Word Vessels

At some moment of your permission

I step inside your words,

inhabit the image 

that you constructed,

a vessel in which I feel

the rush of life

that you put into it

In that moment 

it becomes mine, too —

a gift you’ve given me:

Heart body.

The trunks of trees that spoke

in your father’s voice

There is so much offered here —

so much more than conversation —

a boost of brightness

that arcs beyond the words,

warming and strengthening our bond.

©Wendy Mulhern

January 30, 2020

Words and Light

If I could tell you

my deepest, newest thoughts,

they would have the same words

that I’ve been saying for years,

the same words others are saying,

no doubt, like me, noticing that

the essence they are trying to convey

does not come through

Words! — they are fickle vessels,

more like light projections

that you can walk in front of

and fill them with your shadow

while the image is reflected

off of you

But light — light can inhabit words,

if briefly, and it can keep shining

in listening’s reflective silence.

©Wendy Mulhern

November 23, 2019

Us in the morning

You: What are you thinking about?

Me: Same thing I always —

You: Oh, God …

Me: That’s exactly right

You: And me, I’m thinking about 

what I always think about, too …

(a pause, we snuggle in)

…the house — how to build it,

what to do next

The wonder of it is

that we can come together,

or almost — good enough

to keep the project going

day after week after year.

©Wendy Mulhern

October 17, 2019

Twinkle

A lot can ride

on the twinkle of eyes —

the smoothness of days,

the feeling of having done well,

the ease of incitement to laughter

These things testify

to the presence of

that which engenders the twinkle —

the substance it’s made of,

how it appears

out of what you might think of as nowhere,

thus proving as everywhere

what you may never see

but still most certainly need.

©Wendy Mulhern

July 13, 2019

Strategies

I consider that each of us

knows what to do,

needs but the silence

of not being told,

needs but the trust

that when given the agency

we will acquit ourselves well

I think of the impulse

of tit for tat,

how it seems so hard

to remember

that only in choosing

to not bat back

have we any real chance 

for release

And so I invite us to pause,

just let go of the need to do anything,

and welcome the touch of the centering stillness

that brings us together again.

©Wendy Mulhern

May 11, 2019

Trusts

With all the offerings of easy trust

we may accept some

that are not trustworthy,

just for the ease of letting go

of something that seems so hard

There is always a deeper trust

we can sink our roots towards —

it will offer strength

rather than ease,

and though the ease may seem

so tantalizing, 

the strength, most certainly,

will satisfy us more.

©Wendy Mulhern

April 19, 2019

Intersections

We may walk together

along these paths,

along these stories,

we may share vistas

but this is not an open beach —

I am aware of holes

big enough to get lost in

Mostly

I’m not mentioning them,

I’m choosing ways

to go over or around them,

things I think you can believe,

things that won’t demand you

to walk the miles with me

through and out of darkness,

things that won’t demand you

to veer off wildly

from what you perceive.

Perhaps you also do the same for me

We only know each other

at the intersection of our known worlds,

and that’s the sector we can walk together.

©Wendy Mulhern

March 29, 2019

Sound Bath

We were all very happy to share

the stories of our success,

the odds we faced

and how we overcame,

and what instruction could be gained

from our example

But were we willing also

to give the gift of being

one who receives another’s words

and goes up higher? 

How we all long for that kind of exchange!

—Where our words are taken in, and resonate

to match and amplify our starting tone,

so we together bathe in sound,

soaking in the rich harmonics

that make us feel ignited and at home.

©Wendy Mulhern

December 5, 2018

Pool

I will not be tired or sad or scared,

I will notice

what your face is doing.

I won’t try to deconstruct your mood

but I will be here

watching for your light

If I can be a pool

to give reflection

and maybe some refreshment,

I will be there —

if you venture near

then maybe you will find me

And if not,

wind may still ruffle

the light across my waters,

trees may still rustle

above the quiet shore,

your life still follow

the course that has been charted

and I’ll still hold you

gently in my heart.

©Wendy Mulhern

November 19, 2018

Like Water

There might be other rhythms here,

rain in the gutter, metallic tick and trickle,

rain on the window, the hum

of spaces in between —

rhythms to hear when the stereo’s off,

music against the quiet

You get your message across

by listening, more than by speaking,

by finding, like these raindrops,

the place where understanding trickles in,

and where it glances off,

and needs to be collected, redirected

You listen, and your message finds its way

like water, into the waiting ground.

©Wendy Mulhern

October 27, 2018

The Rhythm of Listening

Afterwards, I would release myself

from the rhythm of listening,

the quick catching on the cadence

of thought, of feeling,

riding down the tale

through its pauses and its dramas

circling in to its conclusion

The energy it takes

is not trivial — the close attention

as in dance, the role of follow

Afterwards, I would notice

how still and even my breath could be,

sinking into the quiet,

submerging into a noticing

that has no words.

©Wendy Mulhern

June 30, 2018

Sea Change

(for Jennifer, from the biking philosophers’ notebook)

If clouds can soften all at once,

so can hearts, so can long-entrenched

opinions, and all our expectations

There is a language

beneath the languages,

there is a way we know

that we don’t know of,

there may be sudden sparks

that arc across the seeming distance,

showing us, at last, that we are one.

©Wendy Mulhern

June 15, 2018

That of Which We Speak

We speak with utmost confidence

of something we can all feel,

and though it could be argued

that we can’t see it — here it is

For we can all see the light of love,

how it makes us able

to wrap each other snuggly

in the warmth of eyes,

communicate our approbation

in one look, strengthen each other

like that, even before we say anything

That’s where our words come from, then —

not the voice of theory or belief,

a voicing, rather, of what is.

©Wendy Mulhern

March 19, 2018

Choose to Understand

Funny how we used to think

we had to fight for our perspectives,

had to change the minds of those

who didn’t see as we did

Funny how we didn’t know

each view was like a puzzle piece,

each one required to amplify the whole,

each useless if they all were just the same

Now we feel how rich we are

in opened out dimensions

for every view that’s different from our own

that we, with courage, choose to understand.

©Wendy Mulhern

October 13, 2017

Intimately

The moon throws shadows

on the house walls

as we sit in chairs in the front yard,

and talk of people in our past

and wonder

about old and present currents 

of connection

There were other things during our walk —

teenage angst and what occasioned it,

how a cycle of oppression can be broken

and how the past itself can be reworked

More than the thoughts expressed,

the paths through which they traveled,

the rooms they’ve opened up

in each other's minds

have left me feeling warm towards you

within the promise

of dwelling there in coziness together.

©Wendy Mulhern

October 2, 2017

The Space Between

The breath between the notes of a flute –

a time to consider

the nature of the spaces

where nothing has been said

And if I need a way to know

the purity of tone,

perhaps it lies in this —

not in the mellifluity of words

but in the calmness

and the listening

of the space between.

©Wendy Mulhern

September 17, 2017

Trust Moment

It is a soft space

this place where we have

folded and fallen,

where shadows soften

all around us

and our edges

blur in darkness

There are things here

I can’t talk about to anyone

though I keep trying to imagine who

There is a place where

we have breathed together

and this will have to do,

I will need to be sustained

through the long silence

by some kind of a trust moment —

at its necessary time

everything will come clear.

©Wendy Mulhern

September 3, 2017

The Sharing Space

Let me remember once again

how to come into the sharing space,

to level the balance,

to leave outside

all impulse to steer

or to get you to change

I come into the sharing space

not with speech but with listening,

I enter the sacred

as seeker, as witness,

prepared to be overwhelmed,

lifted, transported,

prepared to be shined through,

prepared to be changed.

©Wendy Mulhern

April 2, 2017

Tone Deaf

Some time afterwards,

the niggling suspicion knocks,

flounces its way in, 

sets its baggage down,

and I start to conclude

I have been tone deaf

Certainly not for the first time,

though I had hoped these incidents

had mostly tapered off,

as has my former swift self castigation

I am a little sorry, yes,

but also curious —

what internal constructs

led to the little gaffe, which rolled out

with such ease and comfort?

Where could my mind be, next time,

to reduce the risk of doing this again?

Ah, let me be included

in the grand forgiveness

that Life gives each of us

as we come home,

where we serenely know

we never fail each other

when in the consciousness of being one.

©Wendy Mulhern

March 14, 2017

Objection

Pardon me if I’m not fired up

by words of contempt,

however justified its dealers

may feel it is

Makes me want to walk barefoot

in water-sheened sand

and feel my footsteps melt,

and let the words that come to me

in my perplexed objection

be smoothed out as well

There’s no room for love in contempt

and there’s no room for contempt in love

and in the revolution

we’ll need traction,

not the gear grinding slippage

of mutual accusation

But there’s no traction either

for these words of mine —

makes me want to give them up,

and myself as well,

to the leadings of a higher Mind.

©Wendy Mulhern

February 19, 2017