Spring Stream

We watch the earnest braiding of the water
just before the stream takes its meander
back and forth amid the clumps of grass
before it dips and swoops down the drop
singing as it curls

This stream and these blackbirds
sing duets together,
each honing their skill
in the other's purity

With our bare feet we feel
we take it in, too -
cold rippling enlivening clarity.

©Wendy Mulhern
April 30, 2020

In this world, what I consider possible
is more important than I may fathom -
it is the lie of impossibility
that has kept me from claiming,
in every place I've missed it,
my dominion

So let me broaden the tent of my belief
so there is room for happiness,
not just for me - rather, for everyone -
Let them be thrilled and awestruck
by the fact of their own being

Not under some as yet unmet conditions,
Not the false possible conveyed by some "if only",
but the true possible of This is what we're here for
and this is how we live, and this is what we are.

©Wendy Mulhern
April 29, 2020

Proper Nourishment

Let me live in the place
where there's no game of better,
no game of not better either -
no grades or ratings,
no reflexive search
for what is wrong,
to make occasion
for being right

Let me wean myself
from that addicting food
which never satisfies,
but keeps me craving for
another dose of wrong
to point my finger at,
to show my smarts against -
It doesn't have to be that way

Nudged by the wild plant lady,
I took a bite from the new growth
of douglas fir -
It was, as she said, refreshing,
surprising citrus before expected resin,
still tender to the tooth

And as she said,
I felt that it could nourish me
for many miles of walking,
and I could think of it as a gift,
I could be mindful every time I thought
of biting off another shoot -
take what is freely offered,
leave plenty behind.

©Wendy Mulhern
April 28, 2020

Before all that

Today I think of presence
not as something with me,
but as the very fact of my existence

Wonder it is that I see,
that I breathe, and that I have,
before all that, the great desire of being,
the hope, the love, all that waits
before the me I call myself arises
to greet the morning - all that cares so deeply
about something before what I define
as daily life -

I call it presence.
I step back into it
and go out with peace.

©Wendy Mulhern
April 27, 2020

All in good time

Grand plans notwithstanding,
life comes to us,
unfolding in small ways,
whether or not our presence
has anything to do with it

Far from our former need
to know everything yesterday,
we are content to notice what we do

Slowly the net comes together
to hold us graciously
in the web we hoped to make

Visions of how it may look later
entice us, appearing, as they do,
from wisps already here.

©Wendy Mulhern
April 26, 2020

Choose Life

We all have been under the pall,
all been asked
to choose a side and stick with it,
all felt sickened in the fear of losing,
or being found left out,
stranded in a faulty choice

There are rules of valliance -
rules of how to choose,
how to stand with courage,
how to fall with grace,
but one still faces
the daunting consequence,
dark underside of loss, of shame, of grief

And so consider:
Nothing else alive is ever asked
to make a choice like that.
It is plenty
for every living thing to answer
to it's own calling - to grow
in its own place and time,
to be directed by its own essence
in every moment of its being

If that's enough
for this wild strawberry,
holding raindrops as it blooms,
then it's enough for us -
to make no choice, to take no sides,
let no division compromise our love.

©Wendy Mulhern
April 25, 2020

Waking Up

I come out of the dream
of a small, dark, cluttered place,
and it takes me a while,
it takes me a while
to find my way back to myself

Oh, for sure, I was there all along,
the fabric of cause and effect I call me
never absent from thought -

Still, it takes a tuning -
tuning fork sound clear as water drops -
it takes being still, first,
then walking myself back,
back to my cause

So the sleepy gauze haze
can retreat from my eyes
and the clarion presence
that gives them shine
can reverberate through me anew.

©Wendy Mulhern
April 24, 2020

Rain Waves

The rain moves through in waves -
crescendos and diminuendos
with or without wind
from a random direction

That we are loved is as apparent
as that the grass is, and the springing trees
that drink the rain,
less because of this dry place to watch from
than because gratitude
moves through us
just like that.

©Wendy Mulhern
April 22, 2020

Flow

The life you feel between your toes,
the squish of mud, the flowing stream,
can curl into your feet, can swirl
in all its earth affirming splendor
through your form. The calls of birds
which grace the air, affirm
the same current. We are not alone here.
We are riding life, trilled in the atmosphere,
caught up in song.

©Wendy Mulhern
April 21, 2020

Arenas

Standing at the point of who I am,
I will not be cowed
by the arenas stretching out before me,
each one claiming
that I must take their challenge,
must imbibe the bitter fear they offer,
and the almost certain disappointment -
must be tested
and probably found wanting,
at least helpless
to see good prevail

I need not go out
from who I am -
I can bring that with me,
and as it is written,
the trees of the field
will clap their hands.

©Wendy Mulhern
April 19, 2020

Birds

The little birds, one by one,
show us the form behind their songs -
red winged blackbird, mourning dove,
song sparrow, robin, towhee

Big birds, too - the ravens
with their laughs and clicks
and loud, labored flap across the sky,
geese with their commotion,
and turkeys with their funny ways

They like things about us -
our fence, our flowers,
the puddles and the dust baths
our presence has provided

We like things about them, too -
their sounds, their swoops
and how they fill the land with life -
swift catch of joy,
warble of the heart.

©Wendy Mulhern
April 18, 2020

At end of day

Gratitude for joy at end of day
glows like coals in the cabin stove.
Remembrance of green shade
and steps made,
and some kind of entrance
into conscious freedom
rests easy in the evening hours -
strength and peace for now
and for the day to come.

©Wendy Mulhern
April 17, 2020

More Joy in Heaven

No need to covet repentance -
There's plenty of room for my knees
here on the ground,
here where the clods and grains of dirt
are moister than I thought,
here in the realm of things
that creep and thrive
in the structure of the soil

No need to covet repentance -
There are more than enough
ways for me to crumble,
leave my former ways of reckoning behind

I, too, can swell and grow,
in awe of what makes me,
in gratitude for every way I'm held

And for the daily
reassessing and revealing
of what interlocks us perfectly,
gives us our purpose
and makes us new.

©Wendy Mulhern
April 16, 2020

In Common

We are all alike -
the mice, the birds, the deer,
you and me -
moving through the rounds
of our days, gathering up
what we can use -

A bug, a bud, a shaft of sunlight,
a song that pierces time and space,
we tremble in the liquid of our being,
we glow in our own radiance of grace

We all are earnest,
we all are laughable
in that particular way
each of us moves

We will be humbled,
we'll be exalted
shining despite ourselves
down all the tumble home.

©Wendy Mulhern
April 14, 2020

Approach

I envision you
welcomed into light,
welcomed home,
seen
in a lucidity and depth
you'd never known before

I feel you soften,
relax into the comfort and the confidence,
bask in recognition and appreciation,
and in the pleasure
of delighting all your company

I see you there
because each day
I feel a little closer to it -
as I approach this truth,
day by day, I feel
closer, too, to you.

©Wendy Mulhern
April 13, 2020

Remembering Heather

I find myself thinking of you,
spending my day wrapped in memory -
so many lenses to use

Each lens makes it different,
shades of the moods and the color
calling forth different scenes

All of these memories
still would be mine
no matter how things had come out

How I would view them
had things come out otherwise
isn't a thing I could know

But the way that I knew you
shines clear, steps out strong,
leaves my clouded perceptions behind

How I knew you true then
is how I know you now, -
friend of my heart and my mind.

©Wendy Mulhern
April 11, 2020

We Shall Overcome

"The meal cannot resist the yeast. "
And so it is, intelligence being primary -
not drivable from any lesser essence,
not divertible to any lesser goal
than bringing out the greatest good

So fear is overcome by grace,
having no power, finally,
to hold anyone enslaved,
the simple overriding truth
of goodness,
without any extra effort,
deftly melting fear away.

©Wendy Mulhern
April 9, 2020

For Sure

And this is what it feels like
to step out of my back door
into my backyard
and walk
to my friend, the oak tree,
sheltering many birds
which I hear more than see

Turkeys near the fence,
green springing up everywhere,
afternoon wind, though strong,
not cold

This is what it feels like to live here,
which maybe I do now
and sometime I will for sure.

©Wendy Mulhern
April 9, 2020

Artifacts of our presence

The wind through the fence
as vocal as any bird
speaks of the artifacts
of our presence -
not yet picturesque
except perhaps from some perspectives

Trees we've planted -
some of them rise
above their blue tubes -
others we take on faith
or on imagination,
visualizing groves

We have made mud swaths
where there was grass,
we have made piles -
of tools, of compost,
of equipment

Things are still beautiful
in varying lights of day and night.
We've made them less so,
but hope that's only for a time,

©Wendy Mulhern
April 7, 2020

More on Last Days

Well, the world may end, he said,
but it won't be due to
End of Days -
But rather that we finally
prove too stupid
to pull ourselves together

One thing we know -
No progress comes
from waiting for it,
nor does it come from protesting,
nor can we find it
by persuading others

It is a turning
in the atmosphere of mind,
each individual
claiming sovereignty,
it is unhitching from the trolley
of the common thought,
(what no one thinks, but thinks that others do)
that let's us find our way
to being free.

©Wendy Mulhern
April 6, 2020

It was everything you ever wanted,
It was nothing you ever outlined,
It was the magic content
of all the things you thought
were most desirable,
which those things sometimes delivered
but could never guarantee

It was a thing that had no name,
for all the names had been used up
on things you thought could maybe
(if you were lucky,
or if you were smart)
give you what you wanted

When you found it,
for a long time you were speechless -
How could you talk about
something that was everything,
that satisfied your every hope?

©Wendy Mulhern
April 5, 2020

A New Thought

Grief is a place to put stories to bed.
The slosh of waves of narrative,
conflicting stories, counter stories,
fall to stillness here. There is no answer,
no explaining away,
no alternative fact
that could gain traction here.
There is nothing to say.

Which is why, in grief,
there's room for healing.
There's room for the internal rages
to burn each other out.
After all that, grief resolves
to stillness.
And after a long silence,
a new thought.

©Wendy Mulhern
April 4, 2020

Spirit Essence

We don't need loud voices
to speak to each other,
we are so close -
close enough to whisper,
close enough to feel each other's breath

So close, in fact,
maybe we don't need to talk at all.
Instead, we listen together,
hearing, at the same time,
the same unfolding
of the Spirit essence
that lets us move as one.

©Wendy Mulhern
April 3, 2020

A Worthy Read

Since your words proved able
to make me dream,
to make me dream of caring
and of caring for,
and of a desperate effort
to drink from a fountain
where the water flowed flat
along its spiky sphere,
hard to get ones mouth on,
of people trying to connect
while stories
kept putting doors between them

I dreamed all these dreams
and you were in them -
less in their depths
than in the coming out,
as I woke up, and again,
as I returned to sleep

Since your words could do this,
I deem them
an honest story,
I consider them
a worthy read.

©Wendy Mulhern
April 1, 2020