The Dawn of You

The sky is waiting

for the dawn of you —

your full orb to follow

these beams which already

have lighted and thrilled it

We are waiting

for our fingers

to meet your outstretched hands,

for the sweet interlock

through which will course

unbounded joy

There’s no hurry about it:

What we see already of you

is enough for now —

the bright anticipation

kindles us, in this moment’s reception

of all that glows glorious

as your heart rises.

©Wendy Mulhern

June 10, 2015

Seeing the Light

We will give up

trying to be good

and trying to look good

and trying to justify

relative worth

We will give up

the anxious glances,

the frenzied measurements,

the sad assessments

of us and the world

For we will know

that this good of us

is not of our doing

or our undoing —

It is held immutable,

unsullied,

and will glow triumphant

and enlightening

through all our days.

©Wendy Mulhern

June 8, 2015

Evil’s End

The veil has been rent —

the illusion that plagued us

is gone, like the face of a burst balloon,

and even the reflexive repugnance

that trickled bitter down our throats

has disappeared

So we are no longer willing to accept

wheels ever-spinning in mud,

and the dragon no longer gets to

sweep away a third of the stars

from heaven

All the things we were struggling for

are lost from view — 

we see the remaining distorted image

now two-dimensional

on the scrap of discarded balloon

And day rises, dew jeweled,

before our grateful eyes.

©Wendy Mulhern

June 6, 2015

Our

Beneath the sky

my phone reports as cloudy,

my love darts up

to the soft curved body

of the gull flying low overhead,

pale morning color

glowing around its belly

And I feel sure

that it receives the love

as all bodies are designed to do —

receptors and transmitters

of what shines

brighter than light.

So I begin my prayer:

“Our.”

©Wendy Mulhern

June 5, 2015

A Day Under the Sky

Today my pleasure was

weeds and a shovel,

and a job that required

that I keep on working

long past my usual

sense of endurance,

past being tired,

past making choices —

at the command

of the process at hand,

focus and repetition,

into the place of

not thinking anything

I have certainly earned

the rise and fall of my breathing,

the languor of abandon,

this feeling of being stretched out

like long winter grass

pressing into the earth.

©Wendy Mulhern

June 4, 2015

photo by Edward Mulhern

Reveal

When all the masks dissolve

(as well they must, against the potency

of our being)

We’ll see each other, and we’ll know

that nothing we have fretted over

ever mattered at all

The person each of us has always been,

the one we’ve always known,

turns out to never have been sullied

by failures or by fears

That deeply lovable, delightful being

we each so valiantly 

have striven to defend

is who, now that the mask is down,

appears,

never faded, never fallen,

never broken, never marred by years,

ever shining, radiant and clear.

©Wendy Mulhern

June 3, 2015

Seed Bed

Let my spirit

be generous enough

to offer soft landing

to the hard points,

the ragged edges,

the bony joints that come jabbing,

the blunt words that fall graceless

Let my spirit be deep enough

to see beneath the mask of self-seeking,

beyond temptation

to let stridency annoy me —

After all, we all are asking

for the same thing

We all are hoping

to find someone who will

give us what we need,

to fill the hollow hunger for 

deserving approbation

Let my spirit be a rich bed,

moist and warm enough to nourish

all those worthy seeds

till the burr becomes irrelevant

in the new green.

©Wendy Mulhern

June 2, 2015