Steps

These are confident steps

we take, under the high sky,

not that we’ve walked here before,

but we are guided

by the tall grass

and the persistent wind

and a sense of direction

that has suddenly emerged within

These are times of moving,

knowing our steps teach us

in ways our projections couldn’t,

receiving their secret knowledge

through our feet

This is why we are here,

we think, and hardly wonder

how we could have called it living,

passive in the shadow

of what the big box told us

before we walked from it,

before we were free.

©Wendy Mulhern

August 10, 2017

The Violence of Conformity

As we start to escape

the violence of conformity,

we owe much to those

who first spoke out,

who wouldn’t call it courage

because it was desperation,

because it was the only option

besides soul-death,

because something deeper down

that instinct for survival

(or maybe that’s exactly what it was)

forced them to stand up,

howl out their truth

Who will witness this?

and who will turn

from the smooth and lethal cruelty

that calls itself normality?

Who will sprout up

in the wild, every-which-way

tumbling burgeoning

self proclamation of life?

©Wendy Mulhern

August 9, 2017

What I Needed

I let the music take me like a kite,

I spun and swooped, I dipped and soared –

twirled without dizziness and without getting tired

as if a power not my own had moved me

I came for this, and so I was rewarded,

so, for a brief time at least, I could fly,

yet, like a kite, I needed some connection,

something to hold me up against the wind

Without that, soon I wandered aimless —

my motivation faltered, I lay down —

without the invitation to dance with others

my movement faltered, started to go bland

And that’s why your appearance 

was such a welcome sight —

your eyes met mine

and launched me into flight.

©Wendy Mulhern

August 8, 2017

Confluence

Freedom and oneness:

the only way to really

have both of them

is if you have an absolute

confluence of desires,

if in the song of what you want,

all the chords blend in their perfection,

producing new, delicious, haunting tones,

if all the rhythms

set each other off

in joyful syncopation

and all the melodies

chase each other down in bliss,

leaping and rolling,

surging and soaring

And this is how it is

for all of us

in the secret chamber

of what we want.

This, in its various ways

sparks all our quests

and so we can conclude

that it is here.

©Wendy Mulhern

August 7, 2017

photo by Edward Mulhern

Coming Clean

As I notice myself

keeping a wary distance

from people being nice

in an L.A. kind of way

and people wearing urban liberal

like trendy clothes,

and people easy in their answers —

any kind of answers —

for why the world is wrong

in so many errant places

I see it’s all the same —

my wariness, their certainty,

the self-approving niceness,

none of which have the virtue

of simple, heartfelt keening

for the world

No matter. We’ll bring our husks,

our empty shells, our broken explanations,

we’ll set them down

where Truth’s tide will take them.

We’ll let ourselves be washed and lifted

in the embracing waves.

©Wendy Mulhern

August 6, 2017

Here Where You Are

Here where you are,

as you are held,

nothing can jostle

your settled being

No shock nor growl

can stop the steady purring

of your confidence,

your centered peace

Not even a thousand

murmuring grumblers,

self-justified and full of disapproval,

can ever touch you

Even if it seems like

they got inside

and are screaming at you

from within —

they can’t —

they aren’t you, and never have been

Here where you are

in the Principle that holds you

you are always safe.

©Wendy Mulhern

August 5, 2017

Fighting Back

The smoke retreats slightly

and I lift my head, best as I can,

out of the morass

I summon the image

of prison walls. If, after all,

I can imagine standing my ground,

holding out for truth

despite all fierce displays —

if I can affirm that nothing

can remove me from 

the atmosphere of Spirit,

then why not here?

What knots of thought convince me

that I should go under,

that I should suffer

until the smoke disperses?

What virtue would it give me

to die from missing

the kiss of fresh air through my being?

No. I’ll fight back.

I’ll stand strong 

in the atmosphere of goodness,

I’ll be a place of purity and peace.

©Wendy Mulhern

August 4, 2017