Year’s End

We approach the year’s end

as uncelebrating

as every brown leaf

that blows along the ground,

as every squirrel that scuffles

among the leaves,

as every insect sleeping in its dried up stalk,

as all the crows that have gone home by now

It’s just one day into the next,

the rain, the fog, the winter light,

the stillness of the evening,

the morning’s breath

In other times, in other energies,

we made a mark here,

found some significance,

some grand design for change,

but this time round we’re flying low,

conserving strength,

hugging the curve of darkness

till the light returns.

©Wendy Mulhern

December 31, 2019

Sorrow

Sorrow has its season,

not as master, but as shadow,

a reminder of emptiness

and the song that fills it

Sorrow brings us 

down through the wet passage

of echoes, dark shiny walls

and the sound of dripping

We will know how deep we are

as sorrow plumbs us.

We’ll come out richer

on the other side.

©Wendy Mulhern

December 30, 2019

Actually

For a moment I forgot

that joy is unconditional —

I looked around, and saw,

then felt, the sadness

everywhere it lay along

the tragic and the casual

occurrences of unfulfilled conditions

The sighs arising

slip like wisps above them,

hover haunted, sink on down —

it’s easy to believe

no answer can be found for anyone

But joy is unconditional —

it cracks like a smile,

bounds up like a bubble,

flows, light filled,

through all the places

where things seemed so sad.

This is not a big problem, actually —

it’s just time to claim our heritage.

©Wendy Mulhern

December 29, 2019

Your Spark

(from the biking philosopher’s notebook)

You don’t own your spark

but you owe it —

owe it your attention,

your time, your thought, your care

You can’t use your spark to serve you —

you serve it —

give it everything you are,

all you can do

And in return

it will mature,

become a flame, become a light,

you will be nourished in its service,

even known by it —

it will make you what you are

and guide your every step

and as you tend it daily,

it will be your life.

©Wendy Mulhern

December 28, 2019

Low Points

It isn’t bad

to have to cry

in spite of how

the sun has spun

the grass heads into gold

and wind has gently ruffled ducks

and all in all 

it was a fine day

These low points

come in sometimes

like nomad clouds

that mass and gather

and move through —

They will go as silently

as they came. Either today

or tomorrow — whether

bringing rain or not.

Either the sun will melt them

or bright laughter

will chase them off. 

©Wendy Mulhern

December 27, 2019

Good Night

At the delicious edge of sleep —

the doors of dream enticingly ajar

(or maybe they are more like pools

or limbs exploring towards infinity)

From that alluring edge

I’m reeled back in —

your voice, or at another time

your finger tapping —

engendering my dull reluctant rise

through layers swiftly shredding

back to here

And so my softest thing to do 

is laugh —

it shimmers with releasing ripples,

keeps my thought from coalescing solid,

allows my sleepy drift

back toward the edge …

©Wendy Mulhern

December 26, 2019

Attention

Now that my hope is fully uncoupled

from the day’s outcomes,

now that it holds itself

in its own light,

I can see shoots sprouting

where before, perhaps,

the weight of my wishes

would have smothered them

I have no wishes,

only conviction

that every living thing

forms in this sacred space

of weightless hope,

nurtured to fruition

by the attention,

in wave form contiguity,

to every breath.

©Wendy Mulhern

December 25, 2019

What we wanted

All we ever wanted

was to be reunited

with our source,

to be in that communion

like water is

as it travels on its journeys

to be reunited with itself,

as it carries light in liquid ripples

through rills and streams

All we wanted

was that certainty

of what we are —

that we are good,

that we are one

with that which lights us up within

We may pursue our winding path

through darkness, 

but it’s the gleams of light that lift us

and our light reflecting essence

that guides us

(as we will see when we look)

to everything we wanted.

©Wendy Mulhern

December 24, 2019

Altar

I lay the broken pieces on the altar

that they might be knit together by light,

that it might bathe them and envelope them

and be all the space between them

till no space is left unfilled

and they will be full,

and their former gaps will now be

the most precious of their substance,

and their former shards

will be cherished reminders

of what I hoped for long ago,

and that, in the light,

nothing is lost.

©Wendy Mulhern

December 23, 2019

Circling Home

We keep on circling home

like coins that spin and fall

and ring and ring

before they find their still point

We circle home

and our sudden sadnesses

bring us up short.

It may be a long fly

before we realize

we never left.

©Wendy Mulhern

December 22, 2019

Gentle

The gentle laws that hold us

don’t need us to understand —

we can have wildly different concepts,

we can have our faith placed

in all manner of nothings,

we can be full of worry

for all the ways those nothings let us down

The gentle truth is not impressed

by where our minds may roam —

whether we fall or climb,

whether we stall or rage,

whether we pine or ponder,

or place is still assured

The stillness, somehow,

will approach us, will wait,

will be there when we pause,

will catch us up in welcome arms,

settle us in 

to where we’ll know for sure that we belong.

©Wendy Mulhern

December 21, 2019

Like Light

Light comes in the morning,

orange, then gold, then white gold,

etches shadow filagree on walls through windows,

folds its glow through cracks of doors

And if I simply don’t allow

for any place to be untouched,

if I let light bathe every curve of thought,

I’ll leave no place inside for dread or worry,

I’ll entertain no images of scorn

And if, like sun, my love is humble,

indiscriminate because its source is infinite,

it will leave space for birds to shine and sing

in their own language, and smiles to well up

from their profoundest depth.

©Wendy Mulhern

December 20, 2019

Transition Time

My sense of beauty is enchanted

by this transition time

where windows show

the view and the reflection

at the same strength

and illustrate

things that go through each other —

inhabit the same space

without touching,

move according to their own lights,

their own laws —

coexisting

only in the eyes and minds

of those observing.

©Wendy Mulhern

December 18, 2019

Christmas Travels

There were shining lights and flashing lights,

mirrored in multiples,

double exposures — reflected people

passing through actual buses,

there was the whirring roar within the terminal

while buses on the outside glided ghostly

We had the vibrations

of day-long air travel

with little food,

and rain outside, and remnants

of earlier snow (which had delayed our flight

and made us miss our planned bus)

All in all, as real, surreal,

as anything, as anywhere,

travel being, in some sense,

our constant state,

home also being

as real as we could make it.

©Wendy Mulhern

December 17, 2019

Prosaic

What makes a day prosaic?

Surely it’s not a quality of light

or the result of designated tasks,

or the company kept

or the internal landscape of my mind

All of these are full of poetry,

each, when focused, accesses a portal

opening, kaleidoscopic,

to infinity

Maybe it’s the flurry,

the attention taken

by stringed disparate tasks —

how they get loaded

in the barrel of efficiency

and lobbed forth —

how then I fail to feel

the gravity, and poetry, of each.

©Wendy Mulhern

December 16, 2019

Practicing

Here’s me practicing again,

and my piano practice is rough.

Maybe because it’s plagued

with the same thing that slowed

my other practice, in times past —

a sense I’d done enough, I shouldn’t

have to — it should come to me

by now — it’s come to others —

surely by now I’ve worked

as much as they …

Here’s me applying a lesson

to myself: as with that practice,

so with this — it takes immersion.

It takes abandoning, entirely,

thoughts of time and measurement.

It takes the humbleness

to be the instrument

of what is coming through …

If I can do it there,

well, the question is,

am I willing to do it here?

©Wendy Mulhern

December 14, 2019

The Reign of Truth

Helplessness is not

an acceptable option.

In the realm of myself,

I take a stand

for the reign of truth

And in small flashes

it seems obvious

that truth is really the only thing

that can actually be

in a place, in a time

And no matter how big

a lie claims to be, it can’t occupy

the ground where truth is.

And if truth is here

(and how could it not be?)

it must assert its essence,

must be seen as what determines being

And however intricate

a web of falsity may be,

it can’t take hold on truth —

something that’s false cannot ensnare

something that’s really there

So in small flashes

I can notice

that no problems of the world,

or of the neighborhood,

or of the heart,

can hold back the unfolding of the truth.

©Wendy Mulhern

December 13, 2019

My Days

What I call me

has gotten used to

the act of work,

the fact of traveling

My breath has learned

how to continue steady,

my arms and hands

have learned to move ready,

my mind is quiet in the awe

of what is being shown

step by step, goal by goal,

poem by poem.

©Wendy Mulhern

December 12, 2019

For This

We came here for this,

we came here through the rain,

the traffic, the boondoggles and backtracking,

the thought loops and the second guessing

We came here for this,

for this unassailable safety,

this deep rooted presence,

this consciousness that everything

is all right, everyone is worthy,

everything is at peace.

And after all life’s loops and tunnels,

it’s good to know.

©Wendy Mulhern

December 11, 2019

Settling In

Today I consider

putting my whole weight down,

settling into life, letting it

bear me up

Funny, until now

I didn’t notice that all this time

I’ve been holding back,

keeping the tense pose,

assuming I needed

to hold up my own weight

(As if I could, as if

I wasn’t fully riding on this adventure,

as if I could withhold

any dependence on Life’s uplift)

Today I consider

nestling into Life’s shoulders,

feeling its wing thrusts

surging us on.

©Wendy Mulhern

December 10, 2019

We Could Be Happy

We could be happy. I cried

as I thought of this,

so far removed it was

from what I’d told myself was possible

Oh, I had joy. Joy of the wilderness,

the upward trail, the bracing day,

joy of the stream of life

given every day by my Creator

After all this time of self reliance,

it was overwhelming to consider

that the gifts my Creator gives

include even more,

and we could be happy —

you and me together,

and others too —

We could be happy —

this, too,

is my Creator’s will.

©Wendy Mulhern

December 8, 2019

Everyday Epiphanies

You wake up and remember

what you know —

you may have to reach for it,

coming up from dream,

batting back the thoughts

that fall on you

as you break the surface

You may have to spend more time,

may need to diligently focus,

but it comes in — new each morning,

different from yesterday,

full of its own promise

Sometimes it’s a steady fire within,

able to incinerate anything untrue,

sometimes it’s a sunrise seen afar,

overwhelming with its gift of beauty

And sometimes the old lines

of you and me, us and them,

are totally confounded

in the unity of Mind’s purpose,

working out the calculus

of universal good.

©Wendy Mulhern

December 7, 2019

Disabused

This day has had surprise gifts in it,

just when I’d trained myself

not to expect any. But that,

as it turns out, is today’s humbling —

Life takes me down a peg or two

by offering tangible things

to make me happy,

proving I don’t need to go it alone

And my belief that I did

was making too much of myself —

I needed to be disabused of that presumption.

I can’t say I mind.

©Wendy Mulhern

December 5, 2019

Induction

I make my way by induction,

as by candle light, long before dawn —

I look, first, for the first reason —

why you would even open your eyes,

why you would care, 

why you would rise

I see you couldn’t be there

without the spark, you would be nothing

without desire

And if the spark is present,

it must really be the only thing —

it wouldn’t let itself

be mostly snuffed out

It wouldn’t let itself be used

to power anything unlike itself —

to power dread or burden,

or soul deadening requirements

If the spark is here

then it will dictate joy —

joy, and strength, and vigor —

it will spread the whole day

with sweet harmony,

for so it is, by nature

And if this is what’s here,

I’ll see it. Gently,

modest as the dawn,

radiant as day. I’ll recognize it

in every light that shows the way.

©Wendy Mulhern

December 4, 2019

Always

There will always be a pause,

because the loud shrieks and clamor

of all that tries to claim power

are not continuous, cannot sustain themselves

They start and stop,

as earthquakes, wind, or fire,

as sobs, as tirades, as things hurled,

and there is always a pause —

a curling up, the empty end of a breath,

the spring uncoiled, the flat repose of shards

And in that silence

still as winter, still as ice,

the crystal music will arise

It fills the whole field instantly,

interlocks the harmony of molecules,

sounds the depth, the space, the peace

that owns the matrix of existence

There always is a pause —

and everyone can find it —

that leads us to our home, infinity.

©Wendy Mulhern

December 3, 2019

Purpose

I will not look anywhere but here.

Here is the place where focus is possible,

here it can bore to the needed depth.

Things that fly outside may look attractive —

I may think I wish to turn, to sample, find them,

but that kind of skittering, finally

won’t drill down into

what I need to understand

This is something I know within.

It is a deep unarguable truth.

There may be stories told of freedom,

of flying high and wide,

but freedom without purpose

can’t sustain me,

and purpose is what’s mine to find right here.

©Wendy Mulhern

December 2, 2019

Little Window

And after the thick of the storm,

like a little blue window

amid the clouds rolling and roiling —

a window that may disappear

many times before the clouds clear

and blue displays its winning infinite —

Somewhere before the dark has fully ended,

that blue window of truth

will give you hope,

and the storm’s narrative

will slowly cease to matter,

its irrelevance apparent as it dissipates,

and you can hold on,

for once you’ve seen it,

you won’t believe in darkness anymore.

©Wendy Mulhern

December 1, 2019