To Giovanni

I see your face

and I know what it’s like

to have no doubt,

to never have pierced the casing.

never had cold scorn seep in

upon your certainty

of being loved

You meet each day

with eagerness —

in the rough and tumble

of your big brothers,

your place is wholly

one of joy

I see your face

and start to glimpse:

This is the way we all

have always

wanted to be held

You give us this —

We, too, can have it:

There is no outside

of that which holds us

in sheer delight,

in cradled bliss.

©Wendy Mulhern

February 28, 2014

Lift Your Head

No guilt,

of being found

with the impress

of a wound, stamped

in the sad and haunting image

of a wound

that you always have detested,

that you scorned

as it, in turn, was spurned

by countless others

in your place

who wished

as deeply as do you

they could be free

No curse

upon the generations

no alarm

no stain upon your visage —

You are pure,

as pure as all the others

down the broad and brilliant

pathway of your line,

For when you lift your head

out of that dream,

you lift them all,

and when you’re lifted,

you all, together, shine.

©Wendy Mulhern

February 27, 2014

Soul Dance

It was something about trees —

the commitment, the certainty of their limbs

and the wholehearted way

they offer themselves

to the wind

It was something about laughter . . . 

Trees can laugh

in the full-throated voice of storms

and in the head-tossing

clearing of the sky

There is a dance

of everything that’s free —

They dance as one

because they can,

because they all agree

that this time

is worth their presence

and this joining

serves their essence,

and they can be

deeply grounded

and also fly.

They’re here for something —

This dance is why.

©Wendy Mulhern

February 26, 2014

A Whale’s Prayer

Bear me in your substance,

Fill me with your ocean,

Let your steady undulation

hold me, be my motion

Let our song ring long and far

throughout your depths,

Carving arcs on which we ride

in active rest

Safe within the tide

that pulls the pliant seas,

Keep this, our place of peace,

Be our deep ease.

©Wendy Mulhern

February 24, 2014

Flash

I want what I want.

My desire is my own.

No one can make me not want

what I want,

No one can make me

want what I don’t.

A simple truth,

a spinning shape,

flashing peach-toned light

through my center

outwards

What does it mean?

Joy and power

I want what I want:

it is not moderated,

not bargained down

or capitulated,

with no apology,

no wrong, no shame,

clear as my conscience,

strong as my name.

©Wendy Mulhern

February 23, 2014

Composition Accompanied by Granddad in the Rocker

So I tell myself,

this distraction might even be

the tune, the backdrop

on which my inspiration will roll out

I listen to the chair squeaks —

high pitched and persistent,

scraping out an almost-steady rhythm,

each squeal slightly different,

though not enough to make a difference

Every now and then there is a pause,

but not quite long enough

for the silence to settle in

and spread out its

welcoming open page.

©Wendy Mulhern

February 22, 2014

The Wisdom of Hands

What your hands have learned,

they can take with them:

If you can weave a basket,

you can also weave

the springing boughs 

of many people’s stories,

coax them all together into one

If you can start a fire,

you can also start a movement,

Find the soft, dried fiber

that is ready to ignite,

Gather it, bring it close,

Work up the fervency

that makes the heat,

Shelter and tend your tinder bundle,

Breathe your spark into it

and it will take off.

©Wendy Mulhern

February 21, 2014

Healing Streams

Close your eyes,

feel the water rushing down your face,

taste its stream,

let it speak for your tears,

let it take them down.

Its roar can stand in for your grief,

even overwhelm it

for a while

Blink your eyes

and feel the weight of rivulets

through your eyelashes,

blurring droplets stretching out

the silvered light

that’s rolling in,

taste the promise —

there will be renewal 

in its time

No need to dry your eyes —

that will happen

when you’re ready

and you’ll feel the coolness

around your eyelids

and the steadying

of your deep, shuddering breath

and you will feel alive,

strangely nourished by your tears.

Morning wil come

and you’ll look up.

©Wendy Mulhern

February 20, 2014

Wednesday Meeting

There were rustlings

between the prayers,

stirrings, agitation,

There were pretensions

among some players,

twitching efforts 

to effect distraction

Yet there was no assailing

the potent truth

and its unfurling

like great wings, like huge

flocks of birds

launched by an unerring impulse,

following a necessary wave,

creating dynamic calm —

a sky-full of it,

large enough to welcome

even all the chatterers,

strong enough eventually

to bring them peace.

©Wendy Mulhern

February 19, 2014

Ways of Knowing

Things may be much larger

or much smaller

than we assume —

Maybe it’s a galaxy,

maybe a quark,

maybe the shake of a squirrel’s tail

among the boughs

Some instruments of knowing

are less foolproof

than we have been led to believe,

and indeed

we have been fooled for generations —

We have been duped

into throwing out

all ways of knowing,

all ways of measuring,

all ways of valuing

except the dollar

(and that, we’re told,

is out of our control)

And yet

We are not fools,

We do have ways of knowing 

of our own

And we can use them

to understand

each one’s true value

and why we’re here

and what we now can do

to save the world.

©Wendy Mulhern

February 18, 2014

Mid Term

Oh, you have been good

You have been so, so good,

fighting through for all those deadlines,

pluckily plugging on . . .

But even more than that,

You are good —

Good in the way that makes the wind

want to help you, the sky

want to halo you, the sun

count you as kin,

even when you’re sleeping,

even before

you’ve turned everything in.

©Wendy Mulhern

February 17, 2014

A Shelter

The rain is flung against the windows

in periodic splatters —

the glass holds the cold at bay,

as does the heat,

indulgently set high

to try to hold back, too,

the hard-flung shafts

of doubt, of indecision,

and the slow seep

of suspected missed connections

that I imagine

would warm me to my core

There is a shelter

that has harbored me before

and I will find it

after my introspection

and my letting go

when I reach out

with my empty hands

and let what holds me

bear me up

from underneath.

©Wendy Mulhern

February 16, 2014

Juice

We find ourselves

in the presence of 

— this —

which we do have power

to understand

(despite assertions,

hard and furious,

dogged and insistent,

that we do not)

We feel this

like an elixir

that pours into us

continually

filling us up and flowing over,

constantly glowing

in unexpected light

And we don’t need to say

if it comes from us

or from another —

Yes it wells up within

(more full and sudden

than we would imagine)

and yes, it is response

to something we have seen

outside ourselves —

We can move in this,

we can live it —

And we must,

(as we always have,

though often in rebellion

or in guilt or in confusion) —

Through all the obfuscation

we still will find it

for nothing can deprive us

of our truth.

©Wendy Mulhern

February 14, 2014

A fact of life

After a while she realized

it didn’t take endurance

to keep on loving,

nor was it heroic, really —

It was more like breathing —

something she must do

to be alive

And if she felt wrung out

and dry and hollow,

it wasn’t due to lack of loving

so much as lack of noticing

her love was insurmountable

There might be sorrow

and frustration

and righteous voices

shouting down the value of her love

but love would win

for she could never cease

and so her love would always be enough.

©Wendy Mulhern

February 12, 2014

Fall line

I’m willing to go

whatever way I’m led,

to move forward

without forecast —

no projections of the path,

no resolutions

I’m willing to let

the weight of truth

bear me towards my source,

ever following the fall line,

ever unpredicted,

often winding,

always exactly right

In this place,

at this time

held in the poise

of the law

that makes me

what I am.

©Wendy Mulhern

February 11, 2014

“In spirit and in truth”

It’s said, about your essence,

You can’t see it face to face,

although it’s always here —

It’s known to you within you

in your limbs, and in your light

and in the inner chime

that hums you in reverberation

as you’re moved

It is the same with God —

That elemental goodness,

that aliveness, that

ever unsuppressed

law of joy

is something you encounter

as you live it, as your essence —

Not something you could meet

and walk away from —

Something you take with you,

more yours than your walk,

your stance, your face —

Something — like your eyes —

that you can only see reflected,

something you embody

in your grace.

©Wendy Mulhern

February 10, 2014

Choosing Light

Light is always here

for me to choose —

Let me remember this,

let me not lose

myself in finding fault,

in feeling bad,

in calculating what is better

than what I’ve had . . .

Though in the dark and convoluted paths

of circumstance and self positioning,

there seem to be so many dismal turns,

it’s worth remembering:

Just when my angst and awkwardness seem prevalent

there is a light that renders them irrelevant.

©Wendy Mulhern

February 8, 2014

At the meeting

In an instant

a little shift,

a subtle softening of focus 

opened up my sight

and light slid out

through the minute spaces

between the bricks

of what I saw as

people’s constructs of themselves —

It overwhelmed my previous projections

(why they were there, what they

might mean to me, what I surmised

they thought of me and of themselves)

One light.

Our souls.

no other agenda

could have any weight,

no different plans or paths 

could hide

what brought us all 

to this now,

and what, in unexpected fulfillment,

we would each take home.

©Wendy Mulhern

February 7, 2014

Melting Ice

Our hearts are too warm

for us to wield the spears of ice,

and all our old wounds

will heal after the ice melts

And it won’t matter

if we were wounded

by ourselves or someone else

After the ice

will be the cold water, 

the daring plunge —

the lake of self-acceptance —

The water’s fine

once you get used to it

and as it warms up

from your now-rekindled fire.

©Wendy Mulhern

February 5, 2014

Wheel

This. 

The rolling contact,

touch and touch,

release, release,

a press that won’t oppress

in its onward moving ease

Only in this now

resides the meaning that it brings,

Around, around, it follows

in its strong revolving ring

Here we stay connected

but not confined,

Here we are perfected —

touch aligned.

Here, in our close movement

we define

the newest edges where we are aware.

This is the touch along the wheel,

our dance, where we evolve,

This is how we heal,

how we renew our love.

©Wendy Mulhern

February 4, 2014

How we roll

Today I reinvent the wheel

because I need to feel

that nothing is designed to roll alone

I need to understand

the moving correspondence,

point for point

along the road we travel down,

need to understand the traction

and the friction-easing bearings

and how we roll together every day

need to find, or maybe be

the steady axel, holding stillness

to let the wheel keep turning on its way

I reinvent the wheel

and it unveils for me

the things I hadn’t understood:

No single one of us can be a wheel,

we only roll united for a common good.

©Wendy Mulhern

February 3, 2014

Now may be the time

And if, in fact

we can move

with the power of big cats —

deft precision of our paws, our stride,

if we can soar

in the bow-taut wheel of hawks

carving cushion out of sky

and if our fingers truly flow

with the divine creative spark

to render every vision real

then now may be the time

for us to know

Now may be the time for us to gather

in the winding coil 

of growing inner strength

until no tales are strong enough

to dull us or constrain us

and we’ll rise into ourselves

and take the reins

For in this time 

We’re needed as creators —

Our passive and consuming role is done.

It’s time for us to stand and claim our own,

create our world in concord with the One.

©Wendy Mulhern

February 2, 2014

Our love will heal the earth

Our love will heal the earth

for we are willing

to stand as open vessels

in the heavens’ rains,

to let them fill our senses

with the elemental essence

that tunes us clearly 

to dynamic truth

We’ll leave our platitudes,

we’ll leave our fears,

we’ll leave our policies 

and habit-tuned reactions,

for love requires 

that we meet every moment

with the rapt attention it deserves.

Love infuses us

with the harmonic touch

that lets us move in kindness through our days

a touch that teaches us

the wholeness of ourselves

that wakes up earth’s deep joy

and ours in turn.

©Wendy Mulhern

February 1, 2014