Security

I will feel safe

when I know

there is no way

I can fall from grace

in your eyes

by being myself

Then I will stretch

into the farthest edges 

of myself. I will wake up

all my toes, my fingertips

and my wings. My skin,

and all the currents within me,

my stride, my dance, my rhythm,

my hearing and my vision

All this will feel secure

in the fine deep space

you hold for me

in the warmth of your gaze,

in the kindness of your eyes.

©Wendy Mulhern

January 12, 2016

To a woman at Fred Meyer’s

You are not your shopping cart

nor the objects in it,

nor the course it rolls on the ground

with its creaky clumsiness

You are not the tracks through your life

that bring you here

to the bright lights

and the high aisles

with their choices of nothingness

You are not the cage-like strictures

for which you make up your face

and hair, and clothing,

you are not the brittle, limited options

of what to be in this world

You are amazing.

And you are sovereign —

In your being

is the understanding

of how to walk free,

in your hands

the limitless richness

that comes from your source,

the infinite power to bless,

the simple end

to this atrocious farce,

the dynamo inherent in

I Am.

©Wendy Mulhern

January 11, 2016

Artesian

When I’m still,

and ask for it,

the inspiration comes up swift,

quick welling from the deepest pools within me,

sudden flowing, as if struck from rock

But truly

relying on catchment —

all the collected liquid

from the upper hills

coalescing down, bubbling out,

Clearly not a thing conjured

with tricks of thought,

clearly testament to my context,

to the terrain in which I rise,

natural as weeds, as springs,

as love,

from every cradling crevice.

©Wendy Mulhern

January 10, 2016

Going Forth

I will take nothing with me,

no preparations, no opinions,

no preconceptions as to

what I may contribute,

what I may receive,

no assessments of the problems

or the limits, no concerns

about the inputs or the outcomes

I will take nothing with me

but the promise

that what I need will arise

in the alchemy of interaction,

in the provision, in the book of Life,

for the perfect meeting of everything

and the exultant spark

of the connection

that lights up all the stars 

that comprise our presence.

©Wendy Mulhern

January 9, 2016

Draw Me

Draw me in, hold me close.

If there never was safety

in the circles that we drew

around ourselves, around our clan,

defining insiders and outside,

making structural strength

in the arc of joining arms

If there never was a safety

of tastes, of languages —

if all this is, as we see,

unceremoniously swept away

(that, or eaten steadily from inside)

There still is safety

in the unity of what we are,

the blessedness we sense as ours,

and the desire for it that always

draws us to our source

Draw me in,

for here is where we find

the common breath, the common voice

that sings us ever

safe and sound

resounding through our days.

©Wendy Mulhern

January 8, 2016

Respite

The day lightens,

not through any effort on my part.

The sun warms, the load lifts,

the promises assert their buoyancy,

rising like swift bubbles

through my heaviness,

leavening. Filling out

the wispy dreams,

making them solid,

giving them color.

It suffuses me

like blush,

with strength, with hope.

My feet reach down

and settle in

and find their ground.

©Wendy Mulhern

January 6, 2016

Seed Sized

It’s not a great work, this —

my daily journal, my daily

survival. Not insights to broadcast,

to make headlines, to go viral.

Just one chronicle

of one daily quest, one daily effort,

one life shining. All I can do.

Still enough, perhaps, 

to save my own soul

And who knows what worlds

are contained in each salvation?

How many trees might be

in one apple?

©Wendy Mulhern

January 5, 2016