe
the best thing you can do
is to believe in someone’s love
For in that flourishing
(the most fulfilling part of their unfolding)
You, too, may find the bounty
that nourishes and brightens
all your days.

©Wendy Mulhern
January 5, 2013


Friday, January 4, 2013

Rolling


My love is a deep river
Calm and rich and full
If you step in, you’ll be enveloped
Carried in its rapid, steady flow

My white waters fall
to a smooth bowl
Carved a perfect round
from much coursing
Bubbles rise up after the plunge
Sunlight leaps in bright rejoicing

My love is an adventure
As new for me as it may be for you
I know it’s ocean-bound and well established
Still, each turn provides
an unexpected view

Roll, roll with me
Be gathered, swept along
Bring your streams to merge with mine
Bring your song
Great power will roll with us as we surge
Great wisdom will splash forth
as we emerge.

©Wendy Mulhern
January 4, 2012


Thursday, January 3, 2013

Bone of my bones


The only thing
that can flow inside me
is love.
The only thing that quickens me
Oxygenates the deepest reaches
of my system
Wakes me up
and lets me move
is love.
The only substance of my bones,
their solid comfort, steady, strong support,
their unassuming service, their
good-natured density,
is love.

And love ignites the gratitude
that courses through me, leaps
along my limbs,
Curls into my inner places 
with their secret glow,
Lights me like a lantern, pours
illumination out
through my eyes, my skin, my tongue.
And love will ever lead me to my own,
The place that I may bless,
My heart, my home.
And love will guide my words, my steps, my days
In every breath of mine evincing praise.

©Wendy Mulhern
January 3, 2013


Wednesday, January 2, 2013

Special Announcement — my second book!

Dear readers,

I'm delighted to announce that my second poetry book is now out. You can view it on Amazon using the link below, but if you're local, please buy it directly from me. (It's a much better deal for me, and I can also sign your copy.)



Capture Rapture is about romance — all facets of it — from the initial attraction through all the uncertainties and questions, and including both the joy of union and the necessary regrouping when things don't work out as hoped. Through all the aspects of romance, it provides spiritual resources that lead to the calm of love.

I also did the artwork for Capture Rapture, deriving great delight in the artistic process, with all its struggles. I endeavor to give a feeling of the poems without being distractingly literal. I hope you will check it out, and I hope you enjoy it!

-Wendy

The Shift


Maybe
the last thing we can know
is that home
is always right here with us —
Always has been
Always will be —
But we can’t know anything
before we’re willing to receive it.

What is this shift?
— Delivery of all promises —
To our journey, some sense of purpose,
Some clarity about our destination,
Some hope that we will find
the resources to lift us
higher than this hypnotizing mire
Higher than the prizes
of cheap objects made in China
Beyond the sense of being best
or being right, or simply being tired . . . 

Till we arrive
And maybe
the last truth we can receive
is that we never left.

©Wendy Mulhern
January 2, 2013