Stability

Spirit, save me

from the side-wards slide,

the sense of dissonance,

the double vision —

Give me a sense of me

in which I can abide,

some clear stability,

purpose and mission

I can’t bear to be beholden

to whims of chemicals,

to be side-swiped

by chained reactions

trundling through me

like freight trains

bearing cargoes of speculation

I can’t bear to see

my sweet confidence

shriveled like unwatered seedlings,

laid out along the soil,

fast disappearing

Spirit, I need your breath

to steady me, remind me

of your presence

and the anchored truth

that holds me ever more —

the centered touch

that frees my life to soar.

©Wendy Mulhern

June 9, 2014

Missed Signals

None of these tokens mean a thing.

They are a currency —

Sometimes they can be used,

Sometimes, also, they can be

misconstrued

A kiss, a smile, a hug,

a showing up to work,

a glance, a sigh, a comment,

the taking time

to sync up with your breathing . . .

You may want one

and I may give another,

so it would seem

our signal had been lost

But I am sure

These tokens are just toeholds

to help us gain the higher understanding —

what I am, who you are

and the bedrock fact

of our deep caring,

and the finally unerring

harmonics

in which our souls conjoin.

©Wendy Mulhern

June 8, 2014

Safety

Where can we seek safety?

Not in numbers, 

not in nameless crowds,

Not in being one of many,

herded, sheeplike, following the rules —

Not everything that claims to lead

is kind

And clearly, there’s no kind of safety

in following blind

How can we seek safety?

Not in more guns,

Not in more locks and keys,

Not in protection from so-called Security

Not in turning our faces

away from strangers,

Not in buying insurance

against all dangers

Not in conformity,

Not from policemen,

Not from reliance on logic and reasons,

Only by building

through small trusts, by hand,

a net of acceptance that covers the land —

a weaving us in with no outside for anyone,

no one cast off, left afar —

Then we’ll be safe where we are.

©Wendy Mulhern

June 6, 2014

What I Observed While Trying to Write a Different Poem

At Matthew’s Beach

the toddlers in their bright clothing

converge along the water’s edge.

Constellations of families

intersect orbits

Two small girls and one mom

have pink broad-rimmed hats

And the larger girl reaches her arms

in the water again and again

making circular splashes.

The smaller one

sits in the shallows —

they both have sodden skirts

A small boy cries unconsolably

because there’s a scratch 

through the picture on his bucket

And his mother won’t stop 

using it to get water

to wash her children’s feet

A young man with green sunglasses

and two small boys

and a wife

addresses me as lifeguard

and I have to tell him

(as I told the boy with the scratched pail)

that it’s not lifeguard season yet,

that I’m just here.

©Wendy Mulhern

June 5, 2014

Centered

The storyteller said

that we were programmed to be slaves,

to look, for our direction,

to a god outside ourselves,

to do, at that god’s bidding,

things we wouldn’t want —

to pull out gold and leave our land crying,

and fail to see our web of oneness dying

The story offered us a key —

We could heal ourselves,

and our world, by knowing

There is no god outside

the elemental harmony,

no purpose separate

from our eternal flowing

And suddenly

We could hold the whole world

with one hand —

all the grand order spreading out

from that nexus 

of understanding

we’re not outside the touchpoint of control —

This God within

is our center, and our whole.

©Wendy Mulhern

June 4, 2014

Feral Cat in the Backyard

He moved into the clearing and sat

surveying the kingdom 

he had come to call his own,

A place shared uneasily with others,

a place of bounty nonetheless,

And though it offered

none of the pampered warmth

of inside realms,

it was his,

And the sun kindly threw stripes of gold

across it from time to time

And there was life teeming

in the shadows and the deep holes,

life enough to hold his interest,

life enough to sustain.

©Wendy Mulhern

June 2, 2014

Suspended

I seek an education of ripples,

of boats, of geese with goslings,

a blowing through me of sweet June wind

whereby I may be informed

The afternoon hums with people

and the chorus of suburban machines

thrashing at grass, at hedges,

Flotsam of the day, fallen in the slow river,

floats down

I am not confused

but something is unfinished —

something asking me to pray.

©Wendy Mulhern

June 1, 2014