“Sink like a stone, Float like a feather”

When you’re caught in the web

and nothing makes sense

and all your moves to free yourself

just render you more tangled

You can always go within,

sink like a stone

in the gravity

of all you care about —

fall densely and deeply

into the knowing

of your essence,

the rock from whence you were hewn

When the weight of the world

holds you pinned and immobile,

inertia bearing down upon

your every motivation,

You can always reach out

and float like a feather 

in the infinite affection

that holds you so tender,

your every breath

responded to

in the sweet song of being,

crooned now so softly

for you.

©Wendy Mulhern

March 30, 2015

Clarion

Only so much time

can be spent in shock

though waves and afterwaves

of revelation

keep sending their tremors

roiling and insistent

throughout the startled landscape

of my consciousness

Only so much time

can be given

to parsing out the network

of the old lies —

How they snared us

is far less relevant

that what we need to do

and how we can,

and how we follow the imperative

to rise.

©Wendy Mulhern 

March 29, 2015

Rain in the Forecast

Strong wind from the south.

The sky has angels in it —

broad wings stretched out

against the fervent blue

bearing word of change

The water speaks of sun and cloud —

silver sparkle, metal gray,

Small children play at lake side,

my tears just out of range

The girl plays with her dad,

the boy plays alone.

They want to play together

but can’t quite make it happen

I help myself to some of their longing

while warm wind intermittently 

brings the scent of blossoms

Cormorants and gulls

sit out on pilings,

Some gulls fly low

playing knock-you-off,

Coots float in flotillas

bobbing in the waves

This day, and what will save it

fade in and out like wind and sun

taking their time

before tomorrow’s rain.

©Wendy Mulhern

March 27, 2015

Joy Rising

Joy rises like heat

from all that breathes

in the landscape of a life,

all that connects and releases,

all that takes in and gives back

It isn’t packaged in discrete parcels

to be won or bought,

doesn’t depend on reaching

designated goals

It doesn’t hold back, doesn’t wait

for anything

Joy rises like morning mist

to meet the sun,

from all that breathes,

suffusing everything.

©Wendy Mulhern

March 26, 2015

Life Force

I think of sinking

to the silent place of upwelling

where the life force springs forth

inside of me

I see the soft, brown depression,

a sign of water past

but nothing there

I pause before attempting

to dig deeper —

It is not in me:

The life force comes from everywhere,

quicker than instant —

It fills me full

Clear, clear water

cold and warbling

refreshing as

presence discovered to be infinite,

Flowing me,

showing itself to be me —

liquid elation,

treble peace.

©Wendy Mulhern

March 25, 2015

Hold Me

I will hold you

until all your anxieties

and all your busy analyzers

turn around three times

and settle down

I will hold you 

till the counsel of your inner stillness

finds its fire,

lights up its knowing

I will hold you

until all your little animals —

the ones that hover in the dark

just out of view —

come curious and hopeful

to the fire, and,

still alert but now calm,

lie down

You can hold me

till all my little animals

leave all their little dreads,

come in to settle by the fire.

Yes, you can hold me the same.

©Wendy Mulhern

March 24, 2014

Held

Let me remember

what holds me,

close as my skin,

close as my breath —

what bears me up,

what launches me

on every leap, each earth-blessed step

Let me lean in

and feel its strength sustaining me,

Let me feel its soft, abiding rest —

I cannot fall from here,

I can’t be helpless —

It guides me through my pathways unsuppressed

Let me not be fooled

by the illusion

that I walk unsupported

through indifferent air,

Let me be free from memories of pain,

let me be free from fear

That law that holds me now

has always been here,

close as my thought,

close as my name,

And it will always be

the arms embracing me,

Its comfort sure, its soulfulness the same.

©Wendy Mulhern

March 23, 2015

Stealing Away

We are stealing away,

feeling the need to be quiet

lest our escape, somehow, be arrested

We are not talking about

the wasteland we are walking out of,

not yet. Not till we are safe

on the other side

We have seen many things —

Things that were not hidden, really,

but we just couldn’t see them

without a reference point

Now that those points

have come into focus

we are going, as fast as we can,

Less fleeing than walking rapidly 

towards our destination,

to that safe haven

where we can be real.

©Wendy Mulhern

March 21, 2015

Tree Full of Birds

We’ll ride on the memory

of a tree full of birds,

We’ll hold it to us

amid the roar of traffic

as hearth to our hope fires,

promise of home,

a place for our dreams to be landing

Many a span we have to cross —

seasons and processes,

efforts, expenditures,

many occasions we’ll have for rising

to feats that we’ve never yet dared

Far away, in a pasture

that old oak stands

and the birds come and lodge in it

singing and flocking

Later, the quiet night

will rest in its branches,

wind-sighing lullaby

soothing its sleep

It will wait for us, too,

standing through rain,

through spring kissed air

till we return

to breathe with it again.

©Wendy Mulhern

March 20, 2015

Eternal

It’s time.

It’s time to pierce this bland shroud,

this heavy and impermeable sense

of being held down,

of having an internal weight

that droops my efforts ever toward inertia,

proclaiming all that's good must end

while what is bad will rumble on forever

Every live thing testifies otherwise:

Every green shoot pushes up and out

against its boundaries,

reveling in strength

turning the downward pull

into its springboard

in its eternal act of living power

Every sentient being

delights in helping others,

in striking up the magic multiplying

chords of giving joy

that flow in sweet increase from hand to hand,

that sing forever down the grateful land.

©Wendy Mulhern

March 19, 2015

Sentience

I see my sentience

is entirely thought —

pervasive loops which constitute

my sense of being here,

of who I am

I see how easily the perturbations

(suggestions of alarm, of need to see

what I have wanted as an outcome

come to pass,

the wavering braids of hope and fear

and then the closing sentence)

can form and sway what I have called my life

But this is not my all:

These things which claim

to be the outer world,

and chance, and fate,

and what might come of me today,

are currents in the same domain of thought

In which I would be rudderless

if not for this release:

to give it up,

to still my oar,

to calm my care

and ride the stream in gratitude

everywhere.

©Wendy Mulhern

March 18, 2015

The Plight of the Middle-Aged White American Middle Class

Oh, we have been 

folded in and folded in,

our ignorance inculcated

through twists and turns

and suffering, and the one

apparent truth, that we are

not yet happy

We have done all the right things

and still it eludes us. We

have our good days

where we’re turned in such a way

that we don’t see the black wall looming;

We have our seminars and chants

to protect us from what we see

out of the corners of our eyes

We can’t be called complicit

if we haven’t seen the system,

can’t be called complicit

when we’re impoverished.

Yet when we see the role

we have been made to play,

It’s time for us

to find a way to stop.

Yes, we’ve all been victims,

no less we, who’ve ridden on the backs of slaves,

whip in hand, all our lives,

We who wondered where the ache was coming from —

a pain we couldn’t locate for its distance,

We who now watch our kids walk aimless,

having come to the end of the road we

(innocently) sent them down

So now, if we have any power at all,

the one thing we can do with it is turn —

turn away from our sugar-drugged,

glamour-brainwashed,

fear inflicted stupor

and find a way to live.

©Wendy Mulhern

March 17, 2015

Not Quite Home

I’ve come to where I thought was home,

five hours along the interstate, one afternoon —

Electric lights, and lights of our belonging

circle, not quite settled, in my mind

It feels like parts of us

that should be home

are not yet here —

Points of future that our thoughts took flight on,

Points of intention waiting to be filled,

Points of departure for our next adventure

not finding stillness in this quiet house

We need a bigger circle,

one that holds these all,

to lasso  all these points of thought

and bring them home,

to focus them in unity

and make them strong

enough to hold the weight

of our endeavor. 

©Wendy Mulhern

March 15, 2015

Landed

Funny the place where we find ourselves landed,

So many cycles our life has spun,

So many ways we have felt ourselves different,

wandering down our life paths alone

Funny to come to this open space

where it suddenly doesn’t matter at all

what people’s course has been,

what life has given them,

how they have happened

to find themselves here

We are here —

that’s the simple fact:

Here’s where we are,

all of our journeys now equal

We are here

at this place of sacred beginnings

where all of our searchings converge

and all of our arcs bring us home.

©Wendy Mulhern

March 14, 2015

Just

Wind blows through the house

and the sound of wind chimes

tugs like summer

against my chest

Curtains blow

in small internal rooms,

in the balmy floaty

half-buoyant drift

of plum blossom petals

and possibilities

A day away, connected

to this wind, there may be rain

but nobody’s talking about that

in this perfectly presented

present of present presence —

this just-right day.

©Wendy Mulhern

March 12, 2015

Connect

Consider “connect” —

the way it feels,

how your tongue cleaves

to the roof of your mouth,

pushes against it,

accentuating contact

in its release,

the color dark and nameless

but very smooth

like the way we felt together

after we crossed the bridge of distance —

That color was in our touching hands

and along our touching sides,

soft as fulfilled desire,

ripe as a womb.

©Wendy Mulhern

March 11, 2015

An important facet of this poem is the way it feels in your mouth to speak it. For best results, taste fully.

Authorship

Well, here’s the story of redemption:

You are redeemed, for you are here.

It takes attention 

to choose you for a story,

to put you in,

to hedge about your life

with these meticulous details,

to give you motives,

give you a past,

give you this burning hope

that somehow

your life has worth and purpose:

It takes an overarching care

to author you. And look —

you’re here.

Know, too, that there’s no character

the author doesn’t love.

It is the way of things —

the way creation works:

The act of care that thinks you up

(pulls you, as her child, 

right out of her head)

is always an act of love.

So have no fear.

You are redeemed

and always have been.

Just look inside yourself to see —

You’ll know.

©Wendy Mulhern

March 10, 2015