Glimmer

I can’t talk about this

because it’s too big —

bigger than a library of books

on how to find yourself, redeem yourself,

improve . . .

I must talk about this

because it’s so big —

big as the ocean’s crinkled surface,

responsive to each eddy,

every breath of wind . . . 

I touch my feet to earth.

Beyond all words, I feel 

the intersection of the circles,

every pulse connected,

tracing back to where I am enfolded,

and enfold the whole —

A glimmer of the key to everything,

big enough to satisfy my soul.

©Wendy Mulhern

January 31, 2014

Power

Listen,

You have the power:

You can always do

what you want

You are the power —

You can bring your light

into the world

You feel the power,

vibrant and decisive voice within

that lets you know

what you are here to do,

how to begin

and how to follow through

and how to win

the realization of your grandest vision.

Though you have heard real life consists

of mostly doing things your heart resists,

it is not true,

For here and now

the life that ever brings you forth

aligns you with your joy

and seals your worth.

©Wendy Mulhern

January 30, 2014

about this poem:

I was walking home from the post office this morning around seven, in the predawn light where early blue began to separate from layered gray, thinking about chem trails and surveillance and the poisoning of the earth, and I realized that these things can only be done if people do them.  And that people probably realize they don’t want to do these things, so the one thing that can heal the earth is our realizing we don’t need to do things we don’t want to do. A revolutionary thought, with far-reaching implications . . .

At the core

Oh, we are all the same,

heart of lettuce, core of onion, carrot top —

We have our generative essence,

we will grow

from this central point,

put out our leaves

and reach into the soil

for what we need

But we’re not made to thrive alone —

Our growth, beyond our spark,

requires some need our presence meets,

some gift which, when we give it,

cantilevers strength for us and them

This web we share —

How it breathes,

the giving and receiving

in ecstatic rise and fall,

how intricate its network,

how tenderly it holds us all!

©Wendy Mulhern

January 29, 2014

Today’s Work

Well, it will probably be

like other times. I pull the bell

and wait for the arrival

of the magic zip line ride.

Like other times, I’ll probably

wait a while. Sit down,

kick at little rocks, notice

ferns and moss,

look up at every sound, hoping to see

a little carriage trundling down the line.

And probably after a while

(like other times)

I’ll get up and start

to pick my way down

through the brush

and the steep slides of the ravine

to the other side,

and climb the hill myself.

©Wendy Mulhern

January 27, 2014

Mastery

We will stop seeing ourselves

as creatures of prohibition,

the ones who see themselves confined

within the narrow lines

of what’s allowed

And we will not play out

the acts of prohibition —

the tearing down, denying

and forbidding

We will understand

that the great dominion

has never been destruction,

that intelligence has a greater work

And that the building up of anything,

a life, a town, a cause,

must use the tools of life,

allowing everything 

to tumble forth and thrive,

and in its living find its integration,

teem, and be itself, and be alive.

©Wendy Mulhern

January 26, 2014

Let us gather

Let us gather

among these sweet tears,

Let us grieve,

Let this shared fountain

wash through us

with all its sadness —

Let it flow

until it clears

Let us gather

for we will be shelter

for each other, we will be

home. We will be

the way we make it through —

We’ll see each other 

and so be known.

©Wendy Mulhern

January 25, 2014

Breath

In the end

the things we’re asked to know

are the same things stones know

as they absorb their daily thermal load

and then release it slowly to the night,

a breathing that befits their time —

long and steady and calm

And what we’re asked to know

is what trees know

as they embrace the standing wave of energy,

toroidal cycling

of air and light and water,

breath of the forest, sweet and pure

We’re asked to know

the things our breathing teaches

in the constant ebb and flow

and in the depth it reaches

and the way we’re woven

into one complete design,

breath of our days,

earthbound, divine.

©Wendy Mulhern

January 24, 2014