Undercurrent

The swift water runs

under my breath

it is dark and deep

it is not silent

but its tone is so low

it went unnoticed

till I dipped my hand in

and felt its power.

Now it lends a small distortion

to my vision:

I may miss things

on the daylight plane

and notice after a while

that my thought is running

with its current

its murmurings

overwhelming my words.

©Wendy Mulhern

May 30, 2013

The Sea of Yes

A sea of possibilities,

a vision coalescing,

disparate desires solidifying,

image of a harmony emerging,

which, if achieved, 

would hold the promise

of unfathomable bliss

that when you taste

will fill your heart with longing

till your mission is 

to make it come to pass

But all the while the subtle sea is shifting

and you can see it’s not in you

to engineer a change —

Just in that moment, you saw

how your thought was drifting

from the perfect vision to the things

you’d need to rearrange . . . 

A sea of possibilities:

Close your eyes and rest

and let your vision reemerge

in the sea of yes.

©Wendy Mulhern

May 29, 2013

Seattle Sun

The sun comes out

just in the evening

and it is like

giddy laughter after many tears

where you can feel your breathing

like a big drama

now the storm has cleared

though there’s no guarantee

the flood will not return

on the flash of some re-tripped remembrance.

The sun has come

too late to warm the earth

but old, tall trees

shake their shaggy limbs

in deep enjoyment

and send their glow

back through

my no longer spattered windows.

©Wendy Mulhern

May 28, 2013

Passage

Give me another turn

let me roll in flashing silver

down the curving spiral

waterway, way of light

Let me be delivered

in the way of

shining eucalyptus limbs

wet and gleaming in the half sun

between the rain

All this is —

integral, whole, contiguous —

can’t be mistaken

for anything it isn’t

All this is

displaces

anything that doesn’t have its essence —

Uncompromising fact

whose quality

outweighs all else,

scattering it,

defining everything.

In that royal splash

let me emerge

same as I ever was.

©Wendy Mulhern

May 27, 2013

Art and Song

Even art,

even song

Rise up from the joy of perfect systems,

echoes of the primal dance of oneness

which everything that thrives

must celebrate

Or in its absence

Art and song reach forth

like species pioneers

beneath the damaged soil

and spread their green above

to help restore that primal dance again.

©Wendy Mulhern

May 26, 2013

After you wake up

After you wake up

you no longer see the point

of doing things senselessly,

of hauling your water uphill,

and making children sit

like monoculture rows of plants,

not touching, on the classroom rug.

And you no longer can be made

to spray the space between them

with things that kill all other plants

and break the life-engendering connection

whereby they might gain strength

from one another.

You will not force them to grow

by virtue of some outside fertilizer

which you’ve distilled and now will re-impart.

When you wake up

you’ll let them them grow as they’re designed —

a liberation that will also feel most wonderful

to your unfolding self.

©Wendy Mulhern

May 25, 2013

No Hurry

There’s no hurry here

in the wayward wandering of bees

or in the darting flit of smaller insects,

No hurry in the dark, damp bed of seeds

as moisture slowly moves in

towards their center

No hurry in their swell, their split,

their first root sprout uncurling

Or in the turn of sun across the sky,

through soft cloud edges burning

All gifts that softly rise

against the glow of muted skies

or in the brilliance

of their unsheathed blue

know in their code

how they must grow

and so they do

There’s no hurry here:

You, too, can walk this calm,

drinking in the strength of days —

your hope, your balm.

©Wendy Mulhern

May 24, 2013