Turning point

 

In quiet gratitude
like evening sun after a weekend's rain,
I see the vista of our life
rolling out in possibility

Maybe we really can have
fruitful trees and grains,
maybe we can realize our vision,
maybe light can pour as grandly
across our inner landscapes,
and we can walk together there
husbanding peace.

©Wendy Mulhern
May 30, 2022

The words we need

 

So far I am from understanding
the algorithm that comprises
who we think we are
or how we think we heal,
and what I could possibly do
to reach into those complicated nodes
and set a thing to right

But this I know:
We're powered by the same desire,
and there are words
each of us needs to hear
coming from deep within,
ensuring us that all is well,
including us, including us.

©Wendy Mulhern
May 29, 2022

Between the storms

 

After the weather,
between whatever storms
may seem to take up all your thought,
after fear's spiral has driven you down,
there's still a place in you
that finds a way to float up,
and the small good points
which you have counted on
to save your sense of worth
assert their buoyancy.

They are bigger than you thought,
able to deliver you,
able, finally, to shake themselves
from any other story
and fill up all the spaces in your being.

©Wendy Mulhern
May 28, 2022

Any kind of work

 

The work brings out precision
mostly in how it demands
the gathering of everything that's necessary,
the right tools and their right use
and the care they need,
a sense of the materials,
their strengths and limitations,
and how to make them do what you require

And you have to attend to the whole process  -
you have to have the strength
to draw your care around it
and hold it all together.
Once you have done all that, it's easy.

©Wendy Mulhern
May 27, 2022

Overcoming

 

I will not be afraid,
for the work to be done
is bigger than the voices that would nix it

If I find myself afraid,
I won't assume that fear has won -
what it lacks in intelligence
it tries to make up with sheer persistence, it's unoriginal, but tries to hide that
with ubiquity.
yet neither of those ruses makes it true

I won't be afraid,
for truth has both intelligence and presence,
and is well able to win the day.

©Wendy Mulhern
May 26, 2022

Morning preparation

 

Let my love be purified . . .
Nothing is lost, nothing is rejected . . .
It's not that I outgrow a former self  -
all my awareness, now as ever,
centers on the light

Truth is my citadel - within it,
there's no parade of lies,
no reign of influencers, no
hot button misdirection

I can feel its solid power
established in my mind,
spreading its sweet peace
throughout my sphere,
and in its vision,
I see things turning -
small openings of light
where things come clear.

©Wendy Mulhern
May 25, 2022

Care

 

Attending to the tasks of care
makes space for easy kindness,
time to listen, time to hear,
time, once again, to find us.

©Wendy Mulhern
May 24, 2022

Calm

 

Calm, calm,
calm.

Storms can't go on forever  -
the mind finds its equilibrium

What rants and chatters
in the end must cease -
the natural state of mind
is an abiding peace

This you can feel,
this you can know for sure -
this peace is real,
its truth your certain cure.

©Wendy Mulhern
May 23, 2022

Connect the dots

 

The cohesive scatter of the stars,
the elegant tangle of grasses and forbs
in the eager tumble of spring,
the spray of colors across the fields,
red and purple seed heads,
silver sunlit shafts glinting
in the waves of wind

If you can see this,
and can connect the dots of wonder,
it can shake you out of doubt
to reconsider -
aren't you, too, held
in the same expansive order
that flings light across the day
and stars across the sky?

©Wendy Mulhern
May 22, 2022

To be a child of Soul

 

To rise up from the cozy rest
where you have been luxuriously curled,
to move with clear, insightful action
snuggled in the very world,
your touch inspired,
your comfort grounded,
sharing strength with those around you,
setting right each place of need,
nourishing the sprouting seed

Oh may you know,
in this and every moment,
how it feels, what worlds are moved,
what things are brought to glorious fruition  -
oh may you claim this truth
and may it shape your vision  -
you are, and ever were
a child of Soul.

©Wendy Mulhern
May 21, 2022

Aspects of love

 

Attraction to vastness,
a wide open yearning,
adventure to span
a lifetime or more

Attention to tinyness -
however close you look,
something of wonder
is opening up

Something you know
in your toes, in your soul,
something so integral, intimate,
all that you are is exactly enough to give,
all that you give
brings you home.

©Wendy Mulhern
May 20, 2022

The One whose I am

 

It wasn't enough to know
my chains were self imposed,
as I fumbled through the keys and locks,
ever more heavy

The sweet release revealed
I have no power to impose chains.
The Principle to which my being moves,
of which I am the proof,
does not allow such folly

What freedom to admit
I am not my own!
What a relief to know
the One whose I am
is kind.

©Wendy Mulhern
May 19, 2022

Blackbird

 

Still have nothing to say
despite the lushness
of mist-cloaked May,
and the blackbirds yesterday,
vociferous in evening sun

I've been treating my mind like a library
of books already read,
feeling no urge
to look at them again

Perhaps more fruitfully
my mind can act as blackbird,
evening sun calm
along my wings.

©Wendy Mulhern
May 18, 2022

Stuffed

 

Stuff I'm not talking about
piles up, squashing my nimbleness
of speech, of thought

Things I say over top of it
lack the connection to underlying structure,
can't indicate the muscle, bone, and sinew

They slope off like fluff -
they don't hold my interest,
I can't write them down

And the stuff I'm not talking about
hulks in its darkness  -
seems like I'll need more than words
to pull it out.

©Wendy Mulhern
May 15, 2022

Healing

 

You talk about healing.
I want you to know
that I will not accept as healing
that which insists that I stuff my rage,
be polite about my pain,
and sets me on a postage stamp of
"seeing the good,"
a narrow strip of positive

To be whole, I need a truth so large
it swallows my complaint,
wraps up everything I am
in its embrace,
silences my howling
in the full-home chord
of welcome,
has space enough for all of me to soar.

©Wendy Mulhern
May 13, 2022

A Common Tater

 

For however short a time,
one strain of internal chatter
has been hushed,
and in the stillness,
the music speaks to me
with more nuance than ever
as I let myself receive
the full gift of its offering
with no commentary as to how I,
if circumstances had allowed,
might have measured up.

©Wendy Mulhern
May 12, 2022

Sun soaked

 

Work in the sun has dissipated
my ableness to put two words together,
but light drenched images remain,
and it was fine to watch the colors change  -
waves of richness as the sun went down
so late I. The evening  - too late for me
for anything but watching
and drifting off, and tottering to bed.

©Wendy Mulhern
May 10, 2022

Childlike

 

Teach me to be
the child I never was -
open-minded, free,
eager to receive
whatever gift is offered
in another's face

Teach me to be the child I am,
whom I have been since before the world began,
eager to give what is given to me
of the light that delights
and enlightens us all.

©Wendy Mulhern
May 9, 2022

Maybe it's the rain

 

Sometimes I want to cry
for no reason,
sometimes music that sounds like coming home
will bring the tears -
I don't know why, a kind of longing, maybe

Sometimes I want to slide back
into a beloved book,  one I've read
more than once. Just let
all the important problems
I seek so earnestly to solve
wait until morning,
until a festival of dreams
has washed my mind clean
and I'm ready to start again.

©Wendy Mulhern
May 8, 2022

Unraveling

 

Things unravel
that were never fiber,
that turn out not to have
even the substance of thread
or the chain of a story

They dissolve like dreams in the morning,
and my footing, too, must realign itself
to day's dimensions, to gravity's
orientation

Every unraveling is a reveal -
that which is there after it's gone
will teach us substance.
Our being there after it's gone
shows us our place.

©Wendy Mulhern
May 6, 2022

Lakes of kindness

 

I can remember lakes of kindness

and jumping into them,
and the light that powers smiles
soaking in, and filling up, flooding me
with an abiding wellbeing

Some I could return to often,
some were more like puddles
but were enough to light me up

There were dry patches, too.
I could go for long times in between ablutions,
sustaining as they were,
and because I still could access them in memory

But the richest thing is when
I can create a lake for others -
when I do that, I never lack.

©Wendy Mulhern
May 5, 2022

Lullaby for early May

 

Hold me in the hollow
of the waxing crescent moon,
in the halo of the memory of day,
let me cruise as softly
toward the dark horizon's hills,
soothed in my sweet hammock's gentle sway

Stars have been infrequent
in this recent time of year  -
rain has owned the music of the night,
but frogs will sing for rain or stars,
and I -
I'll take in either with delight.

©Wendy Mulhern
May 3, 2022

Smoke

 

We are not made of smoke,
and so the sweeping winds,
fast shifting and insistent,
don't disperse us

And those who wield the fans that push opinions
can't corral us into predesigned reactions,
however much they blow on us,
however much it seems as if they can

We're made of truth.
So whatever winds blow through,
they can't disturb us -
can't rearrange our shape,
can't realign us

And this is true of everyone,
and so we stand,
when all the smoke has cleared,
exactly where we are.

©Wendy Mulhern
May 2, 2022

Calming

 

My mind can yaw like a boat -
a slight suggestion
can set up magnifying waves -
my efforts to correct them
just makes it worse  -
sets things rocking even more

My thought can drop like a rock
below the surface
where the waves don't reach,
I can take refuge
beneath the words and the reactions
in the silent depths
where everything is still

There is an underlying law,
there is a calming,
though on my own I couldn't steady
what has been riled up -
I can perceive it
as hope, as homing,
that stills the sea and sets all things to right.

©Wendy Mulhern
May 1, 2022