The One Who Loves Me

The one who loves me,

and who always has,

is the one who rivers me,

who flows my substance through me,

flows me through its being —

all my life, my love —

that ever eager pulse

that shows me forth in glimmers

and in full shine

as always so much deeper

than the shifting stories

I and others have called “me.”

The One who loves me

and who always has

brings up my love, full on, to meet it,

teaches me everything I know

of how to love.

©Wendy Mulhern

September 30, 2013

Tapestry

The threads that make our story

have passed through many warps

before they came through us.

They came from richly colored skeins,

were mixed with others

in their pathway through the loom.

They rendered skies, they rendered sun,

they rendered trees,

and many ancestors 

before depicting you and me.

We are not separate.

Every strand of us is also part

of everything that’s been before.

Their colors sing through us,

Their memories live in our bones,

We join with them in chorus.

We never walk alone.

©Wendy Mulhern

September 29, 2013

Mind and Heart

It’s said the mind can’t solve its own snarls —

A pro at spinning yarns, it is too linear

to see beyond the knotted interweavings —

that, though it flows with ease

through many convolutions,

it’s too invested in the string

to let the tangle go.

Have a heart!

It doesn’t really matter

who said what, who did what, and why —

(Wait — that’s still the mind speaking)

The heart says,

Hush —

Your wisdom and your love

are strong enough to ensure

that every actor in this story

get full due,

be wrapped up in the care

compelling them to thrive

as the wonderful creations that they are.

The heart says,

Sink deeper

into these infinite arms

that ever hold you up.

©Wendy Mulhern

September 28, 2013

A first-world problem

Darkness looms about the house,

enters the old man’s dreams,

makes him heavy —

He won’t get up.

My love is far away,

my friends move in their own orbits,

the music pipes on bravely

but I’m lost

This is a first-world problem —

my house is warm and dry

and safe

and well-supplied.

The only thing I lack today

is feeling useful —

the sense of purpose and essential role

that serves community,

helps make it whole . . . 

I will fight for this

each day I have to —

to feed some greater need

would fill my soul.

©Wendy Mulhern

September 27, 2013

In answer to your question

There is a yes

that whispers in the softest tones,

as intimate as kisses,

small as a cricket’s chirp,

but opens out a chorus of response

that in its vast resounding

sounds a universe.

It says:

You are enough

and you will have enough within you

at every step

to light your way

and be a light for others.

Your internal universe

has countless stars,

all of them bright enough

to guide you home.

©Wendy Mulhern

September 26, 2013

The One That Chooses

for Edward

See? The one that chooses

chooses true —

How else could we have known,

though we were very young

and scarcely knew ourselves,

that it was right for us to be together?

And though we jockeyed —

tried and mostly failed

to put forth our positions —

though we had so little power

to influence each other

as we took our stands at our opposing poles

Eventually our magnets had to shimmy

to settle us right here

in snuggled closeness

and we asked each other last night:

Who chose who?

Well, maybe this was chosen

not by us

so much as by our deeper essence

that moves not from a choice

but from a law —

a law that works regardless of our constructs,

The law that shines the stars and tunes the worlds.

Happy Anniversary, my love!

©Wendy Mulhern

September 25, 2013

The Law of Light

In the law of reflection

everyone is bright

(nothing is created or destroyed)

The light that rests on them

is the same,

and as it always has,

it shares its brilliance in full strength

with every thing.

And any time we fail to see it,

it’s just that it’s refracted

some other way —

turned toward a world, perhaps,

we haven’t even seen,

focused to bless

somewhere we haven’t known.

They will all do what they must

to find the place

where their brightness offers

the one clear shining ray that’s needed most.

Each has that gift

and each will give it

in the steady rhythm

of the law of light.

©Wendy Mulhern

September 24, 2013