No Story

Well you told your story

sounding so justified,

it had me bleeding

for the other side

There has to be a way,

there has to be a win

where forgiveness counts

and compassion enters in

Stories are as common as desires

and as compelling —

I get caught up in the string of one

and in its telling,

and then I see in me

someone I don’t recognize,

I find I have forgotten

someones eyes . . .

No story, please, to set us each

in our appointed place of right or wrong,

just this, the being here,

the blessing and the song.

©Wendy Mulhern

March 31, 2016

Not My Battle

This is not my battle,

this is not my battle,

I can let it go

This is not something

I can lose, not by wrong moves,

not by neglect,

this is not something that would benefit

from the weight of my anxiety.

I will not throw my weight around,

even in the privacy

of my own mind

This is something

that is well handled

by something much greater

than my small repertoire

of strategies

This is not my battle.

This is a time for me 

to watch and learn.

©Wendy Mulhern

March 29, 2016

What Holds Your Treasure

What treasures can you hold in your hands

as the dream dissolves

(the dream of your hands,

along with what they hold)

Where is the place you can put

something you have loved so deeply?

What can you bring

into the next place?

What holds your treasure

is more substantial than hands,

more lasting than memory,

more true than time

You’ll find it,

though it may be dispersed,

(so many light points to the reflections

in moving water)

It may take a while

to find its name again,

but its love will leap back to you,

jump into your arms

like it never left.

©Wendy Mulhern

March 28, 2016

Interruptions

Rain beats down

in interruption of

the fleeting sun,

sun in its brief windows

interrupts the rain,

sleep interrupts thought,

thought interrupts sleep,

anxiety about our course

interrupts excitement

We will smooth it over,

we will fill our moments

with enough learning

that we don’t have time

for gaps of panic,

and the places between the doing

we’ll fill with hope.

©Wendy Mulhern

March 27, 2016

Voice

We stand

startled at the sound

of our voices,

not having heard them

in so long,

lulled and cowed and simply worn down

by the loud drone constantly imposed,

passed off as our own,

asserting its message

of fear and division

all through the day and the night

Now we have spoken

and it’s wonderful how the sound

hums in our throats, in our bones,

how we find we have more to say,

how good it feels when others

resonate, corroborate.

So we stand together,

learning how to hear,

learning to be heard.

©Wendy Mulhern

March 26, 2016

This Way

I walked back today

along the path, in my mind,

where I had come, saw the crags,

the sharp ascents, the bracing view,

a good reminder

(as the way trends downward

into the understory, shaded and close)

that progress has been steady,

that the path rises, after this,

to further heights,

and there will be more views,

more stretches harder 

than I have ever climbed,

more to change me beyond recognition,

and nothing for it

but to keep going.

©Wendy Mulhern

March 25, 2016

A Page, A Light

Though I have thought myself a figure

(as scribbled on a page)

in fact, I am the page,

and all that’s there

belongs to me —

the scribbles and the story,

and especially

the luminescence rising up behind them

whereby it can be seen that they are there

And though my body

and what I’ve called my mind

have craved to own

just a little more

of that resplendent light,

in fact, the light is me

so I can have it

with no further regimen

of self improvement

Indeed, there is no need

to look to those dark marks

for understanding and acceptance —

I can form them

as part of my expression,

but they don’t form me or contain me

I am so much bigger —

a page to tell the truth,

a light in clear reflection of its source.

©Wendy Mulhern

March 24, 2016 

What I Remember

I came to this place falling,

dodging the clattering false

dichotomies (strict or permissive,

realistic or lovely)

bearing the angular unhappiness

of life as taught

(so far removed from my longings)

settling for (seeing no choice)

the indifferent acceptance, the

provisional belonging,

taking for granted the gray

gaping loneliness

stretched in long swaths

across my days

No, not this! Not this,

rather, what was there through it all,

the deep hopes (that glinted, often helpless,

behind the machinations),

the quick stolen acts of kindness,

the moments of honest expression

whose light spilled out

over all the darkness

and saved me, really,

time and again. Those were the real gifts,

the ones they intended all along,

the ones we intend, too.

©Wendy Mulhern

March 23, 2016

Transition

These days,

I’m feeling like a loose tooth —

I bite into my days

with a wobble

Some days I don’t know

what I’ll do to fill them.

Some are so packed with purpose

I have no time

to think of what I’ll do.

I feel fuller after the filled-up days

As for the emptier ones,

the stuff I might pull into them

can feel like dust, like rubble —

things I may have wanted

now having no connection

to the new life

I haven’t quite stepped into.

©Wendy Mulhern

March 22, 2016

These, Too

Not only me,

not only me and you,

not only me and you and all the world

are held in tender love

Not only us,

but all the space between us,

all the ways we touch each other,

all the ways we come together,

all the bright intensities we feel

in contact with each other —

these, too, are held in love

These, too, are citizens

of the Oneness, these, too,

are given what they need

to prosper and to thrive.

They don’t depend on us

to live or fail —

we all can ride 

in the security

of our perfect place.

©Wendy Mulhern

March 21, 2016

New Day

Iridescent dewdrops on the grass,

the temperature far more complex

than sixty-three degrees,

an iridescent scented mix 

of warmth and coolness,

breeze conveying fir and grass and earth

Days bring new ways of openness,

fresh perspectives, and the chance to learn

to move without restraint, and with precision,

to value others rightly, to be grateful,

to love the moments offered,

and to offer myself,

free and present, to this splendid hour.

©Wendy Mulhern

March 19, 2016

Going Forward

Up till now, our progress has felt

like water cresting —

surging and halting, rolling over itself,

seeming not to move

and threatening to flood

at the same time

Today we begin to see

the unfolding of it,

step by step —

all these will happen 

but not all at once —

We will be ready

for everything as it comes,

our work —

to match our pace

with our breathing,

one breath at a time,

no more, no less,

riding the wave till it’s done.

©Wendy Mulhern

March 18, 2016

Death, Choices — Random Thoughts

Death hovers at the edges,

an uninvited guest.

We make our life decisions —

where to live, who to live with,

how to fill our days . . . 

We say we never choose death

We say it’s not our choice,

it’s a clanging gong, and

you never can predict

when its dark tone

will snuff out all the plans,

will make both hopes and fears

irrelevant. (We may call it seductive,

for just that reason.)

We make our choices

as if we could manage death —

schedule it at the end

of all the other things

(Some people whisper

that you never go without a choice,

that you can remember

you always can choose life —

however strongly you are told 

you must choose death, it’s never true)

Whatever. In this life, today,

I choose living. Because I am.

And life is what 

I Am always chooses.

©Wendy Mulhern

March 17, 2016

Yearning

See how we are all yearning,

how we reach, and cycle back,

see how we pursue what we believe

will give us what we need —

we reach, we grasp, we cycle back

Whatever stories we may try to use

as traction, to show some progress,

relative at least,

against the wave of others who are striving,

just keep us in the loop of not receiving

Look! We are all yearning,

and what we want is really all the same,

and no one’s course is any more approved

than any other.

Let us join hands,

for in this gesture we may find

(hands clasped, hearts unshielded,

 current flowing)

if we can’t give each other

what each other needs,

we’ll still begin approaching what we long for,

we’ll still create the openness

that lets us each receive.

©Wendy Mulhern

March 16, 2016

Deepening

Truth will not let my love be shallow.

It will deepen me 

if needed by carving canyons

with the restraint of a Missoula flood.

There won’t be any time for mourning —

all I cherished as myself

will be gone in a flash,

and in the ravished, newly purified

place of my being,

the rocks will stand exposed.

I will be deepened

along the channels that pour through.

Love will not let my life be shallow.

It will send its roots down

to the very depths of me,

finding the ancient water,

drawing it up

to nourish everything

that grows within my sphere.

©Wendy Mulhern

March 15, 2016

To the Rescue

It doesn’t matter

if you think you’re weak,

if you think you’re damaged,

if you think you always fail —

the you that can do what’s needed

is not touched by what you think

There is a you that rises

in the space between the words,

between the thoughts,

a you you’ve met in glimpses

in the surges of acceptance

that you’ve felt, however rare they’ve been

This you wins everything

and it will win you over, too —

don’t be afraid —

you will come to your rescue!

©Wendy Mulhern

March 14, 2016