A Slice of Time

Evening has rushed up to the windows

and peers in

at our curious cavern of time

after the day’s duties,

before a young night,

where the hope and emptiness of our prospects

converge

We found moments of calm today

in the pushing aside of many things,

our work, our waiting,

our restless wrestling,

and we heard, faintly,

the clear direction

that will pull us through the coming days

This evening will stitch itself closed

without our doing anything —

we will miss the bauble of a night out,

though we may gain

(as is our deeper need)

something timeless.

©Wendy Mulhern

February 11, 2017

If You Knew

What would you do

if you absolutely knew

you are loved — if you could

feel it inside

like a bright coal,

like a soft breath,

like the concentration of

everything you can take in

into one potent sphere inside yourself,

pulsing calmness and joy 

in fountains, spilling laughter

bubbling and streaming

through your aura

What would you do

if you knew

the love you are

could light the same

in many others, anyone, in fact

that you can see?

©Wendy Mulhern

February 10, 2017

Keepers

Be thankful for the day —

it is enough

to tuck the old man in,

to see the comfort

of soft sheets around his chin

It is enough

to have accomplished 

the simple tasks

and to have felt the soft burn

of inner fire, curling

at the base of being,

connecting us to eternity

and the truth no lies can cover

and the clear direction that it gives,

untouched by any turbulence of time,

bearing us silently

into our role

as keepers of the stars.

©Wendy Mulhern

February 9, 2017

Waking

Am I, even still, in deep dream?

Or am I slowly waking?

is it possible all this could be

just what it seems,

or are we long mistaken?

My fumbling hands try to determine

what is freedom here, and what is chains.

I find I’m bound by what I thought was comfort,

I find I’m freed by my internal reins

And what may seem a heaving shift of landscape

may be the rift of an illusive scene,

and what may seem a fearful theft of power

may lift us up to finer, lucid being —

to grasp and taste the source of true delight:

illumining the universe with light.

©Wendy Mulhern

February 8, 2017

Snow

This morning I woke up remembering a poem about snow  I wrote some years back. Then a friend wrote asking if I had any snow poems. I went and found it (preserved on paper!) It was from 2002. It violates a couple rules I have for myself now about writing poetry, but I still find it sweet, and it sings itself to me in the tune of Tallis’ Canon.

Oh night! hold snowfall, soft and wet,

do not give up your magic yet —

bring us your silent world again,

stay white — do not succumb to rain

When daylight next suffuses skies,

let white on white enchant our eyes,

let all be softness, all be still,

your clean caress our senses fill

Oh night of snowfall, soft and wet,

do not give up your magic yet!

Lace in sweet cold to hold the spell,

to keep each snowflake as it fell.

©Wendy Mulhern

January 27, 2002

New Growth

As old containers fall away,

we each may find

we’re more cohesive

than we knew,

and now, no longer blocked off

from the places where

we always longed to grow,

we’ll send our shoots out

bold and green

We’ll be so much more wild and thick

than how we had been told

we had to be,

we’ll twine with others

who had been forbidden,

we’ll make a thicket, a collective tree

And we’ll hold ourselves together

not by rules and condemnation,

but by the gracious tendrils of our truth.

©Wendy Mulhern

February 5, 2017

Failing

It’s been a tough day —

large bungle spill

of ill-advised emotions

who rushed out blind,

not even slowing down

in their blustering forays

to hear the voice of their mom

who, had they listened,

would have counseled

that playing on this ground

always results in getting doused

in whatever slop you try to throw.

She could have guided them

to more productive fields,

but no, they had to go

and try to conquer

in all the places

where they had to fail.

No matter. Tonight

she will tuck them in.

They will sleep. Tomorrow

she will try again

to help them get up in the sun.

©Wendy Mulhern

February 4, 2017