Sunday, September 30, 2018

Hatching



Meet me here
at the end of the dream,
at the beginning of our timelessness

What we are
on the outside of the egg
will be enough
that we won't miss
what we have left behind

And if we notice we have drifted
back into the dream,
we can awake again,
reclaim the light that burst in
through the cracks

We will not mourn our missing footprints
when we find that we can live here,
won't desire to squeeze back in
now we can fly.

©Wendy Mulhern
September 30, 2018

photo by Heather Mulhern

Saturday, September 29, 2018

In Fact

It doesn't matter what you look like,
it doesn't matter what you've done,
it doesn't matter what you've failed to do

Where did you think your desires came from, anyway?

The bottom drops out
of all your suppositions
and all your tallies are lost
and that's OK. They never, after all,
had any meaning

Where do you think your desire comes from, anyway?

There is a key
in the very hum of it —
Where does that come from?
— a miracle, isn't it? 
You can't account for it in any way
except the one in which your place here
is totally assured, 
your presence celebrated,
your essence crowned.

©Wendy Mulhern
September 29, 2018

Friday, September 28, 2018

Travail

Every moment is a woman in travail
pregnant with its holy purpose,
every moment can bring forth
bright acclamation of abundant goodness

Though on the edge, the lie may lurk,
ready to snatch, to scorn, to judge,
ready to spin the story into something selfish, vile,
it cannot win.

Each child is caught up to God.
Each impulse of Life is pure
and must be seen that way.
The kingdom is at hand
to catch them up with joy,
to shelter them and celebrate their being,
each moment is delivered into Truth.

©Wendy Mulhern
September 28, 2017

Thursday, September 27, 2018

Fruit


Two crows fly in tandem
like double vision
till their landing,
geese speak like hinges creaking,
and run when chased,
reluctant to take flight

I wrap my mind around the whole day —
there may be tricks of light
but reality rests in every plane,
on every surface,
heavy like ripe fruit
ready to drop to my touch,
ready to be tasted.

©Wendy Mulhern

September 27, 2018

Wednesday, September 26, 2018

For Ethan


(with all best wishes)

If all of this is energy
and all of it is interactive,
then everything from that leaf
to this train, to the flickers of lights 
between eyes
can span together
(cat’s cradles in the mind, new geometries 
from interlaced connections)

And you can’t really call it risk
to put your all
into what calls you,
put your hand on the core of
what will draw from you
the spark of increase

Splendid views flash
between the cars of passing trains
and we are all on an adventure,
we are all going deeper
into the heart of awakening.

©Wendy Mulhern

September 26, 2018

Tuesday, September 25, 2018

Clear


Let me lay down the confusion
that has beset my years,
let me recognize
our lives were never about this

We are not tokens, moved along a board,
we are not pawns nor rooks nor queens
nor even players.
The realm we move in
has always been the infinite —
not mind within the body
but body in the mind —
our consciousness reveals
the size of what we are

It may be hard
to come to this life knowing,
and have the knowing steadily displaced.
We won’t be always fooled,
we will shine clear,
and what we are will surface in our days.

©Wendy Mulhern

September 25, 2018

Monday, September 24, 2018

Our Days


We do what we can
in the aftermath of tears,
in the relentless beauty of days
and the work that is too much for us

We will go home again
tired to the bone, and weathered,
but also saturated in song —
tree song and cricket song
and the creaking flap of raven flight

We will return, as we have
so many times. We’ll take up
the work we couldn’t finish.
We’ll struggle through the cold
of the long edges of days
and be graced by their brilliance,
and learn the meaning of work,
perhaps. And the meaning of praise.

©Wendy Mulhern

September 24, 2018

Saturday, September 22, 2018

Wasteland


No one is left behind —
not at the laundromat
or the cafe´, not on the shoals
of screen-fed expectations

The song that rises unexpected
from the woman in the car next to ours
while we wait for laundry in the parking lot
shows that there’s room in every life
for grace

No one is left behind,
not even me — I can’t be left
to wander in the wasteland
of looking from the outside
at other people’s lives
at the laundromat, at the cafe´,
along the streets of Springfield
on a Saturday, where other people
have lives that might be less disconnected
than ours. Or maybe not.

©Wendy Mulhern

September 22, 2018

Friday, September 21, 2018

Carrying Water


Insect arcs like flecks of sun
flit across my path —
I see them as threads
weaving in parts of a pattern
I knew about in theory
and still don’t understand,
but now can see a bit more
of what they’re connected to

My path, this inefficient tracing
back and forth, up and down
along the day
is also flecked with sun
and the reflections of my mind
and the rhythm of my gait —
these, too, are all part of the same thing
which I haven’t mastered
but can dance in.

©Wendy Mulhern

September 21, 2018

Thursday, September 20, 2018

Secret Peace


I think not many people
want to consider
what it’s like
on the other side
of the unthinkable
— certainly I never did

And when they say
they just can’t imagine it,
that is most likely true,
though their minds have thrown up images
of the pain,
and walled it off quickly
(that is what I always did)

Yet there are also many
(more and more of them,
as we get older)
who have crossed
(or been thrown over)
the line

And of them
I’m sure many have found
the sweet secret peace,
and hold it like a small light inside
and don’t tell anyone about it
(for who would they tell?)
but you can see it there
if you know to look.

©Wendy Mulhern

September 19, 2018

Tuesday, September 18, 2018

Country Living


After all, why wouldn’t we
want to share our little cabin with mice?

It’s the warmth, I think, 
that attracts them,
more than the food, 
about which we’ve been careless

One day after rain
in the chill of evening
we lit a fire
to make things cozy
and early the next morning
we heard running in the roof

And this evening we found a little mouse
fallen down onto the hearth.
My husband captured it
and took it for a long walk

He said it was just a baby.
I said, if it’s a baby, maybe it’s a rat —
a soothing thought to take to bed.

©Wendy Mulhern

September 18, 2018

Sunday, September 16, 2018

Visions



The man said he saw himself as paint
spread out over the landscape,
he saw himself as if dissolved
but didn’t care

I saw myself as the hills themselves,
and the trees on them, thrusting into sky,
I saw myself as flight itself, as song glide,
comprising all the realm my consciousness could span

I saw myself known, in the sharing of space
with others as vast and as free,
I saw myself knowing them
sweetly and intimately

When we come back with these visions,
what shall we do? How shall we live
in these things that we know to be true?
— Live in the vision, live from the vision,
bring it more clearly in view.

©Wendy Mulhern

September 16, 2018

Friday, September 14, 2018

Circling


Nothing moves in a straight line.
Turkey buzzards circle and circle
without a flap — just the slightest
adjustment of feathers,
and suddenly they’re much higher,
up on a thermal

Swallows soar faster, their circles
suddenly crumpling as they dive
into a different plane, 
following their flying feast

Our project, too, soars and crumples,
regroups, gains ground …
We could use a thermal around now,
or a fine and crooked line of tasty objects
of nourishment and motivation,
as we drive towards the long-envisioned end.

©Wendy Mulhern

September 14, 2018

Thursday, September 13, 2018

Chrysalis


This is not something I believe,
for to believe requires a structure of belief,
a scaffolding of many 
assumptions and perceptions
wired together, bracing up each other

And here, those suppositions
are dissolved in awe
before a truth so fundamental
that nothing of the past remains

And so I wait
to see what vectors of reality
can now inform my breath,
infuse my walking
(or whatever way I move)

I wait to see
my substance now emerging
its order timeless
but new to me.

©Wendy Mulhern

September 13, 2018

Monday, September 10, 2018

Coming Back


It doesn’t take long,
back from town,
for the land to make us feel better —
the fresh air and soft rhythm of trees
bearing us up, like these
gently swaying hammocks

I can see the space between the sounds of things,
insect buzz and wind chime,
bird chirp and the imagined rustle 
of tree moss,
the tick, from time to time,
of falling needles

And it’s easier to feel
the embracing size of everything,
here where insects carry sun spark
on their wings 
across the shadows
under attending trees.

©Wendy Mulhern

September 10, 2018

Sunday, September 9, 2018

As it is written


“a man shall be as an hiding place from the wind, and as a covert from the tempest; as rivers of water in a dry place, as the shadow of a great rock in a weary land.”

If it is so, consider
how we will meet each other,
what joy will be occasioned
at the appearance of any one of us,
how glad we will be to receive each other
and to be received

The surrounding land will thrive in our presence,
life will spring up abundantly
in great diversity

And is this not — be honest —
what you have always hoped for?
— Of course it is, for this
is what you’ve always been,
this is what you always have deserved.

©Wendy Mulhern

September 9, 2018

Saturday, September 8, 2018

After the day’s work


Limbs lie down and wait for ease,
a place to decompress
from the efforts of the day’s work.
There are moments where it seems they won’t find it,
but then it’s 3 a.m. and they feel better,
ready to stretch, ready to turn
and catch the rest that will prepare them for the morning

They are willing servants — they will trust
they can perform what they are called to do.
They’ll find new sturdiness 
as they bring ease to others,
and feel their worth 
in every earnest hour of honest work.

©Wendy Mulhern

September 8, 2018

Friday, September 7, 2018

Building


This work is changing us.
We are tacked and tapped
and jostled and nestled,
whacked and wrestled
into a closer fit 

This joinery, of old called harmony,
will make of us a sturdy structure.
What we build upon it — ah, 
that is unfolding day by day,
in rhythm and in dreams,
in understanding and in laughter.
Maybe someday
we’ll have time to see it.

©Wendy Mulhern

September 7, 2018

Wednesday, September 5, 2018

Workmanship


I am the workmanship
of what I love.
So I discover my Maker.

What I thought it was my duty to uphold
is what is holding me,
what I believed was my creation
was my perception, blurred though it was,
of my Creator

This is cause for laughter
and deep sighs of relief —
I thought that I must fail
to bring the vision forth,
but it is brought —
brought to me by the only eyes
I’ll ever know, the only Mind
in which my love can dwell.

©Wendy Mulhern

September 5, 2018

Tuesday, September 4, 2018

Foundation


To dream deep
and wake up happy —
this is the gift I’d give you
if I could — give it to you
every day, let whatever faces you
be met by this foundation

So you can then receive
the countless other gifts
bestowed in every breath,
in every smile, in every challenge,
so you lie down in peace
and dream again.

©Wendy Mulhern

September 4, 2018

Monday, September 3, 2018

Realized


I can say at this time at least
that I don’t fear the shattering
of my world, don’t fear that anything I love
can be shattered

I plant my feet, one after the other,
in each place the earth receives them,
feeling the gift travel up
through my frame,
feeling the blessed caress
around my toes

I find myself in this place
where what I am becomes real
as it is realized,
set down like these footprints
on the terrain of consciousness
in the fruition of my mind.

©Wendy Mulhern

September 3, 2018

Sunday, September 2, 2018

Never again needing


It’s no small thing that we are given,
an afternoon with wind and ravens,
wind occasioning the dance of gracious firs,
ravens giving distant comment

There’s more — the blue of sky,
the blessing of companion hammocks,
the sense of never again needing
to have a story,
the blessed absence of internal words.

©Wendy Mulhern

September 2, 2018