Love speaks like this

Wait just a moment

And you can feel the love flow in

Like water on the tidal shore

seeps through the sand

melting the footprints

Let the impressions all grow wide and bright

and shimmery

While the answering rush of warmth

wells up in you

This, too, will shine —

Flash out its signal

Far across the water

to the other side.

©Wendy Mulhern

April 30, 2013

Harvesting

In this moment,

Nominally evening, 

Though bright green leaves outside

show no sign of gloaming,

In a state of pleasant tiredness

in the swing chair, swinging

I reflect that I’m delighting in a harvest.

This is harvest of a dream,

Planted more than twenty years ago

Harvest of a vision for this kind of space and peace,

Proof that things I plant as dear desires

Have their own life

That, absent any tending on my part

They still take root and grow

alongside every other hope

I may or may not notice

And bear their unassuming fruit

Which I may reap

by noting them with gratitude

Which lets me keep

with joy to which each harvest must give rise:

this blessing that now swings before my eyes.

©Wendy Mulhern

April 29, 2013

For Heather at finals time

For you to be

exactly what you are

doesn’t take a miracle

That what you are

is astoundingly perfect

in each creation, every interaction

should be no surprise

That “perfect” be defined

by the eternal laws of Life,

of seamless symbiosis, joyful thriving,

pure delight,

Makes perfect sense,

for the great source

from which we all have come

Gives us our impulse, our guidance

and our home.

©Wendy Mulhern

April 28, 2013

Through the pass

The mountain alders

In luminescent jeweled green

Have limbs much thinner than their trunks;

It is their strategy

to grow fast and high

And spread new limbs each year

Against the sky

The darker firs

still wear the garb they wore all winter

Stoically, heroically surviving —

Their springing tips come later in the year.

All along the pass

The wind turns bright leaves over

Dancing spots of white against the green

And we are voyeurs here

Flying through on the interstate

Taking in a scene that ought to cost us

far more effort.

Still it invites us

to leave our hardened corridors

Forge into mystery

And find our green.

©Wendy Mulhern

April 27, 2013

Greening

Along the ever-surging edge

of what’s alive,

There’s no time

for construction of a casing.

The growing tip is light and soft,

Ever moving into what it is becoming.

The story, the woody stem,

That which will uphold it

over future years

Will come later

in the established corridors

of nurture and support —

The long-stretched-out connection

between root and frond

But its identity,

Its form, its exaltation,

Its phototropic, geotropic

orientation,

The sensitivity, and the sensation,

Are most felt

in this newly forming green.

©Wendy Mulhern

April 26, 2013

Fluidity

From flashes in the corner of my eye

I start to sense

that what I operationally

have called reality

is completely fluid,

unanchored as water —

Which helps explain

the many times I’ve fallen through

when leaning into something

that I thought was real.

What I have called reality

is as fluid as thought

and changes just as deftly

as a dream —

Not only in the sense of what is now,

but also in my thought

of everything that’s gone before

Fluid as thought

And anchored only in the forces

that control its waves

that weave the grand and languid dance

that nothing stops —

Each impulse’s momentum

playing out its power

Nothing forgotten

in the rolling course of life.

©Wendy Mulhern

April 25, 2013

Spring Outlook

Everything has changed:

A keystone puzzle piece explaining everything,

Sun coming out bright after weeks of cold rain,

Warmth quickly filling the long-drained vessels

of human hope,

Brimming over in spontaneous smiles.

Nothing has changed:

All this time, buds were forming,

Plump potential taking shape as furled petals

Which now must open,

Green leaves growing from the draft of sweet sap

Which they make from sun

even in the fully shrouded days.

And this bright goodness —

The thing that fills me up with joy —

Why, it was here all along

The only difference is that now,

Despite all former lack of faith,

I know.

©Wendy Mulhern

April 24, 2013

Permacuddle

I’m ready

to take down all the bars

I want a permaculture

of cuddle

I want to hug

all the people on the city street

I want to catch each eye

And feel the bright exchange of recognition —

Smooth rippling surge connecting us

before we touch —

I want the hug to come as echo —

Warm confirming of the surge’s message —

And for each release to send

encouragement and strength

for anywhere they might be headed next

It would take a long time

to walk fifth avenue

But think how rich we all would be!

I would smell of cigarettes and perfume,

Coffee and garlic

And I wouldn’t mind.

I don’t want anyone, anymore, to not know how,

To not feel free to cuddle all the time.

It would be a permaculture

for our hearts

And we would spread our potent roots

all through the land.

©Wendy Mulhern

April 23, 2013

Gulch

I can’t go to where you are.

There are no roads.

Though I had wanted to establish some

I didn’t know what kind of bridge

to build over the silence

that became a gulch

(The more I tried, the more

the crumbly land gave in)

And now, I have no toehold

on the other side

I can only be glad

that there are others with you

And that they can help

And I can only work

on the general greening

which has begun

and will continue

Until someday

Our whole shared landscape is restored

And I’ll cross over.

©Wendy Mulhern

April 22, 2013

Centering

I will go to this deep place

I will go to this place

that’s deeper than the floor,

Deeper than all the floating levels

that shift and sift and change perspective

I will go to where I feel

the elemental hook

that anchors me,

sends a surge of solidness

up through my core and out beyond

and binds me to the stars

I will bring my vision of you

to this deep place,

I will see you centered,

and anchored,

and soaring,

where no false floors

can trap you or distract you,

And so I’ll see you home.

©Wendy Mulhern

April 21, 2013

Weaving Love

As she began to pull her glorious love

out and out,

As it billowed and wrapped

its luxurious fabric,

Covering more and more,

She began to understand:

This love is not about being trapped

This love can’t be kept in a box,

Can’t be contained

This love is about weaving the world

It is the stuff that holds all the things together

It can hold a man,

A clan,

The flow of peace throughout the land,

It can harmonize the seas

And set all things at ease —

Look how everyone dives into it

with such abandon,

Such confidence that it will bear them up!

She sees she needn’t fear she won’t be strong enough

to keep the threads together

The love she spins has purpose of its own

It sends its strength back to her weaving hands —

Held in its web, she can’t feel all alone.

It doesn’t matter if she’s asked 

to care for all that is,

For she can do it:

Her love was made for this.

©Wendy Mulhern

April 20, 2013

Mountain Time

Yeah, I’ve been here a long time

Maybe about as long as a mountain.

I’ve learned to settle in,

Deeply etched by all the watersheds

whose paths I then determine.

Weather brings on its steady drama

Sometimes stilled by me, sometimes augmented

I let things flow through me like that,

Let them change me,

Bring me ever closer to myself

(Canyons of time and tears expose my core)

Today I feel as if

I will be here a long time

Maybe as long as a mountain.

Tomorrow I may feel

ephemeral as a cloud.

©Wendy Mulhern

April 19, 2013

Light effects

I saw this as a movie in my mind,

I heard its soundtrack in my thoughts,

I understood:

This is a picture of the way we are,

the way we move:

The medium in which we danced

seemed to be thick,

Seemed to slow our motion

and deflect our light

into many bouncing flecks —

Square-shaped, fading in and out

So it was hard to see

just where — and when — we were.

We didn’t worry that we were arrested

or restrained

or blocked

or yet dispersed

within the semi-opaque thickness.

We knew all that was just a trick of light

And that our impulse

was as strong and clear

as it had always been

and that we owned it

and the medium could never slow us down.

So we could watch it

and play with its effects

And use our undiminished vigor

to enact our purpose

And wait to see

how it would be interpreted

in this thick, slow place

wherein we seem to walk.

©Wendy Mulhern

April 18, 2013

Deep waters

The river runs swifter

on this stretch between the high banks

And many

who have plied the currents confidently

all these years 

Still find themselves

unequal to its strength.

Their paddles catch,

Their little craft disintegrate

or founder,

They reach for other boats

Or sweep along alone

And the “I told you so”s of younger times

now sink, or echo, hollow

in their irony.

Before long, there’s no longer time

to think about the past

The river bears them onward

True to its own course.

©Wendy Mulhern

April 17, 2013

Little things rescue me

“Glad I could help,”

says the smiling corner

of my daughter’s mouth

After she has talked me through

two cycles of distress.

A robin sings outside the jail.

I think it must have come

to comfort someone

up there in a cell . . . 

Inside, the guards are friendly:

“Need some stuff irradiated?

— Here you go!”

And through the glass, upstairs

I feel a spirit-heart connection.

Shafts of sun break in

from time to time, upon the day

Calm settles, and I write the needed letters.

Little things rescue me.

It doesn’t always take epiphany:

Sometimes the quiet confluences

are enough

to stop the crisis and reset my screen.

©Wendy Mulhern

April 16, 2013

Reconsidering

Well, actually,

I don’t want to be the one

to do the talking

(Steam still rolling off of my indignant thoughts,

which mostly, to the mercy of the peace,

were never given breath)

I’m tired already, from their

pacing around inside the cage

of my surprise,

Rattling my words, finding them

deficient

It’s not enough that I deny them voice

They need to change, to find a higher mission

Somehow these thoughts

must all return to calm

So I consider:

Do I want to choose my friends, my loves,

on grounds of shared opinions,

so we can lie together

flat along the plane that we have chosen?

Or do I want to own

all the dimensions,

To spread out free, in an embrace

that hugs us all,

Transcending any scorn or condemnation?

Thank you. Right.

I won’t be duped to carrying that baggage on the plane

So I release all this from thought

to dwell in peace again.

©Wendy Mulhern

April 15, 2013

“In my Father’s house”

In this house

There’s room enough for everyone.

There’s room for those

who need to go slow,

whose moves are ponderous

and often hesitating,

Who may seem to forget sometimes

where they are going.

There’s room for those

who only lightly touch down

in the quick flitting of skittering motion,

Hardly here for long enough

to cast a shadow,

But wanting to have weight

and be remembered.

There’s room for those who need to lead

And those who wish to follow,

Room to blaze in brilliance,

Room to wait in silence.

Room for both those born within

And those who came from far,

Room for all to grow

and so step in to what they are.

©Wendy Mulhern

April 14, 2013

Cloud travel

I almost can remember

Times of cloud travel,

Being so attentive and receptive

That I could move along the currents of the air

And let myself be gathered and dispersed

And turned in languid, stretching shapes,

My will as fluid as the wind’s direction,

Learning, as I went, where I was going.

It was an easy thing, upon arrival,

To center in, to grow more dense, more focused

So that I could lightly drop

from air to ground

and into solid form.

©Wendy Mulhern

April 12, 2013

The consulate of Other

It’s a pretty big country, my mind

And there is much of it I haven’t yet explored

Rural villages and favelas

Places of hard-working love and teeming life

Broad, windy planes

Hidden, green-draped canyons . . . 

And the government there

I only recently started to question,

Started to say,

What are these voices

That preside over my moments,

Even my most private ones?

That judge my intimacy, and my observations

My emotions, and my patterns

That block my paths with traffic lights

And put barbed wire around my lovely meadows?

Who elected them? Who gave consent? 

Who ratified the constitution granting them control?

Not me.

Not the strong rivers of my body

Not the steady winds of my intentions

Not the oceans of my love

Or the strong, protective trees that feed my heart.

They are an enclave here

Installed by the country of Other

A consulate of sorts,

But it has no citizens within my border

No one needing their protection.

And there are no dwellers

In the home country of Other

(It is, for everyone, where others live —

No one has actually been there)

So, with no true souls to represent,

The consulate of Other

Has set itself as ruler in my mind.

But it has no right to reign,

It doesn’t own me

No law has set it here

And I abolish

The diplomatic ties it claimed to have.

I own my country

And I don’t need those Other rules,

Those fences, all those ugly barbs

That hemmed me in, that choked my vital movement.

I hereby free myself with this decree:

The consulate of Other is not me.

©Wendy Mulhern

April 12, 2013

Things that are not quite storms

Let this flow through me

like virga —

like rain that doesn’t touch the ground,

that falls awhile through the sky

but then evaporates

leaving my feet dry

Let it be that I perhaps feel

a cold shaft around my ears

Let me raise my eyes

to see a span of rainbow

or some amazing rays

sifting through lines of gray

It’s OK

if all this is sublimated

and tomorrow

Steam rises from the earth

to meet the morning sun.

©Wendy Mulhern

April 10, 2013

Essences

I start to sense —

with some surprise —

the essences of which I am comprised,

And they feel more like

softly potent nebulae

than any former figure of myself

They gather forces, lift,

roll in,

like clouds, like seas —

They shape-shift as they fly,

They gravitate like spheres,

Encounter others,

Slide into their places,

Harmonizing vectors

Who am I now?

— Something far beyond

the stories, placing me

in static scripts and roles,

Something I may learn

as I unfold.

©Wendy Mulhern

April 9, 2013

Goodbye, Baby Bird

For Audrey, Bill, Jeremy and Nicholas

Such a little life form

But the connection runs deep —

When you follow its roots down

You are submerged in memories:

Friendships made, wild choices,

Fights and struggles, friends 

standing by —

Bonds of love made stronger,

Affection running often silent,

subterranean,

Emerging when it’s needed

for support, in grief,

for every death and every helpless pain,

Holding you until you raise your head

to bravely live another day.

Laughter and tears flow 

quickly, close together.

Spirit flits down brightly,

Brought by many angels

To help us remember

We will meet these loves again

And we will all be wiser.

Our friends who went before

Will have let their suffering go,

Will have forgiven us our failings,

Will deeply understand,

Will welcome us with their assurance

That all is well.

And this little bird will be there

Singing his human-whistle song,

the one you taught him.

He will fly around your heads

and sing you home.

©Wendy Mulhern

April 8, 2013

An Invitation

Change my mind —

I invite you —

For though I may resist

at first,

I welcome

the free fall that comes

when my prior suppositions

are knocked away —

That airy, floating weightlessness

in which begins to coalesce

a new perspective,

And I start to grasp:

The world is bigger than I thought.

There is more room than there was before

within my mind’s horizons

For expression,

For free flying,

For opening outward and outward,

Unfolding in new bloom. 

©Wendy Mulhern

April 7, 2013

Indoor Saturday, Seattle

Rain pelts down in some of the scenes,

Falling thickly onto the parking lot,

Rolling in sheets, low waves

following each other

down the broad slope

towards the near edge.

And elsewhere, it high-fives the waving leaves,

with patter-smack repeated in cascading rounds

as the wind rolls through.

In other scenes, the rain is tucked away

for interludes of wind alone,

Gathering the landscape

in its casual repetitious circles,

Sweeping it up in preparation

for the next course of rain.

The sun is not pictured here;

To find it, you must go back in memory

to earlier this morning, when it splashed

a few sweet swaths of warmth

across the land.

No matter, we warm-blooded creatures

And all the swelling seeds —

their code of growth impelling

their own kind of heat —

Will tend our inner suns

until the outer sun returns.

©Wendy Mulhern

April 6, 2013

Finding a way

Let’s find the ways

that we can fit together.

Let’s find how we are family

And how a little shifting of presuppositions

Will let our odd-shaped pieces

find a way to mesh.

It’s easy enough

to be all elbows

and bony knees,

But we have soft curves, too,

where we can empathize and understand

And this,

This warm, accommodating mass,

Is what we really, really want

More than being on top,

More than being right.

©Wendy Mulhern

April 4, 2013

Garden Smiles

Even in my shady and neglected yard

Tulips are starting to smile,

Pink edges showing forth seductive lips

against their otherwise inscrutable green.

I know this feeling —

They won’t be able

to hold their laughs inside much longer:

They will burst out, bright color

suffusing them entirely,

No longer able, or willing

to hide anything —

Letting themselves go

with the sheer joy of spring.

©Wendy Mulhern

April 3, 2013