Beyond the story

There is a brand of helplessness

for every story. Let me not

be taken in

There is a way of winning

in every story. Let me not

be tempted

There is a way of breaking out

of every story. This is my hope —

to be unburdened from all former loops,

to be released

Beyond the story, where there is nothing

for me to win or lose or mindlessly repeat,

awaits the unity

or timelessness and opening dimensions.

Beyond the story

I am complete.

©Wendy Mulhern

August 3, 2018

Firmament

There are those who will take measure

but we won’t be measured. We will refuse

to participate in that game

Foxes may call to each other across the fields,

they may mark out territory.

We will not take sides

There is a truer place for us

than the field in which these things are measured.

We have a worth deeper

than ground, than soil, than earth.

Our being is rooted in the firmament

from which we will not be moved.

There is no limit to our love.

©Wendy Mulhern

August 2, 2018

How You see me

I start to fathom

what kind of vision You must have

for everything, for entities defined

as yearnings, small and large —

yearnings that flood 

through holes ripped out of lives,

yearnings that strain

at the seams of convention

(like water yearns to find its level

and will eventually overcome everything

to reach it)

You see me not as stasis

but as that bright liquid

which You, with a touch, can free.

You, with a touch, can teach me

to quench my own thirst.

©Wendy Mulhern

July 31, 2018

Can you feel it?

Can you feel what holds you

as well as these birds can,

diving and darting fearlessly

from the tall trees?

Can you feel it bear you up? —

such a gentle touch, with room for air

between your feathers —

room for you to breathe

but not to fall

Hold still, and see if you can feel it

guiding your steps, your work, your thoughts,

ever in the place where the bright surge

of joy, of life,

pours clearest through your being.

©Wendy Mulhern

July 30, 2018

Send my roots down

Send my roots down

where they’ve never reached before —

the land is arid,

the former streams are dry

Send my roots down

to the hidden corridors

protecting the secret,

connecting the trees

Let the ancient, strong alliance,

feeding everything that touches in,

be what sustains me,

be what grows my trunk 

and greens my limbs

Send my roots down —

it’s a long drought on the surface,

but here underneath,

we’ll share the streams.

©Wendy Mulhern

July 29, 2018

Mellowing

Today I am grateful

for small mellowings,

a little less edge to the heat,

a welling of happiness

softening the ragged edge of torment,

a day to be less driven from within,

to enjoy putterings

and how the moments knit themselves together

constantly, in wind rustles

and insect buzzing

and the contented chirping

of a few small birds

living, as always, for joy,

joying, as always, in life.

©Wendy Mulhern

July 28, 2018

My Life

My life is a shed skin.

I move, now, in a different being,

stretch and curl myself

with a vibrance not my own

in which I work daily

to hold without owning,

inhabit without habit,

affect without affect —

a being in which I labor

to be true to what is true.

©Wendy Mulhern

July 27, 2018