Interruptions

Any snag

in the loops of dream

can start your liberation

Though the smooth weave

you worked so hard to fashion

is now puckered,

Though gaping holes have opened

in your plans,

Though you feel tripped up, tangled

and abandoned,

Look up, for none of this

is what it seems

This is not the rupture of your good,

This is your revelation.

This is the way out 

from your hard and dull pursuits,

This can begin your transformation

Look through —

There is a deeper order

that doesn’t run at odds

with who you long to be,

There’s an awakening

from toilsome drudgery,

There’s a release,

a time you see

There’s no need to go back and make repairs.

You never need to tend that dream again,

for you are free.

©Wendy Mulhern

June 30, 2014

Living On

(Cynthia’s wisdom)

You will live on.

This is your gift —

Your aliveness

with which you feel

every incredible tender thing —

the supple softness of rose petals,

the rush of breath against your heart,

stirrings of life forces

across your skin

You are alive

and you can bring them with you,

the ones you loved —

You haven’t lost them

because they live in you.

You can’t leave them

any more than you could leave

your bones, your blood

You have to take them with you

(which is what you wanted anyway)

This is your gift

to you and your loved ones —

You take them with you 

as you live on.

©Wendy Mulhern

June 29, 2014

Sharing Stories

We traded in the currency of wisdom —

Bright beads strung on chains of story,

held out in our gesticulating hands,

exchanged in channels of our care

We were all lit up

in the refracted rays

of those deep gems

we each had mined,

ofttimes in solitary toil,

and now could bring out in the light

to share

So we grew richer,

the wealth of these being

the way they multiply when seen,

the way they fill up our dark places

with a glow that warms us solidly

while still revealing

their enticing depth.

©Wendy Mulhern

June 28, 2014

In the backyard

The baby flickers

consider fledging —

one and then another

sticks a head out, then feet,

breast, a shoulder

Their eyes dart around,

they blink,

They’re in and out,

in and out —

The one without the red cheeks

has been out longer,

come out farther

Yesterday a hawk came

and perched on their snag.

The jay made holy racket

and the babies hid

while mom and dad flew frantic,

making their decoy calls

Today it’s quiet.

The wind rushes through the trees,

crows and planes more distant.

I watch them watching everything,

weighing themselves

against the feat at hand.

©Wendy Mulhern 

June 26, 2014

photos by Edward Mulhern

Borne

Make no resolutions,

Assay no regimen:

This — who you are —

is out of your hands

Nor does it belong to

those desiccated voices,

hollow echoes of disapproval

tunneled down the years,

speaking through the mouthpieces

of relatives and teachers (and yourself),

standing in for experts,

Knowing nothing

Your perfection is as close

as the little hitch of breath

that comes in the space between

the leaping and the falling

and the rush of being borne up

in the ever humming

affirmation of you.

©Wendy Mulhern

June 25, 2014

Impress

Who can actually

look back or forward?

The rolling drum of life

stamps its impress

on our moments,

thick and deep,

And we are caught up in it,

and everything that was our past

is far from our attention

And what the coming press might hold,

we can’t foresee

And it’s OK to be

here in the quick of it,

the colors glistening

and dripping from our hands.

©Wendy Mulhern

June 24, 2014

Testimony

No internal tyrant

can stand against 

the law of Love

There are no bargains,

nothing to be bid against yourself,

nothing to be bought,

no wily devil

with whom to gamble

for your soul

You have the right

to remain silent

and let the quiet 

truth about your being

testify

Love ensures your innate worth,

outweighs any evidence

the tyrant musters,

Proving

the tyrant is not you

and you are never called

to be its voice.

Your love will take the stand

and you will win.

We’ll see you claim your freedom

and rejoice.

©Wendy Mulhern

June 23, 2014

Aflatus

It could be called the moment

when Spirit appears on the scene —

That silent shift in everything,

where all the spaces and hollows

become more pronounced.

Things stand out from each other —

ferns in the sunlight,

waves cresting among waves,

and the whole dimensionality

takes on depth and richness

And things glisten

in the sure sense of being themselves

and being loved,

And everything moves

with a unity of breathing —

Grand inclusive rise and fall,

catching them up in its peace,

embracing them all.

©Wendy Mulhern

June 22, 2014

Yachats, Near Midnight

No moon.

Stars bright enough

to make me cry,

The blackness 

of the sky between them,

The sound of surf,

The gurgle of the small creek,

The presence of the wind.

Ah! This is why —

This is reason enough.

©Wendy Mulhern

June 20, 2014

Transfiguration

Oh, I recognize this,

Coming, as it does,

in the rush of weather changes,

wind chimes frenzied,

tree tops all astir . . . 

I don’t know if I’ve seen it before

but I’ve felt it,

The way those distant trees

(one layer behind the houses

across the street)

Are suddenly gold,

lit up at full attention,

limbs held in sudden

transfiguration

for a long moment in which

all I can do is watch . . .

One cottonwood took the chance

to dance copper and brass

instead of its usual silver,

Wildly, in full abandon,

until the glow was softly

lifted away.

©Wendy Mulhern

June 19, 2014

Summer Vacation

Solstice approaches,

first year I don’t know

when school lets out,

when the sweet liberation

(felt as such a deep right)

commences . . .

Days flow easily.

Yes, I think,

We don’t really need bondage

to relish freedom.

©Wendy Mulhern

June 18, 2014

photo by Heather Mulhern

Pretty

There’s something striking

in straight lines merged with bendy —

Tree limbs framed in window panes,

Images of houses

ruffled in the river’s ripples

I came here along the braided curves —

River, bike trail, highway rising 

into overpasses, thinking

“Everything about today is pretty”

For I also thought so earlier,

Watching the rolling arc of waves,

small and glistening on the glassy water,

curling to a small break

just before the curving shore,

almost too bright to bear

We bounced small rocks off driftwood,

We spoke of things arcane and lofty,

Didn’t need to seek 

the places we might disagree

(so I didn’t mention watching

dragon-headed clouds with intelligent eyes

drifting in brilliant blue

framed by my arm crooked over my face

to block eye-searing sun.)

©Wendy Mulhern

June 16, 2014

We find our way back

We find our way back

Not by craft, not by clever planning,

Not with compasses or maps

or trails of breadcrumbs

We find our way back

Not by skill, not by knowledge,

Not with an ever burning torch

to light our way

We find our way back

by falling,

Falling into the well-honed patterns,

the steps we have invested in,

the ways we fit,

grown together day by day

over many years

So that after we have spun out,

There’s a truth we sink back into

and in our surrender

we find our way back.

©Wendy Mulhern

June 15, 2014

Benighted

What I figure out in my head

makes so little difference —

tenuous story

hung by flimsy threads

between the bounds of

things I don’t know anyway,

nothing more solid than

conjectures that I form

by flattening reality

to see it from my narrow point of view

See? I don’t know anything —

Nothing, anyway,

about these figurines, these tokens, this

archaic game board, with its

esoteric rules of play

I don’t know anything

so I’ll await the return

of some deeper context,

some more inclusive dimension,

some hitherto uncharted way.

©Wendy Mulhern

June 14, 2014

Weave

Flying down the warp of life

past the constant shuttle

of many colored wefts,

there is no one of them

you can take with you —

Nothing that you swiftly cross

can satisfy you

in your speeding course

Take satisfaction

in the silken strength

wherewith you are designed

and in the splendid order

of the loom

and in the dance that opens ways

to make room

for endless looping brightness

And feel yourself enfolded in the colors,

each one reliant on your clear integrity

that doesn’t waver in its steady place

within the cosmic frame

that holds your life.

©Wendy Mulhern

June 13, 2014

Early Morning Smile

I cherish your

early morning smile,

rare as days when we can wake

to sunbeams,

hope-igniting as robin song.

We blink and face each other

and fill with light

We are here

and though chains of the day

await your donning,

we can almost see

the way they must dissolve,

We can almost taste the freedom

to live into that smile,

to let it lead us through the hours

released, at peace.

©Wendy Mulhern

June 11, 2014

The Implicate Order

The implicate order unfolds

in the waxing moon

and the track of shadows

across the day

and the tender individuation

of petals in their buds

and the steady resolution

in which my thoughts

come clear

And all the things I don’t yet know

remain still safe, enfolded

in the eternal order of the infinite

to come to my awareness

in the rolling presentation,

in its perfect time,

of all that’s implicate.

©Wendy Mulhern

June 10, 2014