Standing Watch

This standing watch

is not without its distractions

but I am starting to learn

not to go barking off after decoys,

not to be taken from the inside

by what calls itself indignation,

what calls itself wounds,

not to be undermined

by complacency, and not to be 

thrown off course by blame

I will watch to see

that no lies about anyone

can obscure their precious essence,

and no caul of helplessness

can obstruct our needed action

I appeal to the Truth

that knows more than I do

about these things

and will flood out 

all the obfuscation

with its light.

©Wendy Mulhern

November 12, 2016

Gathering

We will gather seeds,

we will gather scions,

we will gather the miracle

of ripples on the river,

the intersection of ducks

with all that physics,

light’s answer to the waves’ summons

We will be fed

by what we love

all through the winter —

the love will always be

what nourishes us,

however it’s presented

And we will feed others,

sometimes before we know it —

we will feed them

with our love.

©Wendy Mulhern

November 10, 2016

Forevers

We are left no choice

but immortality. The time has come

to step into our true nature,

or rather, to stand clear in it

while the winds of these times

blow our illusions away

All the things we thought we were

are now so imperiled, so compromised,

that there’s no point in parsing out

the things that have gone wrong

But what we’ve always known inside

about our worth

gleams forth as miracle

right where we were thinking all was lost

and we will rally

around that bright truth

and it will save us

in more forevers than we need to count.

©Wendy Mulhern

November 9, 2016

Bright Hush

You, too, can find a high perch

to catch the sun’s rays

before they touch the water,

before they dance in myriad refractions,

before they break up the majestic blue

You can bask in the splendor of your feathers,

their hue, their shine, their iridescence,

you can claim this moment

before anything is proclaimed,

you can have this bright hush

to take in as you will,

as long as you are still.

©Wendy Mulhern

November 8, 2016

Standing Wave

The energy that makes you,

that holds you as a standing wave,

your essence ever moving,

your particles suspended,

can never cease from being what it is

and so can never drop you

The pulsing of the fact of you

continues unobstructed —

no other source exists,

no other impulse

Your pure intention, lightly clad,

is more than match 

for any armored machination,

as a pile of dust, however mammoth,

is no match for a breath of wind.

Look how strong you stand,

look how unmovable —

Goliath never stood a chance

against your truth.

©Wendy Mulhern

November 7, 2016

The Narrative

There may be many false starts

to the story. It’s said the place you enter

forms the pattern, the narrative determined

by the angles and perspectives

of the starting view. 

That’s why, maybe,

we have to make so many tries.

Finally we find the launch point

where all the story lines align,

we find the motivation, we find the cause.

So it’s important to look again

when viewing a life. To look again

and again until the cause comes clear,

to not settle for a story

of misalignment

Each life after all

is here to bring a grand influx of light,

like heaven, like dawn,

illumining collective understanding,

showing us each, showing us all

why we are here.

©Wendy Mulhern

November 6, 2016

The Art of Home

Rain outside,

Schubert within —

the old man taps his toes

as if in rapture

though I don’t know

what he really hears

We have a cozy place —

we’ve made it out of walls and paint

and music, heat, and light,

and presence and kindness

We are teaching ourselves

the art of home —

how to design the spaces,

how to build them,

how to provide

for all the flows we want to come through

We built this house

with hope and imagination.

Our young family emerged

and flowed through it, 

filling some spaces, not using others

in the way we had imagined,

moving on, leaving behind

the cavities its movement carved,

the flotsam from its ebbing presence

We are teaching ourselves

what to take with us, what to let go,

how to make a house that fits how we live,

how to live so that our home

grows up around us in support.

©Wendy Mulhern

November 5, 2016