Work Day

Low fog and high stars,

cold of early morning,

wrested good byes

as headlights pull away

and head for traffic,

a plan we sense

nothing is right about

But the highways of thought

have been rushing awhile before this —

Same jarring lights and traffic jams,

same life-suppressing channels

You go, you come

as do the weeks,

the weekends too short

to let the natural pattern in

Days watch,

whether we notice or not

for when the honor of their pace

will be reclaimed.

©Wendy Mulhern

January 30, 2015

How to Fly

I hold the curiosity 

of what is —

what is you, in this moment,

what is me,

what is the vibrant space between us

with its tensile pull

we follow onward

through the dips and surges

of our eyes, our smiles, our dance

It’s not my thoughts so much

as my heart’s swift pulse

and the rush behind it

that my body cleaves to

as I hold the channel open

and go further in

where the whole counsel of myself

encounters you

It finds you on your land,

It finds your feet at home,

It finds you ranging

through the rhythm of your days,

your shadow easy in its arc

and in its evening slide

back into the velvet of the hills

I find you

to my surprise

beyond the stretch of my resistance

where I find I’ve settled in,

close and content,

to the comfort of your eyes.

©Wendy Mulhern

January 29, 2015

Days Like This

Days like this, I feel

No one will be left behind.

We’ll all do this together

(astonishing as that may seem

when we appear so atomized,

so caught up in the stream of

everything we never wanted)

We’ll all do this together,

each impelled to take the daring leap alone —

We’ll jump up in unison

and look around

in gratitude and surprise

to see that no one is left behind

in the great claiming

of everything we’re called upon to be.

©Wendy Mulhern

January 28, 2015

From a Night With Lost Sleep

The large stone head moved its

gaping eyes and mouth and sang,

“I’m so sad, I’m so sad,”

while oceans of sorrow washed

over me, through me

I cried for the lost boy

who went down, so rapidly,

into the clear blue water,

faster than I could dive after —

another one gone —

“I’m so sad,” sang his remaining brothers

(he hadn’t been the first)

I woke up remembering

the story pieces that had tried

to weave themselves into me

as I tried to escape them in sleep —

kept me awake trying to catch me

while I tried to sink away

into the precise colors of winter grasses

and windswept trees

I woke again, and saw

my mind had solved it:

I told myself a sad story, that’s all.

Told myself a sad story, and believed it.

That’s all, nothing I need to fix,

nothing that my earnest living 

won’t put right.

©Wendy Mulhern

January 27, 2015

Haloed

The halo rests around my eyes –

I see it everywhere I look —

Red dogwood in the heaven of the winter sun,

contented trills of frogs and blackbirds

And in these moments, a lightness,

borne by the sound of wind chimes

and the unexpected scent of daphne —

gift of sweetness to the whole yard

My steps walk connected,

along the path, behind the wheelbarrow,

and in the gentle placement, day by day

of what must next be done

and how to do it,

and how illumination is provided

in the glow of each thing touched,

each touch received.

©Wendy Mulhern

January 26, 2015

Light Travels

Teach me this way of moving

through the ephemeral —

swinging on shafts of light

too thin to hold my weight

yet somehow able

to pass me from one to the next

Teach me to hold without grasping,

just tight enough 

to slide along

to the next bright thing

I can’t quite grasp

but which may send me

on down the bright lines

Sustained by nothing I can touch here,

held up, in some still dimly comprehended way

by something I can’t see 

the source of all these lights

which, in its time,

shines me home.

©Wendy Mulhern

January 25, 2015

The Great Rising

None of these arrays,

none of these enemies

make any difference

There’s no need to analyze,

no need to have a contest

to see which ill is most egregious

One group’s pleasure

is another group’s primal, causal bane —

that which, if once snuffed out

would let the touted virtue save the day

No matter,

for we’re all just trying

to find the same thing —

the same mother’s milk,

the same father’s smile,

the same certainty that

our being is worthwhile

There will be many

with whom we don’t connect

but that’s OK —

They, too, will lift a load

in the great rising

in which we bear each other up

into the new day.

©Wendy Mulhern

January 23, 2015

Consent

So gently wooed we are

by quiet songs that thrum

against our bones,

through urgings, ocean deep,

that, irresistible, sweep us

into the slowly rising current

We can pretend we haven’t heard,

pretend we aren’t moving,

pretend we don’t notice

how our yearning now

has gained a little courage,

how it senses itself part of something grand

which never is delayed

and cannot be ignored

We are wooed gently

so we won’t resist

until it’s too late —

Too late because we’ve thrown our whole consent —

our hearts, our hopes, our will —

into the thronging force

that bears us on.

©Wendy Mulhern

January 22, 2015

Request

I want you here

not for the tasks you do

so much as for the way your presence

settles me, gives me something

to lean into

lets the flurry of my worries

start to find

some resting place,

precipitates

some kind of peace

I want you here

not to possess you,

not to clip your wings,

but so the weight

of our shared intention

can focus, gather power

so together, we’ll have enough strength

to persevere.

©Wendy Mulhern

January 21, 2015

New

This is not my dormant season:

Every day, the sap is running

smooth and cold and sweet

along my inner courses

as the fresh form swells and claims new space,

ventures out across the wheeling rays of day,

skin touched, as for the first time,

by sun, by rain, in the eager stretch of greening

that meets the tingling air

And in the unseen places

vast networks of fine and tender roots

spring out along the paths within the soil

This is how it is —

selves of yesterday

fall off like sheathes, like scales,

each day I give myself to this life.

©Wendy Mulhern

January 20, 2015

Alignment

I am not astonished

at all that falls away —

I have so little time to notice,

for the cause

to which I find myself inherently aligned

reveals itself so vast

that there are no edges —

just the rapid sudden rise of color,

close and quick, enveloping,

overwhelming any standpoint

that could put it in perspective,

overwriting everything,

filling me so comprehensively

that I could never want anything else,

owning me

just as (I now see)

it always has.

©Wendy Mulhern

January 19, 2015

Crucible

Oh, these things we are so proud of

and the things of which we’re so ashamed.

these things that cling to who we think we are,

these things we carefully arrange,

These things we call ourselves

and what we call each other

all must melt

in the rising heat of change

And what we are

beneath our self stories,

What we are

beneath all our facades

will seem a small coal

when we first see it

but we will know we must acknowledge it

as ours

As ashes fall away, we’ll see the glow,

and as we hold to it, we’ll see it grow:

It will survive the fire,

it will endure —

It may be faint as yet

but it is pure.

©Wendy Mulhern

January 18, 2015

A Great Calm

This is a great calm.

This is the calm of beginnings,

of the virgin field

This is the calm of a warm core,

liquid and unformed,

brewing place for strong motion

This is the calm

of a darkness so great

there’s no room for anything but trust

Trust in the warm core

and what forms there,

Trust in the autopoiesis of everything

Trust in the harmony to which

we all are drawn

when we leave our schemes behind

and enter the great calm.

©Wendy Mulhern

January 17, 2015

Dream Light

The light comes through

the suboceanic dream,

through folds and fissures,

growing green with distance

through the deep transparencies,

reflecting and refracting

down and down towards where we sleep

We will follow all of its lines —

we’ll call them story —

We’ll look for something

that will bring us out,

or closer to it 

We’ll always choose

whichever one seems brightest

in our unceasing struggle

to find the real light,

the one whose rays

have found their way

to all these stories,

which they can be touched with

but never contain.

©Wendy Mulhern

January 15, 2015

photo by Heather Mulhern

Winter Sun

The arc of winter’s day,

like the early crescent moon,

is clipped — dawn comes late and cold

into the frosted town,

mist hangs, bright and pale

between the shadows

Noon brings warmth

and polished gleam

to bare tree limbs,

though the sun stays low,

the shadows still substantial

Cold will come soon —

even any moment —

when the sun slips

behind the tall, dark trees

and heads quickly

like a child coasting home on a bicycle

on the last leg towards night.

©Wendy Mulhern

January 14, 2015

Everything We Need

Everything you need is here.

This is not something to talk about —

Come here:

Your eyes are half the amulet,

My eyes can be the other,

Your heart, your hands,

are half the story —

Joined, we will complete the arc:

Everything we need is here.

It takes no more than willingness,

No more than the desire

inherent in living,

No more than open presence

to ignite the ever waiting spark

that sets the current surging

on and on in affirmation

of what we’re here for,

everything we need.

©Wendy Mulhern

January 13, 2015

photo by Eric Mulhern

Waiting for Service at the Verizon Store

The wind tunnel here is strong —

shrill blasts along the sheer and sterile buildings,

loud streaming of the ads and football chatter,

straight lines of life-suppressing roads

and matching suppositions of acceptable life-paths —

It’s no surprise we all should feel

weary, aimless, craving sugar

In this place I summon 

everything alive

to help me —

the brave trees at the edges of the parking lot,

the smiles that people sometimes find,

the memory of winter reds against the gold

of winter grass

on the wise land

where we will learn to reconstruct the patterns

which show us how to live,

which give us peace.

©Wendy Mulhern

January 11, 2015

Your Names Are Written in Heaven

Rejoice

for your place in Life,

so particular, so vast,

is eternally established:

Who you are,

as singular as your name,

is braided in,

inextricably,

to the epic song

of elemental harmony

You are known,

You are needed,

and your words and actions

will always 

bring forth their intended fruits.

Rejoice,

for your names are written in heaven.

©Wendy Mulhern

January 10, 2015