Application Deadlines

Actually,

You can’t make things be

what they’re not

You can’t make a stream

run faster down its course

rapid or languid as the fall line designates

You can’t make the clouds

configure themselves

into neat, ordered little puffs

And we can’t make our son

hop to, conform, align

when all his atoms stretch

along some still-unmarked direction

as he charts the constellations

of his singular universe

Obligatorily,

there will be hoops to jump through

See how he bends his lanky form

to condescending depths

and somehow manages to find some grace

complying with the needed tasks

Some things fall behind

and yet we can be sure

Everything that’s really part of him

will find a way to flourish,

to endure.

©Wendy Mulhern

November 27, 2012

Tonight’s gift

Translucent clouds blown from the north

across the face of the three-quarter moon

who sees them

bathes them in benevolence

as they pass before her face

making the sky milk-marbled

till they dissipate

revealing a single star.

©Wendy Mulhern

November 25, 2012

Jacob’s Ladder

(Notes from the fifth seasonal five women gathering)

We fold and unfold and refold

Constant surprises of new faces

appearing and then hidden

reemerging later somewhere else

We see each other

We see ourselves

Faces that we recognize from now, 

and, too, from other times

We mirror, and are mirrored

And in the grand revealing of our paths —

our being, spread across a stretch of time —

Great gardens spring to life, to light

their fragrant blossoms sweetening the air

We are a circle

A circle of love and caring

A circle of women

Holding the safe net

we all jump into

Feeling the tug at the sides

as we hold each other up

Feeling our cords strengthen

in the stretch of the give and take

Feeling the ties of our intersections

hugging us close

We are angels

Ascending and descending

Bringing ourselves messages

and the dear assurance

that this land, this place

has been prepared for us

and we will inhabit it

and bring forth our fruits.

©Wendy Mulhern

November 24, 2012

Mending

Retreated here from all activities

So many proffered offerings

roll by like water

The waves of doing things —

Fun and togetherness —

(photos as proof)

thunder over my head

and are gone

There’s hardly even

space for regret

deep, as I am

under the turbulence

where it is still

and I am still waiting 

for the internal calm.

©Wendy Mulhern

November 23, 2012

Gratitude

Gratitude is stronger than pain

Like bright sunlight, it flows forth

Outshining the burred edges

of stress, of fear

of tiresome perturbations

Gratitude is stronger than the manager

Who posits reasons I must suffer

Bargains me away in its strong zeal for condemnation

Tells me why I must be being punished

Gratitude releases me

from the harsh sentence

cast by the rasp of complaint

on my day

Gratitude fills me,

Lifts me up, holds me

Sets me with grace on a lovelier way.

©Wendy Mulhern

November 22, 2012

Colors

I like

the color that shows

between my toes

the warm burnished glow

of wood tone touched with orange light

which also laps its sumptuous tint

across my instep

and licks my toes, at their curling tips

No color stands alone

They all throw their reflections on each other

I see the orange, the green, the red

silent and smooth, caressing every surface

I gaze, transfixed

at what I would have called one tone

But they are many

All mixed

Repeated on my feet, the door, the wall

Each different colored thing

shares the same palette

to harmonize and unify them all.

©Wendy Mulhern

November 20, 2012

Prayer for Now

In the deepening clarity

of your light

A new conception dawns

upon my sight

My focus shifts —

a sharper definition —

A measure of the pressure lifts

and I feel richer

There is no mindless wave

No storm

to roil me in its sharp relentless flailing

There is no course that I must follow

leading through a time of pain and ailing

The now belongs to you

And so, as well, to me

It is my nature to express it fully

Your law is steady, true

My being — peaceful, pure and holy

And all of my perception

must feel this and conform

My times are yours

and it’s your love

that holds me hale and warm.

©Wendy Mulhern

November 19, 2012