At a roadside stand

You can weave rainbows

into your work

its beauty

and yours

will shine as reflections

of each other

You can weave quetzals

and flowers

in the tradition of your grandmother

but with your own flair

hidden there

in that dark and crowded stall

hung so thickly

with tapestries

in impossibly bright colors

we entered to look

and you appeared shyly

third person we’d seen

emerge from the shadow

You said, “You like? This my work.”

You and your weaving

lit up that place

so now we have

one of your rainbows

and, reflected, the memory

of your charming smile.

©Wendy Mulhern

April 3, 2012

Trip’s end

Lazy as lizards

in wilting heat

we wait

The fans twirl

Time has shifted gears

as we descend:

Loud, hot, slow rumble

of our trip’s approaching end

Roads are shorter, returning —

Signs and sights less strange

And as we travel back, we see

how much we’ve changed

how much we’ve grown

how much we’ve done

So much experience

we’ve crammed

in this small span of time

Tomorrow we’ll arrive at home

We’ll sleep, and then unpack our clothes

Allow the normal tendrils once again

to wrap us in the patterns of our days

Much later, over weeks and months

We still will be unpacking

perspectives, images, connections, loves

new things to share, new family to be tracking

We still will be considering

how much there is to learn

And now will be imagining

our next return.

©Wendy Mulhern

April 1, 2012

Mystica Lodge — Renewal of Soles

It was a place

for the renewing of my soles

where all the textures offered

to bare feet

nourished them

sent them remembering

their primal, holy walk

over the land,

the way they are receptors

of earth’s essential messages

They reveled in the contact

They tingled

with the joy of connection

They sent

reports of soundness

bounding up into my soul

Soul and soles rejoiced together

feeling whole.

©Wendy Mulhern

March 31, 2012

One Tribe

We are all one tribe

Anything that says otherwise

is the old story

that we have been told

that we have believed

that we have enacted

But never

has it been true

And the dawning

of that realization

moment by moment

like sheaths slowly dropping

from flowers emerging

Will bring all the brightness forth

Colors and fragrance

and fresh interaction

Bountiful blooming

of deep satisfaction

What we have longed for

not knowing it’s possible

One tribe uniting —

Reunion of song.

©Wendy Mulhern

March 30, 2012

Wishing

The power of a simple wish

If left in peace to germinate

Will gather secret energies

Push through the surface

And create

As perfect as a tender leaf emerging

The image that impelled the wish’s urging

You wished for home —

That place we all desire —

Not that we travel all those miles and hours

But that right here, with no need to acquire

You feel home’s deep rejuvenating power

And so it was, a few turns down the road

A sign we followed, mostly just to see

Where every token that, for you, said home

Was waiting there in breathless harmony

And not that place alone, but others since:

Each time we let the wish unfold in peace,

It shows its graceful power to evince

surprising bounty

in the meeting of our needs

Such gifts await us!

Such satisfaction we may know

By cherishing the wish

Then letting go.

©Wendy Mulhern

March 30, 2012

(background music:  Isaac Shepard, "Let Me Sleep")

Wedding Poem II

This was my first attempt at a wedding poem for Casey and David.  She felt it was a bit too complicated for people to get in one oral reading, which was why I wrote the one that I posted on March 23rd (and read at their wedding.)  Sharing the first one just as a point of interest . . .

For Casey and David

In this land of your shared story

You live

like two trees

Your roots have found each other underground

And through their paths of growth

have intertwined

and clasped each other tightly in support

and travel now together, where they find

the sustenance of secret aquifers

The rising surge of life propels you upwards

To stretch your branches splendid in the sun

And there you dance —

The lyrics of your blended song

reflect the ancient rhythms

You each learned when you were seeds

and the shared harmonics

of the present breeze

So will you meet each sun-filled hour

each wind-sent storm, each drenching shower

in graceful strength, in steady power

And grounded there, your souls will soar

as you embrace your precious destiny:

enduring growth in sacred unity.

©Wendy Mulhern

March 17, 2012

Love and Magic: Three Enchantments

 I.

When people love

they make magic

Everything living responds to it

Land rises up at its touch

Joyfully bends as it bends them

Brings forth a beauty

that calls forth their love again

making both ever more rich.

II.

In the dance of love

The will does not reside in either entity

It hovers in that charged and potent

mystic space between them

When they move to follow it

it’s nothing like

the simple, hollow closure

that comes from exercising one’s own will

It’s an exhilaration

and it brings a jubilation

and a satisfaction nothing else can fill.

III.

Magic is real

It is the dance of love

Everyone who loves creates it

sparkling in everything they touch

Others, when they see it, know it

Even if it’s nothing they can name

That which has been loved

will lift them

Bless them so they’ll never be the same. 

©Wendy Mulhern

March 27, 2012


(background music: Isaac Shepard, "Into Spring")