Trundle Through

 

We get tumbled together again,
where the web of grief
catches us up in its snare -
not the whole of us, but certain aspects,
such that we move through the day in a fog,
trying to work as usual,
going so much slower

Things clear up a bit
at end of day -
we find some comfort
in our togetherness,
we find some peace within the progress
we tortuously trundled through to.

©Wendy Mulhern
August 31, 2020

Flow Free

 At the time of healing 

grief leaks out the corners,
spills down, becomes a river
like to wash you right away

Let it go, let it go -
this is something more ancient
than all of your lifetime,
more elemental
than every regret you have borne

Let it go - it wants to flow away,
wants to be a cleansing,
wants you to know
that you have never been a tool of sorrow -
all those stories
are washed clean with forgiveness
and you are free.

©Wendy Mulhern
August 30, 2020 

What's asked of me

 

I'm asked to have courage,
and so I ask for courage.
I'm told it's up to me
to do my work

It's not a hard thing I am asked,
but it's essential -
to stand true in my faith,
to not be swayed by signs and stories
telling me of failure,
to look to my good for the evidence
of what my life is made of

I am asked to be strong,
but not with a strength I have to fabricate,
I'm asked to be true -
true to the source of my being.

©Wendy Mulhern
August 29, 2020

Hearing Truth

Our hearts burn because
we all recognize
the truth when we hear it

It sits deep within us
and speaks in the place
where there's no room for doubt,
speaks in the voice of
what we have always known,
silent, yet unassailable

Our hearts burn
because the truth's light
reveals their depth -
they shine up its reflection
like moonlight in the bottom of a well.

©Wendy Mulhern
August 28, 2020

Drop Everything

 A book comes in the mail.

The question: do I cleave firm
to obligations and to duties,
do I make sure that everything
is tucked into place? The better
to charge into tomorrow,
get things accomplished
while it's cool? Do I fulfill
my daily discipline?
Or do I drop everything
and read?

©Wendy Mulhern
August 27, 2020

Competence

Unlike tomatoes, competence grows
without regard to seasons.
It may have cycles,
like roots extending underground,
where it is growing steady but unseen,
a skill then suddenly emerging as a new tool

Or it may be like adolescent roosters,
whose early crows are rough
and oddly off key,
who still persist till various refinements
crow forth, though intermittently

No coach, no teacher
tells them what their crow needs,
but after many, many calls
they gain more confidence.
So, too, my competence may find
its early-rising, clear strong calling.

©Wendy Mulhern
August 26, 2020

Tomatoes

This morning the tomatoes told me
not to expect they wouldn't notice
the year's curve - how cold it was
in the early morning,
how the stretch of sun and heat
was shorter, how if I had wanted
a bumper crop, I should have done better
on the early side of the season,
should have given them
more high summer to work with.

As it is, they told me,
some of them will ripen.
Just maybe not as many
as I had hoped.

©Wendy Mulhern
August 25, 2020

Hollow

There's a hollow, today, in the place
where I expected to find a poem -
perhaps dug out by yesterday's torrents,
or the mice that decimated my melons,
or the larger rodent
who did in my brussels sprouts

And though the day has had its good things,
they haven't, apparently, filled the gap entirely.
Twilight flows into its emptiness
and settles like a pool.

©Wendy Mulhern
August 24, 2020

Shift

When you can be completely sure
you are comprised
of what you love, exclusively,
no more, no less

When you can recognize Infinity
and how it wells up
through the cracks of every story
you have told yourself

Then you will shift your focus to the light,
and what before seemed so complex
will flatten like a silhouette,
while all your love will fill your sight,
and you will know
exactly what you're here for,
and be blessed.

©Wendy Mulhern
August 22, 2020

One Day

It only takes one day
for us to start believing
in summer's end -
some clouds and wind,
the possibility of night rain -
and we notice
a different tone across the fields -
though they are parched and seem set
for unremitting dryness,
a siege span they must cross
before the rains come,
some of the yellow is also
leaves starting to turn
here and there,
leaves falling and drifting in the wind,
getting ready

We are not ready,
but that has never
made any difference.
We will be there with it
when it comes.

©Wendy Mulhern
August 21, 2020

Bedtime for Turkeys

The wind begins to mitigate the heat,
and turkey children settle in for bedtime stories,
not that they listen - the air is full
of their contented trills
and flaps of everybody's last adjustments

In other trees, there is much clapping clattering
as other turkeys seek their branch of comfort.
It takes the time it takes - not short or long -
then falls, like dusk, into the evening's quiet.

©Wendy Mulhern
August 20, 2020

Spoken Word

 

There is a voice that speaks
without needing words,
without needing sound,
but which you hear
earth-shifting deep
in the self you've only hoped
could somehow be you

You hear it like a crack in your core,
pouring out unimagined light,
expanding your perspective
to where every pre-established limit
is gone, and even the notion
that life could be organized
in shapes of struggle and lack
is fully silenced
in this new truth

There is no way
to shut out this voice,
because it's already inside you
and it has already spoken.

©Wendy Mulhern
August 19, 2020

Let Go

Let go, let go
of all that you've been trying to become -
the burden is too great for you,
the rules, the judgments,
the constant times of feeling tested
and, as it seems to you, coming up wanting

You can let it go -
you don't need to become anything.
Any shortcomings you have tallied
have been forgiven
in the light of the grand truth
of what you have always been -
whole and pure, shining
in the eyes of your creator.

©Wendy Mulhern
August 18, 2020

Creek Dance

You greet the water like an old friend,
feel its refreshment in the same ways,
drink the joy of recognition,
relish the kinship in your deepest currents

Both of you have flowed through long channels,
both are bearing many memories,
you will take the time to really listen,
you will stand and close your eyes and see

It's no surprise that later you'll feel stronger -
layers of worry smoothed from off your brow.
You'll keep the creek dance with you as you travel -
as it invites you, you'll remember how.


©Wendy Mulhern
August 17, 2020

Photo by susanna maria 

Before the Heat

Morning, after a night
mostly too warm for blankets,
I'm banking up on cool,
wearing my long,.light, sleeveless dress,
watching the hazy fingers of sun
reach across the shadows

Turkey families with their
thirst quenching chirps
trot up crosswise to the sun,
dogs bark beyond the fields

The day will steam and bustle
and then bake, the trees will rustle
in the hot winds. We will find a way
to drape ourselves through it
until the coolness
on the other side.

©Wendy Mulhern
August 16, 2020

Into Night

Day done, the coolness settled in,
dark enough for lights indoors
but not outside

Cricket choruses pulse distinctly
from different spots -
the group in the old maple
gives way, as I walk by,
to the one in the blackberry patch,
both two-toned, wide-intervaled and strong

Then a moment of relative quiet
before I step among the firs,
where it sounds like more crickets,
but farther off, their pulse more subtle

In this time before night,
they hold the strong cords
that carry us securely
through the transition.

©Wendy Mulhern
August 13, 2020

Listen

My highest truth
can burn through all the stories,
the well-meaning, the self-justifying,
sounds like what I think someone
would like to hear
stories

It's fine if that leaves me
with nothing to say -
others have important truths to tell,
and this can be my time
to listen.

©Wendy Mulhern
August 11, 2020

My Flight

If birds pray by flying ....

I don't know they do
but I know I would,
my wings receiving
the subtle currents of the air,
my whole self resting in its cushion,
the lift revealed, the vistas swift unfolding,
my pinions understanding

Yes, I would fly, and let my flight be prayer,
I would pray, and let my prayer be art.
Let me ride the winds of exaltation
wherever you may want me to explore.

©Wendy Mulhern
August 10, 2020

The Light that Casts No Shadow

The light that casts no shadow
glides into the canyons of your heart -
colors that you never saw
glow forth from all your deepest places

Things that you had feared
and your strategies to overcome them
suddenly are gone, as are the things
you didn't like about yourself
with their attending judgments
and castigations

All those constructs of the dark
didn't even need to be swept up
and casr away -
the light that fills you up
was all you needed.

©Wendy Mulhern
August 9, 2020

What i Needed

When I needed to hear
words to convince me
of the depth and presence of Love,
and how they could heal me
and focus my life's purpose,
they were there

And when I needed to hear
music falling from the sky
sifted through the fir trees,
calling out from three trees away,
it was there in my ears

When I needed a sign that,
despite the garden's failings,
we would gain the skills we need -
though through lessons I am slow to learn,
in time I'll find I've learned enough -
that sign was there

I will not ask for more
than the constant care that guides my days.
I will watch humbly to be shown
and strive to act
as I am led.

©Wendy Mulhern
August 8, 2020

Gratitude and Purpose

I have contentment
and equilibrium,
and vistas big enough
to overwhelm my sight,
giving vision to my freedom -
certainly that's plenty

Beyond that, it's out of my hands.
Beyond that, I can work to see
that the unfolding of my days
is true - see that it matches
the potential that is given,
continue in my daily press
toward heaven.

©Wendy Mulhern
August 7, 2020

Best Served

The dream of finished work
is dangerous. I start imagining
how it would feel
to wash my dishes in a sink,
to take a bath,
to walk on clean smooth floors
with bare feet, to see the brightness
and the color in the walls

Better to step back and be glad
that on a rare cool summer day
I already can bake,
and light a fire,
and watch the mist
from a dry place inside

Everything will come in time,
and I'm best served
by living in the glory of today,
by giving what is asked of me
and counting that for joy.

©Wendy Mulhern
August 6, 2020

The Day's Last Task

You go each night to do your last task -
closing the well house, checking that
all is well

And the night almost always
entices you to stay longer,
to watch the stars come out,
and the nocturnal wildlife,
to listen to the crickets
and let the day's stresses dissipate
in the evening coolness

Many comforters may meet you
along that walk -
may they reach you in the places
you need them most.

©Wendy Mulhern
August 4, 2020

A Way Out

I'm thinking that
we're not getting out of this
the way we got in -
reaching blindly for
who we thought were leaders,
more and more divided
by who we trust to tell the truth

There certainly is a role
for the long road,
the honest bumping
along all the facts on the ground,
there is a role for perseverance
and for knowing something as it really feels
day by day

But there's also a role for rising,
where consciousness sifts through the tales
and finds a resolution
in the place that hums
with the life that is never divided
nor invaded, nor conquered,
where norms dissolve
but truth and love remain.

©Wendy Mulhern
August 3,.2020

That Which Rises Up

We rise up, as does everything,
with wonder and gratitude
into the fact of being,
the rich Spirit that impels us
to grow, create, connect

We rise up because we must -
it is our milk, our joy,
it is our purpose

This is the substance of which we are made -
it is always with us,
and we are always with it -
splash of brilliance
that overcomes the heat,
flash of radiance
that lights our way.

©Wendy Mulhern
August 2, 2020

Growing

(from the virtual biking philosopher's notebook)

Not that you know more things,
but what you've always known
you know more deeply,
know what tumbling concatenations follow
from one truth,
know more things it disallows
by being true

Not that you grow into something you weren't,
but what you are, you keep becoming,
grander and more like yourself than ever,
just like these firs.

©Wendy Mulhern
August 1, 2020