Acquittal

This is not incremental change,

not resolutions, not a trajectory,

not a thing to chart and measure progress

and feel good today, or else feel bad

This is the dropping of everything —

unholy mess, colosal clatter —

this is the shock of light occasioning

complete disjunction from what went before

This is the calm beyond the conflagration

where you find out it never really mattered,

this is the waking up after your dream

where morning’s truth provides your sure defense.

©Wendy Mulhern

July 12, 2018

Paper

Sometimes I feel like I’m a paper person,

all my learning, all my skills,

spelled out across a flattened world,

who now, through some necessity,

has been punched free,

my shape no match for rain or wind,

stepping out trembling

And yet, here where my feet touch stream,

I start to feel

maybe in this world I’ll find myself

finally real.

©Wendy Mulhern

July 11, 2018

Free Fall

Any of these floors

can drop away —

no one is more solid

than any others.

The graceful thing appears to be to fall

rather than casting about 

for a better place to stand

In fact this knowing

of where I may fall through

may be a blessing —

sometimes the free fall

is the best way to remember

the depth of being.

©Wendy Mulhern

July 10, 2018

Old and New

I can’t walk easy

along the paths I used to walk,

hedged by familiarity,

bordered, more distantly, by fear.

I can’t pursue the old hopes,

flanked by worry, with the protections

of bravado and blurred vision

I have to walk

now as ever

in the clear bright world

that has always been here, too —

a plain without paths,

a presence without arriving,

being caught up in the offering

of myself, like a mirror,

to the light.

©Wendy Mulhern

July 8, 2018

Heather’s Day

When I can remember

how time turns out to be

nothing at all,

how the wholeness of you

was complete before we knew you,

continued so, all throughout that span

and is so now,

then I can feel

the joy of your being

that touched so many moments

and blessed so many hearts

so thoroughly, then as now,

and I can know

a similar purpose

attends each of us.

Your light can still

guide us there.

©Wendy Mulhern

July 7, 2018

Habits

My habits of thought

are hard to break

because they keep on coming round

as something new, something reformed,

something ready to look out, from now,

on my brave new future

in which I’m the hero

for having overcome

my former blindnesses

Where what I need instead

is to reach out my hand

and let myself be led

both in the purpose and

in each little step,

resisting the temptation

to be the one who knows,

trusting and following

as my days unfold.

©Wendy Mulhern

July 6, 2018

Interim

There’s a place for us at the table —

it’s not the raucous one, at the center of things.

It’s close enough to take in all the life

but far enough that we can move away

without a fuss, when we are done.

We circle, still, at the periphery,

and it feels good to be here

where we can observe but not be known,

where we can belong

but not be called upon.

©Wendy Mulhern

July 5, 2018