Tuesday, January 31, 2017

Fire Body














My fire body
flickers quiet,
burns steady,
straight rising licks
of warmth and intention
softly rippling through the breath of time

I have not known this one for long
though it has surely been here,
powered at its focal point
by the spirit of being

Emerging now to meet the need,
teaching me to move
through these exigencies
calm and potent,
teaching me myself
in a way I hadn’t seen.

©Wendy Mulhern

January 31, 2017

Monday, January 30, 2017

Daily Life


















Well, we want to just keep
living our lives,
but the problem is
a little more light
has made us lose the illusion,
and we can’t quite conjure it up

And what we thought were
the solid pillars upon which
our lives rested,
are not even there —
we’re still standing on something
but we don’t know what.

What we thought was true —
very little of it is still relevant 
(this comes, we find,
as a relief in many ways)

And we realize we still want 
to get on with learning and growing, 
which will still be possible,
even if all the landmarks have changed.

©Wendy Mulhern

January 30, 2017

Sunday, January 29, 2017

End of January


















The raw wind is in from the sea,
the warmth of early (and surprising) sun
erased. The firs are in their element —
they dance in the cold moistness.
Cedars, too, take in this breath with relish —
it doesn’t matter
how long it is from now till spring —
long as bending boughs, as winter nights,
as this unnamed span of time and temperature
until our shoots break ground.

©Wendy Mulhern

January 29, 2017

Friday, January 27, 2017

Reflections on Freedom














Freedom in small pockets
like sky in puddles
still feels expansive

The possibility
of an evening free of caregiving
feels buoyant,
even if our only outing
is to the grocery store

It’s hard to fathom
being fully untethered,
and useful to remember
what happens to kites
when their strings are released

Reminding us to build a solid anchor
that can lend lift to our flight,
reminding us to base our liberty
not on our circumstances
but on our love.

©Wendy Mulhern

January 27, 2017

Thursday, January 26, 2017

Deconstruction


















The whole story begins to rip
like a wet paper bag,
contents pushing through the corners

We have been so far
from where we belong,
so removed
from what we’re meant to be,
bundled away in this dark sack
wrapped up in our separate packages

But here’s the rain
and here’s a soggy mess,
and here in streaked glimpses
we see some light

We will get out of here somehow
and lift our faces to the rain
and sing and sing
and dance and dance.

©Wendy Mulhern

January 26, 2017

Tuesday, January 24, 2017

Rock Fall














All those who have been wronged
for so many years, even generations,
lift up their voices. It is their time
to howl and howl. It is their time
to be heard.

The hearing is like
the tiny infiltration of water
into the face of rock.
It will bide its time —
it does not need to be a multitude.

In the mundane roll of seasons
it will freeze, and that expansion
will crack the rock,
and in the thaw
it will sink down deeper,
and one year suddenly
a whole cliff side may shear off
and fall, and bounce, and shatter.

Hear these ones who howl
for the whole mountain
is coming down.

©Wendy Mulhern

January 24, 2017

Monday, January 23, 2017

Slow Morning


















These animal cringings
that keep me in bed
longer than I intended,
that cry out for a little more comfort
than they have,
that won’t move forward,
hunkered in as they are

They are not me. Look,
I can get up,
I can throw off the blankets
and let the remains of dream
roll away. 
I can claim the comfort
the little animal wanted —
I can swing myself
into the stirrups of the day.

©Wendy Mulhern

January 23, 2017

Sunday, January 22, 2017

Ephemeral














In the course of days
we are swept up like rain,
carried along to some swift beating purpose,
let to fall across the land
moving at the hand of wind
through encounters poignant and unplanned,
dissipated like mist, lifted by sun,
the immediacy of now
making us forget
what we may have outlined
for ourselves

A more distant eye
will see patterns,
will see destiny, perhaps,
and some higher design —
what we serve, how we bless,
the breath of life that orchestrates
the cycles in which we move,
timelessness.

©Wendy Mulhern

January 22, 2017

Friday, January 20, 2017

Intersectional March















I will march in the awakening
of my late-rising accountability,
my chagrined sense that my cozy life
up till now, has had a price
I wouldn’t have incurred
if I had known it

I know now that none of the weakness
I’ve hid behind, all my sheltered years,
is any excuse
for not standing up
to today’s imperative

I will march silent
though my voice has not been heard till now
because my voice is not, right now,
the one that’s needed 

I will offer, rather, my ears, my arms,
all my contrite attention,
and from now on, for all my sisters,
I’ll be strong.

©Wendy Mulhern

January 20, 2017

Wednesday, January 18, 2017

Gathering Light














Where two or three are gathered
we can do the work we couldn’t do alone —
we can see each other holy,
we can see each other whole

When so resolved to be the truth’s beholders,
our eyes can lock and concentrate the light —
we form a crystal pact that leaves no room for darkness,
we look on everything with deeper sight

And so is ushered in our knowing
of the living power, so we are transformed,
the network of our caring ever growing,
as everyone who joins us here is warmed.
Though they may enter cold, 
they leave here glowing.
This is why we’re here,
this is where we’re going.

©Wendy Mulhern

January 18, 2017

Tuesday, January 17, 2017

The Moments of My Knowing














I had a hunger today
that paced around looking
for what would satisfy,
coming up short
time and time again

I wanted that hardwood core,
that heartwood coal
whose glow spread clear and even
with a heat that burnt through
all illusions,
resolving the confusions
of generations of lost souls,
the weariness, the giving up,
the vague loss of attention
that set us drifting
(even as I was today)
in search of something
we have lost the definition for

So to become lost
in a body not of my choosing,
so to be self-punished
for all my shortcomings

When truthfully the center
of my satisfaction
is something that I own
and am able to fulfill,
daily, in the moments of my knowing,
here, in the place I am aware.

©Wendy Mulhern

January 17, 2017

Monday, January 16, 2017

Mindful














Though there may be little to celebrate
in the march of days,
in the laying down of one year
over another,
though reasons to think and notice
be papered over 
with sales
and paucity of leisure time,
though days themselves have little power
to elicit mindfulness,
still a wave of progress
is coming through

We will not use the tools of war
in this, our urgent bid for peace,
we will not tear down first
before we rise.
It takes our every ounce of effort
to grow, to build connection;
we’re filling now with our imperative
and soon our interlock will overcome
what, all this time, was set up to divide us

We will be mindful
not because of history
or because of others
but because of us, because of now.

©Wendy Mulhern

January 16, 2017

Sunday, January 15, 2017

Bridge Builders














Thank you to all bridge builders,
for my world was small,
I was cut off by where
the land had melted
or fallen off — however it was
that left me separate,
on my little floe,
the arcs of my thought
cut off from sharing
because so many no go zones
surrounded me

Thanks to the bridge builders,
now I can, if tentatively,
find the way to share my truth
without igniting someone else’s shame,
without triggering their anger
or their censure

And so my world gets larger
and my joys do too —
I feel the lift of this enhanced communion,
this openness of mind
that comes from how we now can see each other
clearer, more fully,
and we can range more freely
on what now is common ground.

©Wendy Mulhern

January 15, 2017

Saturday, January 14, 2017

Home Where You Are















I want to go home, he says.
This is home, I say,
and then I pause, and ask,
what would make it feel like home
to you?

It takes a few times of asking,
then he says, it doesn’t matter —
anywhere there are two or more persons
to receive you.
Well, that’s all right, I say,
because we are here. There are three of us.
This is your home.

I feel a little uneasy,
because I have used a bit of force
in an issue of hygiene. 
Perhaps it felt hostile.

I do my best, now,
to fill this living space
with the glow of home,
to be one who receives him
as well as one who puts him to bed.

©Wendy Mulhern

January 14, 2017

Friday, January 13, 2017

Rebalancing














Someone called it a wolf moon.
I saw it mostly hidden,
a glow behind clouds,
the clouds moving like
cauldron bubbles,
the moon like something forming

I emerge silent,
not wanting to tell anyone anything,
at least not now,
wanting to listen
and not to teach.

These are the times of rebalancing,
coming back for the completeness
to embrace me tenderly,
showing me how.

©Wendy Mulhern

January 13, 2017