Borrowing Home

We come to this place

that is so full of home

that we can bask in it —

soak it in, feel royal,

receiving the gift of everything

that has been tended

Lush lilies fragrance their gratitude for water,

mint its gratitude for wind,

Water of the creek sings sweetly

down towards evening,

my feet, wet and cool

beneath their shimmer

This place is home —

Not ours, but enough its own

to richly share,

make us rest easy 

in the bounty of its essence.

©Wendy Mulhern

July 29, 2015

An Angel

Well, I asked for an angel

and it came streaming in,

bright and searing as molten glass

but cool, like crystal water.

I felt it fill me from the inside

(slowly, for my need was great)

It said, This is what you are,

this is what feeds you, this is

your comfort — this is how you know

you will always choose life,

always choose the vital, vibrant surge

that puts feet on mountaintops,

and gives them balance

in the brave curve of waves,

gives form and purpose

to wings riding updrafts

Nothing can take this away from you

or anyone else. Nothing can obscure

its presence. And the right angel

will come to everyone who has a need,

shining, from inside of them,

each one’s truth.

©Wendy Mulhern

July 28, 2015

Fulfillment

It had nothing to do

with what we were striving for

and maybe even less

with what we achieved

It came up beside us

while we were running,

It was there while we celebrated,

while we gathered in our earnings

and our winnings

But it didn’t reside in them

People who have time to,

speculate about the sources —

put forth their formulas —

what is required to find happiness

They may be astonished

at the vast disagreements,

how incomprehensible others are

with what they espouse and reject

But the fulfillment

isn’t in any of those —

It rises from our being

as much a part of us

as our breath.

©Wendy Mulhern

July 26, 2015

(photo by Susanne Weiss)

Transitions

Transition times

take on a leanness

in which there’s little room

for leisure

The lines of purpose stretch out,

and time accelerates

down their smooth curves

Sometimes spaces in between the action

seem empty

since there have been no still pockets

in which to gather things to do

for fun or self development

Other things are neglected, too —

tasks of low priority,

routine but non-essential,

projects that require an incubation time

There is none of that

in the rapid flow

towards something 

we cannot yet fully see,

some waterfalls to plunge

before we reach the quiet pools.

©Wendy Mulhern

July 25, 2015

Achieving Peace

It comes down to a few things

that can’t be claimed by sects

or ideologies

Comes down to things

that can’t be argued over,

for their truth is not in words,

but felt in bones, and breath

and flesh, held in hearts

and known, thus, to be sound

Comes down to kindness,

comes down to kinship —

being kind, being of a kind —

It amounts to the same thing,

as long as it’s seen to be

without limits, without exclusion,

binding us into one basket,

one vessel, one Soul.

©Wendy Mulhern

July 24, 2015

Causality

Give me the lens to see the causal bones,

the structure upon which all movement hangs,

Let me see them shining there like jewels

beneath the mounds of things accumulated

Beneath the the names and forms,

the grades, the price tags,

and everything we shore up

in our struggle for security

Let me see how they stretch out

smooth and powerful,

glowing in translucent iridescence,

moving with the sovereignty

that marks their gait,

framing the procession of all life,

tuning the spheres

world without end.

©Wendy Mulhern

July 23, 2015

Resolution

I will not be shamed

but I will be humbled,

I will notice

what I have failed to see

I will not use it

to condemn myself,

I will use it to remind myself

that I am free

And as a free being

I don’t ever need

to host a view that fails

to reverence another.

I will not be witness

to any failing on their part,

I will witness

the strong truth that holds them steady

deeper than any shifting clouds of personality,

deeper than time,

deep as Mind.

©Wendy Mulhern

July 22, 2015

Dream Song

Today I share an old poem. I came upon it in a drawer yesterday, and remembered that there were many times when I pulled it out and tried to find a way to share it.

It is a source of deep joy and gratitude to me to have found my sense of I Am. I am a poet. 

There were signs of this all my life, but I didn’t recognize them because I had the false belief that my I Am had to be something acceptable, as in, providing a lucrative career, or at least a living. I’ve found that it’s something else — it’s the understanding of who I am that I really belong to, belong in. The center of my worth. The thing I don’t have to prove to anybody. I have found that I Am for myself as a poet.

Even before I knew that, poems marked important realizations in my life. The one I’m sharing today was the one where I realized that I didn’t need, anymore or ever, to be afraid that I would never find love. The realization came to me in a dream and in reflecting on it in the morning. The poem solidified it in my thought. This happened in the gap year I took between my sophomore and junior years of college, and I started experiencing the truth of it the next year. 

The poem is long, as it points out in its beginning. It came to me all in a rush the morning after the dream, which occurred while I was visiting my uncle and aunt in Vermont. I altered it a little some years later.

Dream Song

Something caught my eye 

and caught my mind with equal fury —

Though my senses, numbed and startled, 

caught its image, it was blurry

Let my heart help me remember,

let my craft help make it strong

that the people all may hear it

in the rhythm of my song

I said, Child, don’t write an epic

for it never will be read

and songs that no one sings

will still keep pacing through your head

Yet I couldn’t write for buyers

and I couldn’t write for cheers

and I couldn’t write for angels

till I’d exorcised their fears,

for even gilded ceilings tumble, shambled, in defeat,

and then will come the victory of the grass beneath the street

If no one hears my story, it still will mean something,

The golden empress trumpets dawn

and so I sing:

The day has risen on my dream

which, though it’s faded, leaves a gleam

that tints the corners of my sight

with color, and with swift delight

In content and in skilled design

no dream I’ve had has been so fine —

When I awoke I surely knew

it was so good, it must come true.

From my dark and timid places

where my tender hopes crouched still,

I’ve beheld the flowing graces 

of the dancers in their skill —

It looked so easy, yet my limbs,

young and untried,

had no chance

nor impulse to arise and join the dance

So I could never say I’m graceful

or know if my nimble feet

would move surely with the rhythm

or sadly off the beat

I’ve had friends who have had lovers

and their glances were secure,

and I tried to learn their secret —

how their love could be so sure,

because my love has been so doubt-filled,

or I’m sure, but then I’m wrong

and I find myself most lonely

when trying to belong,

and though I was strong and cheerful,

others had their dreams fulfilled,

and I, at times, grew fearful

that my urge to love be chilled

And yet, with clearer eyes, I saw the pain

of ties ill-bound —

how certain hell took reign

as hope unwound,

and how loveless demands

could prey upon their peace

and wound the struggling hands

that sought release

Across this troubled thought moved my dream

with warming peace of sun’s midmorning beam:

In dappled shade, we sat and talked,

my friend and I, upon a rock

where forest stretched below and cliffs above,

in summer’s golden light, we talked of love.

To know so clearly how we felt and where we stood,

how we both loved each other, and that it was good

resolved my turbid doubts about my days

and made my greatest triumph be their praise

When I awoke and knew that this was mine

I saw I needn’t wait for some great love to come

to shine:

The gift of love awaits

in each day as in each dream —

There is no need to stalk or scheme.

Arise, arise, behold the eyes

of she that cries “awaken, skies!”

The golden empress trumpets dawn

and says to dark “be gone, be gone.”

And so, my song is written

and I’m glad I chose to speak

and it gives me joy and courage

to be finding what I seek,

And when the evening deepens,

as the shadows fall in place,

I will set a watch upon the night

to hold my thought in grace:

The umber empress of the fire

guards amber warmth and purple spire,

as embers glimmer, ashes heap,

now lights arise in dream-blessed sleep.

©Wendy Mulhern

Standing Wave

My body is a standing wave of Spirit —

As Spirit flows, so I am,

The steady coursing of present Life

defines my being, shapes me,

fills me with sustaining joy.

As Spirit moves, so I move —

Thus, in my flesh,

I see God.

©Wendy Mulhern

July 20, 2015

Things That Bring Joy

The sudden scent of fir and earth

where sun has warmed them,

the gentle bend of grasses in the breeze,

the spread of cirrus clouds across a blue sky,

the flight of birds, the distant murmuring of trees

The ready rising to a task at hand,

the steady focusing, a problem solved,

hard work brought through to its intended end,

a bath, a pizza, friends to top the evening off

But most of all, to help another feel their worth,

to see their genius and to celebrate it,

This joy encompasses all that I live for,

brings me full circle,

hails heart, hearth and earth.

©Wendy Mulhern

July 19, 2015

July Grasses

A month later

the grass has had its heyday

(though it has not been hayed)

The seed heads and the stalks 

are dry

They have chosen

various burnished golds

Their work is done,

their celebration continues —

wind-dancing in the sun

amid the green bracken,

they sing softly with

the trees and insects

all through the afternoon.

©Wendy Mulhern

July 17, 2015

Escape

I separated myself

from the acceleration,

escaped the vortex

with just a wobble at the lip of it,

then floated free and still —

only in the reflection on it

amazed by where I might have ended up

if I had wandered

just a little closer

I did not join that battle.

But now I am collecting

a more pervasive calm,

a positive peace,

a zone that extends its power

even to where everything

dropped down before,

even where all was lost

because everyone is needed

and no one, ultimately

can be swept away.

©Wendy Mulhern

July 15, 2015

Wanderer

Your path, too,

has always been loved —

Though you have felt alone,

though you have wandered

haunted by so many whispered

cautionary tales

You have been seen,

you have been cheered for —

all your singularities

have been appreciated

Though you were warned otherwise,

you can never walk away from being loved —

That fact is always with you

like every other integral

aspect of yourself:

You can’t be separated

from your truth,

you can’t be severed

from your love.

©Wendy Mulhern

July 14, 2015

Worth

When all the foreign voices in your head 

are hushed,

you’ll know that you have always known

how solid, how unmovable,

how deep 

is your intrinsic worth

This is why you care enough

to defend yourself,

this is why you care enough

to be sad

This is how you know that you’ll prevail —

your essence will prove equal

to everything it needs to bring you through.

You’ll rise to more than you dared hope:

The truth about yourself

will guide you surely

to the great work your heart desires to do.

©Wendy Mulhern

July 12, 2015

Stress and Clamor

It can feel like a high desert —

winds blowing fierce around the buttes,

tough sage leaning in against the rocks

There is a still

where water gathers

and the seep of secret green

colonizes crevices

Lush plants spring up,

frogs sing (where did they come from?)

This is the reward for going deep

beneath the stress and clamor of the day,

This is what you can bring

from your ever-sustaining source

to bless even the desert

with life and fragrance.

©Wendy Mulhern

July 11, 2015

Flesh

I will see God

in my own flesh,

I will know in my body

that I am healed

I will feel the truth

in that most intimate way

where my body speaks

and my so-called mind

is taken entirely by surprise

and must surrender

to the imperative

presented in the moment

This experience

will not be co-opted —

though I seek to reproduce it,

touching flesh together

to re-enact the spark,

constructing circumstances

to replay the moment,

building fantasies to lead me back

I will at last be led

to the Spirit source

that owns everything

I can feel or know,

that wakes up everything

— heart, soul, flesh —

to exaltation,

to the mystery of Life.

©Wendy Mulhern

July 10, 2015

photo by Edward Mulhern

The Smell of Smoke

They are not touched

by the smell of smoke

or any aftermath

of any evil thing

There is no chain of hurt

no mindless consequence

blowing down the canyons

into people’s lives,

nothing that can sit upon them

bearing down upon their lungs

Every one of them

regardless of what happened

anytime, anywhere,

can find themselves

clear and holy,

pure and whole,

just as they are imaged

in the Mind that makes them

who they are.

©Wendy Mulhern

July 9, 2015