Gulls

Gulls glide like boats

up along the bluff,

their wings unmoving

Their eyes look like they’re riding

instead of flying

They come along in ones and twos

appearing between the tops of trees

They fly mostly

into the prevailing wind —

some up-close eddy must aid their flight —

their casual purpose

no more obvious

than any effort on their part,

their presence too common 

for comment.

©Wendy Mulhern

May 31, 2015

Home

In surprise moments

stepping out from a room

or coming around a corner

I breathe home

There is a kind of home I take with me —

a comfort on the bus, and walking unknown streets,

There is the home of outlook,

the flavor with which my eyes frame everything

But this kind of home

jumps into me,

a complete surprise,

gift from the land, the air:

the scent of belonging —

not me claiming it,

it claiming me,

gathering me

calling me its own.

©Wendy Mulhern

May 30, 2015

Traveling, Arrival

I see the day in criss-crossed lines,

plane paths and train tracks,

intersections, patterns in the carpet,

smiles of strangers, laughter, conversation

surfacing, submerging in the roar

of subway cars, their bright rectangles

gliding in and out of darkness

Absences, reunions,

moving in a blur across my mind,

enhanced by music from my headphones,

the clack clack of my rolling suitcase

over the sidewalk,

the dig of my backpack strap at my shoulder

No lines of deep thought here,

just the echo of clatter

and the city’s traffic

mellowed and now lulling

through the open windows.

©Wendy Mulhern

May 29, 2015

Shadows

The poetry of today

is in the gentle wind

and in the feathered shadows

cast by cedars on the house wall

The view from the cool shade

is lush, made brighter

by the slow closing of the sun’s window

as the tall trees

stretch their long influence

across the afternoon.

©Wendy Mulhern 

May 28, 2015

Be Still

Here’s what you need to know:

You can stop fretting,

stop playing back the pain,

stop trying to corral it in a story,

assign it causes, seek solutions for it

There is a refuge from

the tug of sadness

that circles and strains

behind your eyes

and tenses like a sea urchin

in your throat

There is another place within,

and the liquid weight of you

always pulls toward it,

the gleaming quicksilver of you

slips through your structures

but is not lost

Be still — this essence of you

delivers you shining

to yourself.

©Wendy Mulhern

May 27, 2015

The Enemy

It does no good

to lock your doors

and man your fort

when the enemy

has made itself

your trusted confidant,

sits there behind your ear

accusing,

criticizing everything,

infusing all your thoughts

with the putrid stain of rot

which you may mask with sadness

or with anger,

from which you seek escape

with sleep, with drugs, with pain

Fear not,

for what destroys the enemy

works even here:

The truth of your unstained and perfect love

which flows out from your essence, strong and pure,

will wash away the lie and all its voices

within you and outside,

and you’ll see clear.

©Wendy Mulhern

May 26, 2015

On the land again

Pasture, like water,

changes color with the hours,

the days, the seasons

Fog nestles in, and rises,

dew falls, and sparkles,

wind strokes the shafts of grass with light

under the half sun

Greens and reds from this year’s growth,

purples and silvers from last years,

shimmer in the full sun’s late appearing

No wonder I find myself

soaring. Joy bubbles lift me

(despite ungainly boots)

along the stream of bird song,

pure and high and clear

(sound of wingbeat in my ear)

the seething breathing of everything

filling me up whole.

©Wendy Mulhern

May 25, 2015

Stream

We never walk through life alone —

the stream of us is intermingled

with the stream of others,

the eddies of our presence whirl

in curving curls, within the common current

The molecules we breathe

and every inspiration

have made their constant cycles

throughout the years,

and carry with them memories

of other journeys,

thought patterns of the minds they have traversed

And our desire to bless

seeps through our days

and through the things we touch

and finds its way

to where it meets the need that calls it forth

and so fulfills our elemental worth.

©Wendy Mulhern

May 23, 2015

Firemakers

or Getting the Backhoe out of the Mud

Today, in shelter from the rain,

wet clothes hanging and slumped around,

wet gloves and boots

not getting dryer in the damp air,

I perceived that I am a firemaker

 I felt the heat my body makes,

its quiet fire within

working the magic of chemicals

with deft precision

I thought about the fire my kind has learned to coax

from tinder bundles, wood and friction

(for which I carry memory

and latent skill)

Then there’s the fire that we have later

turned to big machines, which,

though they now seem to hold a power

of their own,

must still be subject to our mastery of fire

And quick as that, I understood

that we could not be stuck

although the backhoe sat

enmired in mud, its wheels dug in

I knew that we are firemakers

and so have power

to move the things we’ve made from fire,

that with the same intention

and persevering focus

and hard committed work,

we could do it —

and so it was.

©Wendy Mulhern

May 22, 2015

The day before camping

The unpredicted sun
presiding over fragrant spring

is tender toward the youthful leaves,

bathing them in incandescent brilliance

The air still holds coolness

except for where there’s neither wind nor shade —

Most of the day is dancing

in the freshness of the soft north wind

There is no hint here

of tomorrow’s showers —

It’s hard to prepare

for what seems so unlikely —

surely this perfect blue

will last forever

©Wendy Mulhern

May 20, 2015

Feedback

So I kept looking back at my email

and my website

to see if anyone had said

“You are wonderful”

(in a specific way that showed

the words had substance)

even though I knew 

it was ridiculous to.

At the store earlier

I was grateful

for everyone I had to wait for,

everyone who gave me the chance

to make space for them,

to give them room 

in my thought

to reveal themselves

in their unique, bright glory —

it was the least I could do.

Perhaps it’s best for me

to get no feedback

lest I be wrongly trained

to keep returning to that site

like a once-fed raccoon

pawing, ever after

at the back door.

©Wendy Mulhern

May 18, 2015

Fruits

We each have struggled,

each have been isolated

and felt our path was long and hard

and that we’d failed somehow

to gain what we had hoped for

and thought had been expected of us

We had failed

or been let down

in some cruel twist or some trick test —

so many promises

left unfulfilled

But look at us here —

We’ve all come to this place

where we are bathed

in a glow cast by our own light.

We haven’t failed —

All this time

we were each following our own course

along the unerring imperative

that now dissolves all that darkness,

revealing our sweet fruits.

©Wendy Mulhern

May 17, 2015

Open Flight

I let out all my breath,

I pause,

wait for the touch point,

wait for where I can catch

the feeling and the timing

of your breath rising

so I can ride up with you

to the high ledge

and perch there till you’re ready

to swoop down

With every breath

I’m reaching inward

through the layers of our facades,

our constructs,

feeling for the inner contact

where we have flown

under the barriers

and can soar freely

in the vast common realm

where we have seen each other,

recognized our respective infinities,

have been seen by each other.

Ah, bliss! — open flight

in the pure laughter of recognition,

in the silvered harmony

of inner song.

©Wendy Mulhern

May 16, 2015

So many people

So many people go through life

without ever having written a symphony,

without ever doing a cartwheel,

without ever knowing what it feels like

to be free

So many people (or so it’s said)

have never known true love,

have never felt the exaltation

of the egoless willingness

to be a blessing

and having that fulfilled

People go through life

buying expectations for themselves

from the shelves of sanctioned social options,

wearing them, though they don’t fit,

eating them, though they don’t nourish,

hardly noticing the pressure of the light within

as it attempts to free itself and shine

But by and by

the light will win,

spill out of some chink,

overwhelm them

as it bursts forth

revealing all the vastness of their being

where they don’t go through life —

they really live.

©Wendy Mulhern

May 14, 2014

This light

This light

doesn’t need a story —

doesn’t need reasons why it shines,

doesn’t have things that could put it out

The stories about it —

what it requires to keep on shining,

how just a few tweaks could make it much brighter,

how it’s some rare gift for which I’m most lucky

are not true

This light

may shine through stories

but can’t be captured by them.

They can illustrate it

but not snuff it out

And if I follow it

to where it springs from,

I’ll never lose my way again.

©Wendy Mulhern

May 13, 2015