Unconditional

I sense that I have barely comprehended

the size of unconditional

and what it means

to be companioned in that vastness,

comforted at every step

And how it is that there’s no far away

in everpresence, no departure

from here. Space without distance,

development with no constraint of time,

nothing locked away by past or future,

everything at hand in earth and heaven.

©Wendy Mulhern

May 31, 2018

After the rain

These flowers bloom

even if their stems bow down,

even if their faces hit the soil

and their petals

begin to commune

with the ground, with the turning

of everything back

to the place of starting over,

humble and dark and untroubled

by being anything with a name,

anything but ready

for the things 

whose time has come to begin.

©Wendy Mulhern

May 30, 2018

Progress Report

Baby steps toward healing —

being able to talk about it,

recognizing there was nothing

we could have changed,

given what we understood then,

given what we knew

Nothing that, had we done differently,

could have brought a different outcome.

Nothing short of 

the salvation of the whole world

could make a difference

So there it is —

what could have helped us then

can help us even now.

We turn around and face the place

where dawn will come.

©Wendy Mulhern

May 28, 2018

Eternity

This is how it is

living every day in the sunlight of Truth —

today as eternity,

no track record required,

just this one day as a thousand years,

just a thousand years

as one day

This is how you know

in this now

that what you are 

has always been,

even as it must be —

your shine proves eternity,

your essence proves truth.

©Wendy Mulhern

May 27, 2018

As we move on

You will bring us joy every day,

long beyond the tears,

joy of presence, joy of spirit,

joy of every sweet thing

we learn from you

You still bring us

the hum of strong connection,

the swift running of emotion

and the sense of how important

all this is. Not schemes and plans

but simple daily being with each other,

you still teach us

every time we greet you in our hearts.

©Wendy Mulhern

May 26, 2018

Continuing

And life asserts itself

unendingly, with patience and with joy,

in baby ducks and beavers

and herons on the wing

and that blackbird

with its exultant warble

in the late afternoon sun

that still reaches it, there in the treetop

Life continues, in dating and in weddings,

in friends confiding in each other,

in families, in passing generations

And we will, too,

affection being the most important thing —

we’ll hold it tenderly

and we will rise.

©Wendy Mulhern

May 25, 2018

Now you see it, now you don’t

It isn’t that I’ve lost the will to live,

it’s just that I’m so tired

of how I keep on running back

to the same old holes,

empty though they’ve always been —

keep on anticipating

that my thirst will finally be quenched

What does it take

to not be left again along the bank —

to ride the flow all the way down

to where I lose those habits

of seeking where there’s nothing

and missing the deep healing of the day?

©Wendy Mulhern

May 24, 2018

My life now

I learn the nature of myself

by what floats

and what sinks,

what opens up a grand expansiveness,

what traps me, lost, within its maze

I let each feeling have its say —

some leave me helpless,

some make me strong,

some will remain and some will pass away,

some are empowering,

none are wrong

I won’t direct the process

but I will be sifted,

I will not save myself

but I will still be lifted,

I’ll let the truth distill

the deeper gifts,

that shine the will to live,

that fill my life.

©Wendy Mulhern

May 22, 2018

Roofing

We get into the rhythm of the work,

pneumatic nail gun and the air compressor,

the scratch of asphalt shingles laid down against each other,

the soothing arc of our repeated motion

It smells like blossoms when we stop and notice,

the air is warm enough, cool enough too —

while many pieces of our lives are scattered,

this work is something we can do

The birds are taking up their evening chorus,

smells of people’s dinners join the breeze,

it feels like it’s a mode we could continue

for another couple years at least —

could be the course we take, the path we climb

unless, until, we’re lifted out of time.

©Wendy Mulhern

May 21, 2018

Tree Therapy

We walk hand in hand,

we look at trees in the park,

we feel the warmth of the sun.

Some things we don’t need to talk about,

some things we do

I had a dream in the morning

where our girl came back to us

at any age she wanted, at any time.

I counted it for true

and I was happy,

but it didn’t end the need to cry

There’s much more to us

than the stories we could make about ourselves.

Every part needs to come along with us,

every part needs to be healed.

©Wendy Mulhern

May 20, 2018

Errands

I walk these steps as if they were floes,

shifting under me like something

that sits on liquid —

I am surprised I don’t feel more jostled

Something steadies me. Something like

light projecting my image over this surface,

so I’m never really needing

to catch my balance

Where I am exactly

is not clear to me, nor am I sure

of where I’ve ever been.

But it feels right to be here

and to keep walking.

©Wendy Mulhern

May 19, 2018

Sweeping down the centuries

Time is of no more use to me.

I’ve been forced to give it up.

From now on I will approach it broadsides,

I will move in the current

where our growing awareness of Spirit

sweeps up all the broken dreams of history,

sets to right every small and large sadness

that ever occurred,

unites us with our past and future generations

and chimes a chorus

that will echo throughout the vast eternity

where there is time no longer.

©Wendy Mulhern

May 18, 2018

Navigating

We tried to go back to the old hills

but they were gone, tried to navigate

the once familiar paths,

but after walking them awhile

we could tell that we were blind

and couldn’t see the markers

Strangely, we could also tell

that we had never seen them —

we had been content with blindness before —

now we can’t abide it

and we would rather

not take any steps except

when walking in the light,

not say anything

unless we know it’s true.

©Wendy Mulhern

May 16, 2018

Hush

This concentration of power

allows no excuses.

There is no weak spot in the field

where the potency could leak out,

could run away

There is no voice against it,

no answer to it.

We are hushed, aware

that nothing makes sense,

nothing gets a hearing

outside of this truth,

in the face of which

we lay our weapons

and our burdens down.

©Wendy Mulhern

May 15, 2018

Deeper

Beneath the pale etchings I have called my life,

something momentous moves,

something that fills out

more dimensions than I can count

Something so ultimately satisfying

that all I have attended to before —

all the inept scratchings,

all the lines I tried to set in place,

and what was scribbled over all my efforts

by other hapless hands —

amount to nothing

I settle myself

into the deeper motion

and am at peace.

©Wendy Mulhern

May 14, 2018

Mother’s Day

A rose may be shared,

as also, perhaps, a child,

or at least, the ties of motherhood

This didn’t come out as we expected,

did it, my love? But no matter —

it can be another thing we laugh about together

You, me, your dad, your brother —

we’ll all have a good laugh at this,

next time we get together,

next time we take a walk along the beach.

©Wendy Mulhern

May 13, 2018

A day with no name

The day has stretched out long,

we have worked, we have prayed,

we have been busy, and also listless.

The sun is still splendid,

low through backyard trees

as the clock rolls past seven.

We will eat, we will cry,

we will clean up. A day

between the days,

a day with no name.

©Wendy Mulhern

May 11, 2018