Slow

Within the restful hush

of pre-dawn stirrings

you can feel the low tone of patient stone

that took in fall’s impassioned chill

all through the night

and now releases it

with no hurry,

equalizing the swifter emotions

of day and night

in slow perspective,

as elders view the young

with quiet humor —

nothing of heaven or tragedy

won or lost in a single day.

©Wendy Mulhern

September 4, 2015

Light Lines

In a departure

abrupt or gradual

as leaving a dream,

I grasp onto light lines

I find them in faces,

in flickers of hope,

in the never-completely-hidden

desire to be seen

I see them in the eye-catching

that perceives a sly joke

and sends cascades of laughter

into the shared space

I see you, Oh, I see you

riding strong along your current,

throwing off the crust of

who I might have thought you were

As I, too, flow out from my crust,

swifter than lava,

carrying my new form

out into the light of day.

©Wendy Mulhern

September 2, 2015

Cradle

Catch me up in the echo of wind

blowing through the dark

with the comfort of miles traversed

up along the coast and through the city,

journeys of clouds and rain bringing promise

of the year’s steady, steadying turning

Let my wistfulness, that longed

to be wrapped and held,

be cradled in this,

the purpose that works its

equalizing movement

all through the night.

©Wendy Mulhern

September 1, 2015

Weather

It takes so little time

for wind and rain

to blow and wash away

the memory of that long stretch of heat,

for me to feel the quickened pace of fall —

The strong insistence of its shorter days,

the drop of needles, leaves, and time,

the carpeting of dampened, waiting ground,

the swift intake of cooler breath

There may be sun again

before the winter —

I just can’t feel it now

in this particular cross-pattern

of internal and external weather,

its mix of colors

bright and dark against my eyes.

©Wendy Mulhern

August 31, 2015

Gold

There was a moment

when the fields were gold

You could say

their essence was illumined

in that moment

You could say

they were made for this,

you could say that they were vessels

for the sun’s essence

in that last kiss of day

You could feel in that moment

like golden fields —

all lit up —

It would be bliss,

you and the sun —

it wouldn’t matter

how you defined it.

©Wendy Mulhern

August 29, 2015

Our Place

We are not who we thought we were,

beset by helpless needs,

buffeted by forces that could grant

or else deny them,

pleading for the mercy of the fates

We are not placed here

ungrounded and bereft,

seeking to find some anchor

to afford a fleeting feeling

of belonging

We are sovereign —

The Mind we access

is the universal I Am,

with which we hold all forces

at our center, with our hand

With which we preside over

all the harmony of being

not pushed around by actions or conditions,

instead, ordaining them —

setting everything in place

in concert with the law that loves us all.

©Wendy Mulhern

August 28, 2015

Sounded

We resonate 

as effortless as A strings,

for the frequency is here —

We hum, we sing, 

no exertion on our part —

just what we feel, just what we are

This joy of being sounded

is like none other —

We recognize that it is everything

we’ve always longed for,

why we are here.

It fills us with the thrum of our own essence,

gives us our place

in the sweet melody and chords

that modulate exquisitely

all down the vast curve of being.

©Wendy Mulhern

August 26, 2015

Vessel by Jennifer McCurdy, photo by Julius Friedman