Rekindling

 

It feels like it should be a metaphor
how my skin has taken in this image -
the dance of embers
when the fire is almost gone,
the way a gentle setting down
of slender sticks
will make them jump  - jump and
glow and strangely reappear
further down the coal
where all was dark,
and if the sticks are light and dry enough,
and close enough for company
(but not to crowd)
there will at some point be a "ploof"
and fire will have returned,
merry and vivacious

It feels to me like so many things  -
some which would be trite to name,
some clad in so much wonder
I can't utter them.

©Wendy Mulhern
December 31, 2020

Lessons in fire tending

 

For.the fire.to thrive,
the air needs a free exit.

True, it needs an open space for intake,
but that is not enough  -
if it's held in, if it is clogged at the top,
the fire will be air-starved,
it will grow cool and dull and orange
and cloud up the glass door,
which, when you open,
will pour smoke into the room

To have a clean fire,
the chimney trap
needs to be free of soot
so air can get out
as freely as it comes in

I'm thinking this is also true
of gifts. That gratitude glows bright
in the breath of generosity,
and love - love needs
a constant letting go.

©Wendy Mulhern
December 30, 2020

Fortitude

 

Though I may think I want comfort,
I don't really want
to be helpless,
don't want someone
to swoop in and make things right

A better choice is fortitude  -
to stride right into the fray,
to brave the cold, the smoke,
the mud - whatever calls forth
my need to persevere

For then that comfort
will also glow with confidence,
that comfort
will rest in tested strength.

©Wendy Mulhern
December 29, 2020

Winter's Grace

 

Trees plant magic in this place,
silent fog - owl punctuates,
bright moon glides in winter's grace
through the night till morning

Winter's beauty is revealed,
moon has so much light to wield,
leaves its silver in the field
in frosty early morning.

©Wendy Mulhern
December 28, 2020

Just Right

 

I come back around to the fact
that I don't want to be
anywhere else, don't want
to be anyone else  -
that this place,.and this time,
and this company
are just right for me

See? All this has been prepared
to give the opportunity
for this learning, this growth,
this coming to understand
the timeless truth
I can receive
right here, right now.

©Wendy Mulhern
December 27, 2020

There is a river

 

I'm still thinking of that spring
whose source is deep within you  -
how it orients you
even if you hardly sense it there

And I'm thinking of the welling up,
the rising that no spring resists
that pushes what would block it
clean away

There is a river,
yes, there is a river,
there is peace like a river
surging forward without end

And yes, it calls you,
it calls your spring forth -
you have flowed into it
before you knew you would.

©Wendy Mulhern
December 26, 2020

In the order of things

 

I've given up the fear
of things going wrong on the inside,
now that I have glimpsed
how deep the mind force goes,
how there is no scale
at which it abdicates its power
and leaves a role for mindlessness

Electrons hum in harmony
and systems for which they are suns
hum,.too. Who am I to think
the song could pixelate, or end,
who am I to doubt
the care with which I'm held -

Who am I,  after all,
in the order of Infinity?
- where my presence is the basis
for my trust.

©Wendy Mulhern
December 25, 2020

Where there is always room

 

Come in, sit down  -
there's a place here
even for your tears

We can give you the comfort of darkness
where you don't have to
control your features,
we can give you a blanket
the color of light behind closed eyes  -
it can wrap you soft,
it will make room for you

When you're done
you can come out -
there's a place for you here too,
to let the warmth and light
lift the corners of your mouth back up

Come in, all you who are alone  -
you can comfort us,
we'll comfort you  -
we call you even as we are called
to the place outside of space
where there is always room.

©Wendy Mulhern
December 24, 2020

Like Water

 

We find we are like water  -
come amorphous to the morning,
to the moment when  the light hits
and we array ourselves in shine

Before then, of course,
there is much movement  -
we rise to meet the air, we drift,
we kiss the edges of the things we know,
we make fog, we roll, we lift 
we curl up small and tumble down

All this to know ourselves
in how we let the light be seen,
all this to show our essence
in how we meet the dawn.

©Wendy Mulhern
December 23, 2020

A Mother's Comfort

 

A mother's comfort
may be befogged
in a mother's fear,
may seem a tiny light
against oppressive dark

But look how fierce it shines,
defying all the vastness of the void,
look how she holds it without wavering
even when she thinks she has no chance

Look even deeper,
fold yourself into this light  -
it won't give up,
however underpowered she may feel.
She won't let go
so it will bear her up
and thus outshine the darkest night.

©Wendy Mulhern
December 22, 2020

Fall Line

 

Certain moments I think
I can see the whole field
of what we call our lives,
can see the grand gears
turning the mechanism,
can see the choices,
so many fall lines
down and branching down
along the watershed

But see the way the vision changed  -
none of these choices, finally,
have made us what we are,
no mechanism
has been grinding out our lives

And how we branch, and fall, and tumble,
though it may seem to divide,
will bring us, all together,
to our source.

©Wendy Mulhern
December 20, 2020

The Season's Comfort

 

The season's comfort
is no more suppressed
by ignoring it
than rising water
finding its way up
through grass, through stones,
to catch and reflect
the light of the day
to flow down in richness
through courses before unseen

I've been ignoring the season
but not its comfort  -
making no efforts to celebrate,
carried along just the same.

©Wendy Mulhern
December 19, 2020

Appearing

 

These days, I follow the lines of my hope
like sun rays, up through trees,
like tree limbs, along their reach,
their skyward thrust

It becomes clear to me
that none of us pushes up from nothing,
nor do we push up towards nothing  -
we are clasped in the vision that we yearn to,
and the perfect searching
of every seed
into the essence of itself
is like our own journey,
day by day,
into our full appearing.

©Wendy Mulhern
December 18, 2020

Finding us again

 

It didn't take changing you,
it only took knowing you,
discerning which of the signals
refracted between us
were actually true,
and which were interlayered shadows
between projection and perception,
not needing to provoke or be responded to

It only took
holding a steady vision
of that which has always loved you -
letting that be my lens,
making my focus clear.

©Wendy Mulhern
December 17, 2020

Formed in be inhabited

 

Well, obviously,
love was formed to be inhabited  -
it is my place
to step into it, full weight,
full stride,
to inhabit love with the confidence
of one who owns it -
all its wondrous infinite acres -
to take in its delights,
to bring in its full harvest,
to share its bounty endlessly,
hold nothing back.

©Wendy Mulhern
December 16, 2020

Held

 

When I saw you couldn't
carry yourself, I thought I had to,
or then I thought you'd have to learn to

But today I saw
how you are upheld,
how you are cradled,
how you are given
arms that can hold the world up,
and you and I,
faithfully held,
can never let each other down.

©Wendy Mulhern
December 15, 2020

Sojourn

 

I consider going, like a disciple,
carrying nothing, preparing to see,
like water from rock in the wilderness,
all that I need
blooming up in the moment
of my offering,
of my service

I imagine being caught up in connection,
the igniting joy arising from contact,
the bounty at the spark of it,
the clarity of knowing
there is no other day
better than this,
no moment worthy of dismissal

The match strike lights
the former emptiness
and everything is here.

©Wendy Mulhern
December 13, 2020

Here and Now

 

Little soul, don't feel too sorry
for the time you slept,
the years in which you missed
doing things you loved
because you thought you could be
good at things, without doing them

Don't be too sorry
for the things you missed
from ignorance, or from miseducation

You live in infinity,
and time you spent asleep
means nothing.  As ever,
you are free to be resplendent
here and now.

©Wendy Mulhern
December 12, 2020

Sounding

 

I start to feel the deep dark pools
whose surfaces may shift,
may show or hide
the fathoms underneath

The season's lights reveal them -
they glint with their reflection,
they multiply the brightness,
illuminating memories

We'll have no Christmas lights
this year, not even candles  -
the lights that shine for me
will be the deep internal ones,
the ones made brighter
as they plumb the darkness,
the ones that walk with us
along our solitary path,

©Wendy Mulhern
December 11, 2020

Foraging

 

One of the deer
regarded me through the window
for a long time
before it moved off
stepping stiffly through the light mud
and paused again, until another
came and nuzzled it

I think these were the twins of summer,
their mother coming up behind,
their coats now in the duller
shades of winter
to better blend with spent and battered stalks

Our walk through winter
is not unlike theirs,
our first time through this passage,
following signs we haven't seen before
but which are clear enough  -
foraging the prospects of the day.

©Wendy Mulhern
December 10, 2020

Naming Names

 

In the fast rolling world
where names are hidden,
since calling things by name
lets you control them,
there is one name
that doesn't try to hide,
since naming it
invokes its power,
which overcomes everything,
anything that would oppose it -
makes it forget why
it would ever want to -
commands a willing surrender
of all contrary schemes,
since everything desires
to be one
with the One.

©Wendy Mulhern
December 9, 2020

Healing

 

All these words have been said
about healing,  how it is your coming home
to what has always been,
how it's your awakening
to who you really are

These words are true,  and somewhere
beyond the quick dismissal
and the calculation
that these are pretty thoughts
that somehow don't apply to you

There is a clarity
that sends its straight lines down
so numerous that they become space,
so powerful  that everything
tingles in their presence

There is a truth that focuses and strengthens,
and in its halo
you are made whole.

©Wendy Mulhern
December 6, 2020

Comfort Enough

 

I started to think about
what would be comfort  -
end of day, sun gone down,
cold cabin waiting dark,
food to prepare

I started to picture it -
someone to care for me,
some place of light and warmth
where I could rest

The images slipped away quickly,
shifting and melting, canceling out,
till all I had left was a golden glow
and a feeling of worthiness
from having loved

So I knew that I had what I needed,
beyond and above the wood for the fire
and the place I could sit
and the noodles to eat

I knew that I had what I needed,
and that was comfort enough.

©Wendy Mulhern
December 6, 2020

These Clouds

 

These clouds that silently appeared 

along the western ridge,
that quietly amassed
until they owned the sky,
at least the half of it
where the sun had been

These clouds that signify a turn,
prospect of rain, a wrinkle in our plans,
still paused to let the late sun through
and let themselves be cast in blue

And my desire
is for the same kind of peace
to rule my day -
whatever comes in later still offering
the same generous expanse
of presence and acceptance
and release. 

©Wendy Mulhern
December 5, 2020

Observations while roof building

 

These short cold days,
the sun, even when it does come out
doesn't have much time
to melt the ice, to warm the air,
and while it can land steady
on the south slope,
it only glances down the north,
leaving long shadows behind short stubble,
unable to dry the wood
dampened by fog and frost

This time of year
we fall short of our goals,
leave the night watch
to the cold stars,
start up next day
as slow as the sun does,
move through our project the same.

©Wendy Mulhern
December 3, 2020

As i walk

 

And finally, I find myself
enjoying the companionship of silence,
of having no instructions
as my feet step out in front of me,
of spinning no stories  -
just letting the things I see be hymns -
the deer with their tentative presence,
the grass now green again, ferns gone brown,
the piercing blue as fog lifts,
the bracing cold

There's memory, too -
images unfolding, innocent of judgment,
showing I can also
see my folly without regret,
and younger viewpoints
without correcting

So I learn kindness
in the stillness deep inside,
so I learn quiet
in the unassuming rhythm of the land.

©Wendy Mulhern
December 1, 2020

Getting Through

 

Though it's hard to think
how we will make it through the winter,
it's not so hard to deal with every day  -
get up, perform the work at hand,
persevere through darkness
and through cold,
be graced, be blessed,
by glimpses of the light

This is how we'll get through  -
one day into the next,
grand plans dimly in the background,
committed to the way this moment plays.

©Wendy Mulhern
November 30, 2020

Nonetheless

 

It could be a small thing.
It wouldn't have to be something like
the raising of a barn
or a transformation in consciousness

It could be the view across a field
just in one moment,
or the huddle space
where the fire is warm
while the cold air
creeps around my back

It could be a small thing I notice
that shows, nonetheless,
the sweetness of our lives.

©Wendy Mulhern
November 29, 2020

A Story

 

They didn't think they wanted to get up,

absorbed, as they were, in arranging
the little curlicues of what they called their lives

Which always seemed to promise:
Sometime, somehow, they'd get it right
and win the prize of fortune, fame, delight

They thought it was annoying to be prodded,
even unfair, as it perhaps distracted
them off their game, made them miss their win,
plus it was fearsome to be demanded
to be more than they had ever been

And yet, when they finally awoke.
They had no more words to describe.
The things that looked like onerous demands
were simply invitations to arise,
to inhabit the vast regions of their being,
to humbly wield their quintessential power.

©Wendy Mulhern
November 28, 2020

My earnest quest

 

To see, within the chasm,
The dark gleam of depth, of strength,
fine-grained solidity of courage
and compassion

To feel, beneath the raging,
the ocean floor stillness
where everything returns
to sacred rest

The heart, the core, the center  -
what shelters me, what sends me,
what receives me to its own
in every journey,
the place where I can enter
in my very smallest state,
the place where I can stay,
expand, and grow.

©Wendy Mulhern
November 25, 2020

In this place of tears

 

I'm forced to remember
I can't do this alone,
can't toss my thoughts high enough
to scale the peak,
can't get the answer
from random imprints of emotions

I'm forced to remember
answers have nothing for me -
I need the deep suffusing
of what knows me.
I need to give up my projections
and let myself be shown.

©Wendy Mulhern
November 25, 2020

Bring an offering

 

And what would I not offer,
when everything I bring
is caught up so immediately,
transfigured, brightened, multiplied,
illuminating what I am,
revealing and bestowing
my heart's desire  -
When would I not come
to the place of offering  -
What would I want to leave behind?

I will come.
I will remember
it is my natural state
to be full of thanks  -
my breath and nourishment,
cause and purpose for my leaping -
I have been lame so long
but now I'm free.

©Wendy Mulhern
November 24, 2020

Late November, 3:30 pm

 

An hour until sunset,
and the fog returns,
swallowing the hills again,
and then the trees,
just like this morning
before the few hours around noon
when the sky revealed itself
the very definition of blue
and the sun coaxed the temperature
a few degrees above freezing

The fog closes our landscape in,
leaving us here among the rafters
failing to hold up the sky
as darkness falls.

©Wendy Mulhern
November 21, 2020

Poemless

 

The poemless feeling starts as yawns,
then marches on
like a road that leads to
the inside corners of a box,
like a day
that runs out of ticks,
or they grind down
and the next one
simply never comes

It doesn't ask for diagnosis,
just for bed.

©Wendy Mulhern
November 20, 2020

Nothing

 

As I talked about it
I remembered
how the Allness can reveal itself
within the darkest emptiness,
within the fact that even
when you take away everything  -
everything you can think of,
everything you can name,
everything you can imagine,
all you can desire  -
the Allness is still there.

In that presence is everything  -
even what you might call nothing
can't take it away.
It is the Love that stands
when everything is gone.
It is the Love that finally
is all you ever need.

©Wendy Mulhern
November19, 2020

Pack up day

 

It's a series of small tasks -
some have an order,
more than are possible
want to be done last -
we push them along
as well as we can

The hours tick on tiptoe -
we're always surprised
when well after ten
there are still more last things

But we've done it enough
that we move along calmly,
trying to get all the edges pulled in
and early tomorrow
we'll pick ourselves up,
load up the truck and head south.

©Wendy Mulhern
November18, 2020

The Call

 

Well, it would be the same hubris
to say I heard the call
but failed to answer
as to say
that only I was called

as if the calling
were a voice I could refuse,
as if, on hearing it,
there could still be anything else
I might prefer to do

as if there were a me
with any purpose or existence
beside the magnitude
of what I'd understand myself to be,
what I'd embody
in answering the call.

©Wendy Mulhern
November 17, 2020

Try This

 

Try this out, just for a moment -
being satisfied with what you are -
not in contrast to any others,
not in reference to a former self

Inhabit this - and not as an exception -
Have reference only to your present self -
What you are is just what feeds this moment
with the delight that glints through all its folds

This is enough! In fact, it's overflowing -
Let its lightness billow through your form,
let it lift you up and take you flying -
you can come back down
any time you want.

©Wendy Mulhern
November 15, 2020

Belief

 

In the space between
what I think I believe
and what I really,
there is room for falling
and also room for reckoning,
the evidence being clear
in my face and in my actions
and how I move through the day

What I am believing
casts its shadow
across who I think I am
and what is happening to me,
and if I don't like the shadow
I can change it,
but only as I change what casts it

Let me look up,
Let me draw no conclusions
from tricks of the light.
Let me look up
to realign myself
with what is true.

©Wendy Mulhern
November 14, 2020

Source

 

Where do I live?
What ribbons of contiguity
define my thought? How are they affixed?
What winds do they blow in? These stories
of sequenced events, cause and effect -
how much of them do I write myself,
and what inspires me?
What do I copy, what do I notice,
how much attention do I pay
to what I've written down?

These are important questions.
I won't try to answer
before I've asked them fully,
I'll let their unfurling consequences
make it clear,
and I will turn for confirmation
ever back to my creator,
I'll turn for affirmation
to my source.

©Wendy Mulhern
November 13, 2020

Evening

 

Evening can look like rainfall
these shorter days,
falling and falling in front of my eyes,
rain I can see but not feel -
what looks like a socked in sky
may really be sundown
sneaking in behind the clouds

It feels silent
but I can still hear ravens
and the rattle of the ladder
and the hum of distant traffic,
the quiet being, actually,
the day's anticipation of the night,
their brief meeting
soft as the clasp of hands.

©Wendy Mulhern
November 12, 2020

Stepping Up

 

More dangerous to me than hardship
is the vapid satisfaction
that accepts a lie about my being
because it's not that bad,
that accepts a happy that is disempowered,
that lets a picture of a good life
obscure the depth and brilliance
of a life truly lived,
a life whose purpose is
to show the presence of
the good encompassing
the whole of being,
healing and including all the world.

©Wendy Mulhern
November 10, 2020

Kingdom

 

I have seen the kingdom
and it is within - it is the impulse
of my consciousness, the realm
of my desire, my hope, my love,
and that which governs them

I have seen the kingdom
and it is within - it's what insists
on justice, what won't settle
for lies, for privilege,
for ignorant oppression,
for childish blindness
to the things that need to change

I've seen the kingdom
in the hearts of others,
and I recognized the clarity,
the sudden opening -
vast canyons and the breathtaking
settledness, commanding calm,
the wave of certainty that washes doubt away -
kingdom within, in me, in us, as one.

©Wendy Mulhern
November 9, 2020

Weathered

 

The cold sun has weathered me today,
leaving me attracted to fire,
to radiant warmth,
though it washes me
in sandstone red, muting
my thoughts and feelings,
wearing down my words

Sleep will be easy
as the outside cold
sucks the heat out of the cabin
once the fire is gone.
We will stay warm wrapped in blankets
and dream on through the darkness
to the cold dawn.

©Wendy Mulhern
November 8, 2020

Illuminated

 

The light catches us
in moments we didn't pose for,
renders us radiant
in the midst of daily efforts
we thought we were just
trying to get through

But actually it's showing us
what we are -
made of brilliance,
of spontaneous
glory and grace,
just like everything
we share this earth with,
finding home within the power of place.

©Wendy Mulhern
November 7, 2020

Awake

 

I shook myself awake
from where I was wandering
through memories of young adulthood,
ways I thought, and things I said and did

The mood had gotten tedious,
a haze of self-dissatisfaction
slouching in, making it hard to breathe

I didn't ask for this,
didn't give permission for my mind
to fill with toxins, for the mood
to be this semi-dismal color

So I shook myself awake -
I didn't need to dwell there
and my past did not require me
to be paraded back, head hung down

For one could also say
that I was young, and that my ignorance
was not my fault (or not entirely)

And one could say
if I have truly woken up
then all of that was just a story -
none of it can cling to who I am,
and none of it can sully who I was.

©Wendy Mulhern
November 6, 2020

No Pundit

 I will not talk about 

things that are not mine -
what I have not proven
will stand out like sticks
that pontifications
can never clothe

I'll let the colors fall
and let the branches
speak for themselves -
these things I think I ought to know
but don't
still stand out clear
and I will see them
as I keep seeking.

©Wendy Mulhern
November 5, 2020

Working in November

 

That we can work together
through rain,
that we can be cheerful
as puddles form
and gloves get wet
gives me a chortle,
a bright warming,
an inner heat source
to counteract my dampened clothes

We kept on working
while the rain came harder,
and then it stopped, and we continued,
the appreciation that we had
each for the other
as strong a structure as the frame we built.

©Wendy Mulhern
November 3, 2020

Morning Wisps

 

Behind the wisps of sorrow
that came drifting up
from memories released
by an offhand reminder

Behind my being sorry
for being too inept
to offer you the wisdom
that you looked for,
behind the sense
that I had let you down

Comes, like the light that prompts the mist to lift,
to float above the ground before dispersing,
the fact that love was, even then,
the only force impelling me,
the only message I could give
and all that you could really hear

And love, I know, can do no harm,
and nothing I advised,
could interfere with who you are
and how you shine,
could hold you back from coming to your own.

©Wendy Mulhern
November 2, 2020

Last Glow

 

The coals sink down,
the room grows colder,
and the day's memories
stretch like embers
for my mind to scan -
the times of being cold, of being warm,
the work, the company,
joy finally remaining
the last thing glowing
as I turn my attention towards sleep.

©Wendy Mulhern
October 31, 2020