Need

 

I think I'll just stay here forever

if I can remember to -
here in the release from all dark thoughts,
here in the regimen of
everything defined by its essence
and not by projected lack

Need - not as what falls short
but rather,  what waits to bless:
needs to be witnessed,.
needs to bring us along
in the bright gift it's been designed
to give us,
needs to shine forth like a sun,
needs to bring life

I'll just stay here -
I have to remember to,
to see another's need and supply it,
dancing in showers
of resultant good.


©Wendy Mulhern
March 31, 2022

A thought

 

Maybe I'll change my ways.
Maybe it's not enough
to do the same thing day after day,
because of some agreement that I made
with no one, really,
a thing that may have had some worth,
but now its value is declining

Maybe it's time to forge a new way,
to force me to consider
what I'd need, and how to work it,
set my feet to ground, here,
just as with all the things
I'm learning how to do -
to have my outcomes be
the gift that's now required,
and what is not so
can fall away.

©Wendy Mulhern
March 30, 2022

With Approbation

 

I won't quibble over whether
the way you've parsed things out
matches mine

What matters to me is that somehow
you've made space for joy to bubble up
within your structures,
and you've made a place
to honor enduring value,
to make people feel at home
and also seen, and also loved,
and so encouraged
to stretch into their greatest being

When you do that I can see
that paths you make for others
are ones that you can also use,
and so you stride forth free
bringing glory into all your days.

©Wendy Mulhern
March 29, 2022

River

 

Words may slow down
but the flow of meaning
glides on immensely,
sparkles appearing like bright insights,
its volume, its movement, entrancing,
and challenging to comprehend

Where it all comes from
and where it goes
may require a rethink
of what things are made of,
may introduce a deepening
from mystery to wonder.

©Wendy Mulhern
March 28, 2022

Purify

 

I can purify myself

without making myself wrong
at any time  - not in my past,
not in my dreams

It's just like cleaning house - the shelves
are not wrong for the dust upon them -
quick swipe of cloth affirming their substance
and they are clear

I can purify myself
without making others wrong
or extra right - it's like cleaning my glasses
so I can better see
the nuance of people's hearts,
the colors of their souls.

©Wendy Mulhern
March 27, 2022

Into the gold

 

Every pen must dip into the gold,
whatever truth it wishes to elucidate  -
somewhere it must gather light
through which the elements are seen,
the power to propel the story

Every life is understood by light  -
they can't be seen in any other way.
Then let me judge them true
and let me tell them as they are,
and dip into the gold to share their story.

©Wendy Mulhern
March 25, 2022

into the same box at end of day

 

Wood grain on cedar boards
curving parallel,
path of cirrus clouds across the sky,
the shift in and out of dream
after a day's work outside,
the transition from maroon to pink
in peach and plum blossoms  -
not the same but similar
in the poignancy of their pale colors.

©Wendy Mulhern
March 24, 2022

Commonality

 

If you consider
what you are made of
and what the day is made of,
and laughter and hope -
what they are made of, too,
you'll start to see a deep congruity

If you notice earth,
and light, and time,
and life and song and sky -
when you see their commonality,
it certainly will move your thought

And as for wars and rumors of wars
and scarcity and trauma  -
let us take what we are made of
and use it as a light to guide our way -
let us hold it high,
each one for each other,
and let us all together
walk away.

©Wendy Mulhern
March 23, 2022

Remorse

 

Can't leave them even for a day,
for days will try, like seeds,
to stick together -
you think you have just one
but it was two or three,
enough,  at some point,
for the soil to dry out,
and what had been eager and healthy
last time I looked
has completely shriveled up -
small thread where once a stalk was

When I came back after that one day
(or was it two or three?)
and saw them languishing,
I squirted, a long time,
with my spray bottle,
hoping they still had the structure
to take it in, hoping the soil, too,
would hold the moisture

But fearing I'd been fooled
as with one fairy kingdom day
that lasts for years
and let them die.
I'm sorry. Tomorrow
I shall see if they revive.
Tomorrow, maybe,
I will try again.

©Wendy Mulhern
March 21, 2022

Retrospective

 

Again I see I haven't changed
(this observation, too, it seems,
I"ve had with equal puzzlement before)

Here I was thinking I'd come so far,
so many steps on the relentless road,
so many lessons,
so much left behind,
so many strengths newly accrued

But now I see that I was writing
about the same things years ago,
exclaiming over these same revelations
and views I was delighted to outgrow

I could be rueful,
or I could conclude
my wing tilt is designed for updrafts  -
it's in my nature
to feel like flying,
a habit I instinctively employ  -
the sense of gain is not illusion really -
it's just the uplift of my native joy.

©Wendy Mulhern
March 20, 2022

Hush

 

Stop talking long enough
to let the silence guide you down
all the way to the deep core
of who you are

Stop crying long enough
to let the gentle hand take yours,
and let the all powerful embrace
hold you completely still

The stillness goes ever inward  -
it plumbs the internal infinity,
it finds the radiation
that burns through every fear,
releasing all the brightness
of you.

©Wendy Mulhern
March 18, 2022

Fine

 

My life is full,
my life is whole,
and from this vantage point
I look back over years
and see that it was always so

My life belongs to goodness,
and only goodness can define
the elements comprising it,
its color, form, and line

If this is simple,
it's also deep,
and intricate in its design  -
this understanding is what I'll keep
and be forever fine.

©Wendy Mulhern
March 17, 2022

Didn't

 

I didn't have to give consent,
although the many voices claimed
I had no choice  - this was the sentence  -
since it had been passed
I had to go along,
had to live the arc
of that story

I didn't! I didn't have to,
and I didn't do it, did not consent
to play the role, to sink down
(sad or struggling,  it didn't matter)
into the pit

My life is not confined
to that dimension.
I can slip sideways
and step away free.

©Wendy Mulhern
March 16, 2022

Rise

 I looked for a way

to kindle a small fire,
I sought to nudge the glimmering coals
close enough together
to keep each other warm
so that between them
a flame would dance again

Here, too, I seek the dancing flame,
a thing shared,
enough proximity
that we're reminded
we share this hope
and when we see it in each other
it will rise.

©Wendy Mulhern
March 14, 2022

Springing forward into the rain

 

We settle into the rainy afternoon.
The couch entices napping.
The fire doesn't argue strenuously
against it. Nothing is strenuous.
Higher purposes await their turn -
they will lift me, if only I will
give attention to them,
take the day in hand,
deliver something.

©Wendy Mulhern
March 13, 2022

For Susanna

 

You bring your origins,
you bring your history,
you bring your hope,
and every day,
you step into the needed work,
finding steady sustenance
in the conversation of mind and hands,
intimate, delighting in each other,
forging steady progress
as they each await the other's strength

So you are fed
in the joy of work
and in the work of joy
and in the upward flow of light
released by your perception and expression
in whatever medium you work
of what is true.

©Wendy Mulhern
March 12, 2022

Perception

 

The eye of tenderness
can see so small
that it can unsnarl
even your tightest tangles,
and it can resolve your complex dreads
into their elements - can separate
your love from the fear of loss,
your strong desire for good
from the belief that it is doomed,
can find your core of courage
and light it up strong,
can touch your anchored peace
so that you feel it.


©Wendy Mulhern
March 10, 2022

Ecology

 Gifts overflowing,

more than transactional,
summoning substance,
your source without end

Open receiving,
more than perfunctory,
gratitude bounding
as light multiplies

This is the wisdom
teaching us how to be -
life demonstrating
the word of the house.

©Wendy Mulhern
March 8, 2022

Update

 

Still walking through the wilderness
exclaiming over still another tree,
marveling at still another vista,
sizing up another rugged climb

Thinking once again
of what there is to tell you,
noticing how nothing
and everything
is new -
could be the same report
I give you every time,
my open eyed surprise at what is true

But I can tell you this -
today, I felt a great calm,
like a still lake,
like deep reflection,
today  I felt that everything
is in its perfect place,
and that this truth must surface
in our time.

©Wendy Mulhern
March 6, 2022

What I see

 What I insist on seeing

is the way you are embraced,
the comfort, deeper than the earth,
in which  you rest

I let the fire go out,
but I don't care.
The sun has been waking things up
and showing them why. In the way
I can't show you
but something can.

©Wendy Mulhern
March 5, 2022

Love

 

Come into the wide open space,
let it begin to show you
how you may be defined

Light touches grass with wonder -
grass, illumined, exults to bask
in its own essence

At our best while blessing,
made most ourselves
in how we light up someone else,
or let their light be our grace,
brightening us, and giving them
a place to rest.

©Wendy Mulhern
March 3, 2022

Night Music

 

The rain rolls its music
down the gutters, into the tank
where round echoes replay
the rhythms of trickling,
the pause and rush
that give a cadence like words -
you could easily think
someone was speaking
just beyond the range of intelligible.
Frogs add counterpoint.
For all this,
I am glad.

©Wendy Mulhern
March 2, 2022

Stand up

 

I am not confused

although the tangled weavings
of dark money
have been cast,
intending to obscure the truth

I am not confused
because the slick conceit of evil
has always been the same,
self-absolving misdirection,
naming scapegoats, casting blame

This isn't what it looks like,
and while we could, perhaps,
go on for another fifty years
or generations, suspended
in the same lies, we also

can always know within
what truth sounds like,
what stands it calls us to,
and how it will support us
as we support it,
and how it moves mountains
and will not be moved.

©Wendy Mulhern
March 1, 2022