Permission to Cry

A place that’s warm can give me

permission to cry — kindness so often

sets me off, I don’t know why —

I don’t know if it rolls me onto

the underside of long and steady courage,

if it makes my vigil seem bleak, if it allows

a setting down of strength,

and if this flood is something

I just needed, or if it is

a detour from the program

and does no earthly good

I don’t know why, but I feel

grateful and unhinged

both at the same time.

©Wendy Mulhern

April 4, 2018

Sustenance

We will go in the strength of

what fills us with our sense of presence,

what gives us grace, what affirms

the I Am that courses through us,

waking up everything, thrilling us

with the warble of life,

the power where we are.

©Wendy Mulhern

April 3, 2018

Spring

Hush. It is good

that we be quiet,

the better to hear the soft stirring,

underground, of swelling seeds,

the gentle parting of willing soil,

so recently too hard to move

It is good that we be quiet

to form the backdrop of gratitude

for the early warble of birds

unafraid to be first

to celebrate the dawn

In the sacred quiet, our hearts

relax from taut waiting,

even before we can otherwise sense

the springing forth

of our perennial grace.

©Wendy Mulhern

April 2, 2018

Staying Put

Now that I’ve found this place

I will not go out,

I will not go back

to the world where everything

is always sliding down,

and everyone is trying

to claw their way up

I will stay here,

and though I’m told the dogs of doom

will still snap at my heels,

I will not be moved.

I will hold to the vision

until all who fight against it

are transformed, and glide gratefully

into this truth.

©Wendy Mulhern

April 1, 2018

Calling

We will claim our purpose,

we will walk in it,

we will be as one with it

as it gives us power

and we propel it forward

We will be inseparable,

for, in fact, how could it be otherwise?

How could we be here

without our calling,

and how could our calling

exist without us?

©Wendy Mulhern

March 31, 2018

Four Square

Let me wrap myself

in the arms of the city,

let me hold its four sides close,

let it determine everything around me,

let us rise again within, in hope

No one needs to slide off the roof,

no one need be ground up in the cogs,

these things have never held a corner here,

they can’t pull any of us under

Let this light keep radiating outward,

let it light us inwardly, besides,

and chime across the afternoon

the truth that will uplift us,

and bless us soundly, here where we abide.

©Wendy Mulhern

March 30, 2018

Spring Clean

Open all the doors,

the cupboards, too,

and let the light flood in

And if there is clutter,

I will get rid of it,

cobwebs, I’ll wipe them away

Let there be no place in my mind

anymore, for anything that doesn’t

magnify the light, no place

for excuses, for cause/effect fables,

for anything that’s unclean,

anything that’s not washed by the light.

Let all the contents here be blessed

so I can be a temple of the Most High.

©Wendy Mulhern

March 28, 2018