Deliverance Prayer

Deliverance Prayer (background music "The Blessing" by Isaac Shepard)

Bring my soul up out of Egypt

Walk me step by patient step

out of the patterns that enslave me

Release me from the lockstep

that doesn’t look

that is afraid to seek the kinship of a smile

Teach me to spin out on the leaf edge

of the wind

and twirl into the knowing

of the infinite variety —

Intricacies which Life has ever blessed

Let me no longer follow

the commands that run them over

that allow us three or four straight norms at best

Unclamp my feet from marching

Free my toes

to find the subtle footholds

midst the wildness of the river

Free the rivers, too

and let us all please tumble brightly

down the perfect, wild, unchanneled 

course that we were born for

Let us know each other 

deeply, truly, freely

Bring my soul up out of Egypt

That I may worship

My Good.

©Wendy Mulhern

January 3, 2012

photo by Edward Mulhern

Waltz Time

I was dancing with my darling

The night they were playing

That beautiful Tennessee Waltz

And you know how it goes

Well, we stepped on some toes

But we’re certain it wasn’t our faults.

For we swung round and round

Round and round, round and round

Till the ceiling spun into the walls

And though we heard people swear

As we crashed here and there

We hardly even noticed their falls.

I was dancing with my darling

The night they were playing

That beautiful Tennessee Waltz

Till they cleared off the floor

And showed us the door

And brought all our fun to a halt(z).

©Wendy Mulhern

Spring, 2009

Opinions

Having an opinion about everything

May be a sign of loneliness

Like playing cards with yourself

Everything finished, nothing waiting

For input from another hand.

Having an opinion about everything

Makes it harder

To find a match

Since meeting point for point

At every tooth of thought

Would be required to turn the key

To lift the latch.

Alas for you, then, who collect

Large bellies of opinion

That block your movement

And mistake correctness for dominion

Here is your hope:

Opinions can be left behind

You can abandon them for love

And thereby liberate your mind.

©Wendy Mulhern

February 1, 2012

Soporific Rain

Soporific rain

Robs the morning

Of its earliest pursuits

Yet the sweetness

of the night remains

Wraps itself around my dreaming music

Languidly we move

There is no way

The clock can catch us

in its marching regimen

We’ll slide in languid sloth into the day

Let later light, in its own time

attract us

The day has duties that we dare not shirk

But we can meet them softly, without stress

Yes, we’ll take on all our needed work

But through a film of rain-kissed happiness.

©Wendy Mulhern

February 1, 2012

Capture, Rapture

Something in your eyes

Reached straight into me

Hurtling its course

Through my eyes, through my throat

To my heart, to my gut

To my core

Roiling a great wake

Wherever it went

And I was caught

On your hook

Because you showed me

The part that calls out desperately

To be seen, and to be hugged

And I wanted to follow that line

All the way inside you

Point for point of contact

Till I knew

All your secret landscapes.

So I have been called

Not once, not twice,

But every time

So now I think

This isn’t made of you and me

But of the light that always seeks its own

It never asks for our consent

But darts out instantly

Like electricity

And sets the current running strong

To its own ends, to serve its song

Regardless of the constructs

We’ve presented as ourselves

The light is what seduces us:

It’s our desire to be lit up

That keeps us ever coming back for more.

©Wendy Mulhern

January 30, 2012

Imposter

It’s not your voice, I told him

that censures you, that censures me,

that seeks to keep us hemmed in

on a narrow path between our fears

with needs that go unclaimed, unmet

through weary, empty years

separated from each other

so we never feel

the grand connection that could comfort us

and flawlessly reveal

the glorious fireworks of our being

all the color, all the light

continuous igniting 

of the flame that pulses bright

to mark the vastness of the universe

in which we freely roam

which is defined by us

and is our rightful home

Your voice, I told him,

won’t consign our souls to hell

It knows what’s true about you

and it knows it well.

©Wendy Mulhern

January 29, 2012

Love, reconsidered

With everything in order

—all confusion put to bed—

it’s time to reconsider Love.

Love that shines from everywhere

to everywhere.  All points illumined

and illuminating.  Love that causes

everything, and stops at nothing.

Love that puts all stories of

a point-sourced love to rest;

Love that always blesses

and brings forth the best.

Love that lets no failing fester

but reveals

all that must be brought to light

and so be healed.

©Wendy Mulhern

January 28, 2012