It's not possible, I remind myself.
It's not possible that these fine beings,
these expressions of elemental intelligence,
could crash in interaction with each other
My communication, and yours,
cannot implode, you cannot be annoyed
by the links I draw, my innocent
observations. And it's not possible
for me to feel cut, dismissed, unheard.
These are not things I need to defend.
I don't need to take you to task
I can be still and listen.
I can be still and let your innocence
rise in my thought like the climbing moon,
settle in my heart like dew.
©Wendy Mulhern
June 30, 2023
Within my thought
and possibly to someone else,
I'm trying to convey
the nature and importance
of my innocence
The nature - in my thought,
it rockets up the sides of trees
and down along the roots,
it darts and pulses with the flow of energy,
and it can do no harm, for it's defined
within the very impulse
that brings it forth
And as for its importance -
it frees me from the minefield of regrets,
it lets me know that I am whole,
and always have been,
it shows me, in this moment,
how to be.
©Wendy Mulhern
June 27, 2023
At day's end,
behind my closed eyes,
strands come like roots, mycelium,
from every quadrant of my vision
Steadily they fill the center in,
images and memories
webbing with each other ...
These summer days are long and full,
and quickly I lose the threads,
everything devolving into sleep.
©Wendy Mulhern
June 26, 2023
You, too, may be delivered
into the calm, into the certainty
of abiding peace. This place where
no storms, threatened or in full rage,
can even come close to you.
This because you have found relationship
that stretches you full out
in the experience of life,
which, when awakened,
makes every storm seem small
Anything, any living thing,
can bring you there.
You will have sure access to it
when you bring others.
©Wendy Mulhern
June 25, 2023
When I breathe deep, I smell bees,
and suddenly the scent of everything
is opened to me - how the June air at evening
is rich with blossoms and resin, ripe grass
and some distant spice,
and inside the ag building,
sawdust and pencil lead,
various minerals
We work until after dark,
though darkness doesn't come till 10,
we savor the sky, and the satisfaction
of work done.
©Wendy Mulhern
June 24, 2023
Summer stretches out before us,
and where, in former years,
I felt like I could ride it,
fly in freedom and delight
along the long and carefree days,
now I feel I need to carry it -
bring these plants and projects to fruition,
keep these trees alive
A flock of blackbirds cackles through,
landing in groups of five in tops of small trees,
in groups of twenty on the roof.
Two mama turkeys have a fair sized brood,
growing larger daily with no help from me.
We saw a doe with two small fawns last week.
The waxing crescent moon, and Venus,
are seen a little higher in the sky each night.
We all will take our place in the grand order.
My work has a place here, too,
and as I carry, so will I be carried.
©Wendy Mulhern
June 23, 2023
Wisdom comes from anywhere we ask for it -
every relationship
where we line ourselves up,
line for line, along the lines of any being
for whom we have the most profound respect
Whether it's a plant, or is an animal,
an elder or and infant,
an angel or a colony of bees
We find it in the willingness to take the journey,
however it expands us,
the willingness to be untethered
from any given point,
to let the change unfold
wherever the connection moves us
Wisdom comes in the surprise
of never having thought that way before,
but knowing, certainly, that it is true.
©Wendy Mulhern
June 21, 2023
Take me back,
when I wander down
the old, rutted paths,
finding words in my mouth
that I've discarded so many times,
finding myself tripping
in the same old ways
Take me back
to where my steps surprise me
and my words are new
and my presence
is a revelation
for me and others at the same time
as we all see ourselves
magnified in our epiphanies
about each other
and ourselves, too.
Take me back
to where my sight is true.
©Wendy Mulhern
June 20, 2023
And if the day let us be lazy
and mostly stay inside and read,
let cold and rain delineate our idleness,
this, too, is cause for gratitude
And when we feel the trees rejoice
at something we could not have given,
to see them make the grateful choice
to sink down roots, to grow, to live
Then maybe gratitude itself has been the gift,
and all these circumstances
combined, conspire to bring it forth within -
this sun-graced ending to the day,
the soaring swoop of unexpected lift.
©Wendy Mulhern
June 19, 2023
In moments of seclusion, I considered
a life unbound by any secrets,
so not depending
on strings of tension and release for its excitement,
but rather, wedded to the infinite,
cleaving to the swift extending Spirit,
feeling the rush and sparkle of its fine awareness,
unimagined opening of eyes
in moving
from realms of atmosphere
into the realm of sky.
©Wendy Mulhern
June 18, 2023
All of this is given -
the subtle colors of the grass in mist,
the times of work, and this,
a drift through almost sleep,
where I still hear the music,
but my sense of where I am slips
in place, in time, in physics -
my planes of presence bend, blend through each other
When I come back, the light is different,
and I feel rested, but still languid,
and richer for these fusings of perception,
they layers they have added to my day.
©Wendy Mulhern
June 17, 2023
Days start a little later here
but stretch out even longer -
plenty of time to grow, and keep growing,
from small seedlings into big plants,
swaying strongly in the strong wind,
taking what is given by the strong sun
I feel bee-like in my steady buzz
from task to task, taking strength
from every specimen of sturdy growth,
surprised to feel a slowdown in the evening -
I had felt I could go on forever
In the process, I am learning home,
sharing of place, rhythm of days,
essence of Spirit that holds us
in our harmonious ways.
©Wendy Mulhern
June 15, 2023
Show me how the laws of physics
are just a subset of the law of Love,
and, as such, cannot run counter
to infinitude of care
Show me how the fact that we are treasured
overcomes the story of our being left
alone and fragile in a world of danger,
consigned to struggle or to sink bereft
Show me that this isn't an illusion,
a myth for privileged and strong young men -
show me how it works with full inclusion,
so we can claim our heaven home again.
©Wendy Mulhern
June 13, 2023
And suddenly today
I feel the way I felt
when we were young -
grown up and setting out to find
whatever was the journey that was called our lives,
and coming back together for a holiday,
the major strife of growing up behind us,
creating home with laughter, as families do
Today my sense of failing falls away,
and I see we have been living well -
each of us has our own sufficient pile
of life lived
And I see there is a grace
that doesn't measure things like that -
grace that unfolds second by second
through all the seconds
in which we live.
©Wendy Mulhern
June 12, 2023
After many intervening years, I pretend
that stings of isolation from my early days
didn't mark me,
didn't set my mind on long and searching struggles,
didn't define, in any way, my sense of self
Not to say there is no sense
in which that pretense counts as true,
for did I not work hard
to overcome the stigma?
Did I not form bonds that proved me
worthy of connection?
And did I not carry these - what I had gained -
back as proof? And wasn't I gratified
to find myself graciously received?
Yes, and ...
Yes, but ...
Some part of me cries out for truth.
Some part of me wants to be reckoned with
I may have overcome the sense of not deserving,
along with social gaps that put me
in the line of shunning,
but this is not a smooth sea.
I have worked hard for this, my innocence.
I have worked hard for yours, as well.
©Wendy Mulhern
June 11, 2023
It's very strange, she said,
All these people going into the past tense.
Yes, I said, and when I look around
to see the people I knew,
it's their children who are at the ages I remember
So many people we knew once,
but don't recognize -
it doesn't feel like the march of time
so much as having suddenly
passed through a curtain,
being on the other side
continually surprised
to find myself here
Generations slide together.
Grandchildren occupy the place
where children were.
Children move into the full and swift passage
where time doesn't seem to move -
careers are built, own children raised,
unexpected lurches
send lives on different courses
And we come together here.The formerly absolute gates
of inclusion and exclusion
are gone,
their specter just a shadow
I can step over ...
We all are drenched
in the moment's richness,
the layered colors of foreshortened time.
©Wendy Mulhern
June 10, 2023
It takes a gentle hand
to tease out the tangled strands
of how we think about each other,
which of each other's words we've heard,
which we've discounted,
what we would see each other meant,
if we would listen
It takes a gentle heart
to smooth the ruffled sentiments,
to ascertain we're smoothing
in the right direction,
to hear from way down deep
and to respond
in ways that put each other's hearts at ease
For we are tender,
and we are intricate,
and can't be superficially assessed,
yet we are strong of fiber
and can take some rearranging
when it's done with gentle hearts and hands.
©Wendy Mulhern
June 9, 2023
Streaks of light
and the fact of innocence
shine clear when all the lies are gone
And people find it's not too late
for trading in their hard bought worldly views,
the savvy of the turning cogs of wickedness,
and rolling with them to come out on top
Far better the transparency
of simple justice, seeing the worth
of every living being,
the recognition
of how we're blessed by each of us,
the loss to all of throwing anyone away
It isn't a hard sell, for everyone
has longed for this. Each one who takes a stand
helps bring it forth -
the innocence defining each of us,
truth that's been waiting for us all along.
©Wendy Mulhern
June 8, 2023
Hope's waters rising,
and there is no need
that anyone stay stranded on the banks
Hope's waters rising,
and their flow,
imperative, yet tranquil,
gathers all who were afraid to move
Sweeping them down,
compelling yet buoyant,
hope's waters redefine the channel
Those who were dry,
and those who decried a wrong direction
are folded in -
no need to fight in this battle -
hope's waters bear us all home.
©Wendy Mulhern
June 6, 2023
It's not surprising
to eagerly await the singularity,
because the way we have been going
has to change. It hasn't managed
to solve anything, or even give
a plausible reason
for wanting to be
Yet that desire, which, even still,
cannot be quenched
(by boredom, or oppression,
or senseless self destruction)
- that desire demands a matrix
in which it thrives
It will provide it,
made of its own essence, and consistent
with the web that ties
all these things together,
the Mind that thinks them,
the Love that calls them forth.
©Wendy Mulhern
June 5, 2023
And so being one who heals
may not be as far away as I thought -
it could be as close as
standing aside enough to
not be in the way of
the rushing acclamation,
the repeated affirmation of being,
the present wholeness that would never
let itself be hidden
Could be that
being one who heals is simply
being one who sees
the manifestly obvious,
the presence of the Spirit
that ever breathes us all.
©Wendy Mulhern
June 4, 2023
The pretensions don't matter.
All of us may show them -
the defensive or proud propping up
of what we think we should be,
the hapless implications of these constructs
on what we think of others
what we think of ourselves
We don't need to deal in these things,
don't need to buy and sell, compare,
determine, tally -
these things do not pertain to us at all -
one glimpse of truth,
and it doesn't matter
what any of us have been propping up -
we fall like kindling flames
upon the truth of our pure selves
We light up the place,
we warm to what we've always longed to share -
nothing we thought we were
has anything to do with it -
we burn, and are reborn.
©Wendy Mulhern
June 3, 2023
And in the realm of thought,
fables pool beneath the peaks
like shadows, and the way we see ourselves,
and the way we see others,
seems to be defined by them -
they rest, weighty, on the north sides,
they cover more than half of us
And I imagine
pulling the plug of my perception,
letting the darkness
drain out like water,
I imagine us all redefined -
what seemed intractable
suddenly shown to never have been here at all,
our innocence newly illumined,
our brightness refreshing us all.
©Wendy Mulhern
June 2, 2023
