Year’s End

We approach the year’s end

as uncelebrating

as every brown leaf

that blows along the ground,

as every squirrel that scuffles

among the leaves,

as every insect sleeping in its dried up stalk,

as all the crows that have gone home by now

It’s just one day into the next,

the rain, the fog, the winter light,

the stillness of the evening,

the morning’s breath

In other times, in other energies,

we made a mark here,

found some significance,

some grand design for change,

but this time round we’re flying low,

conserving strength,

hugging the curve of darkness

till the light returns.

©Wendy Mulhern

December 31, 2019

Sorrow

Sorrow has its season,

not as master, but as shadow,

a reminder of emptiness

and the song that fills it

Sorrow brings us 

down through the wet passage

of echoes, dark shiny walls

and the sound of dripping

We will know how deep we are

as sorrow plumbs us.

We’ll come out richer

on the other side.

©Wendy Mulhern

December 30, 2019

Actually

For a moment I forgot

that joy is unconditional —

I looked around, and saw,

then felt, the sadness

everywhere it lay along

the tragic and the casual

occurrences of unfulfilled conditions

The sighs arising

slip like wisps above them,

hover haunted, sink on down —

it’s easy to believe

no answer can be found for anyone

But joy is unconditional —

it cracks like a smile,

bounds up like a bubble,

flows, light filled,

through all the places

where things seemed so sad.

This is not a big problem, actually —

it’s just time to claim our heritage.

©Wendy Mulhern

December 29, 2019

Your Spark

(from the biking philosopher’s notebook)

You don’t own your spark

but you owe it —

owe it your attention,

your time, your thought, your care

You can’t use your spark to serve you —

you serve it —

give it everything you are,

all you can do

And in return

it will mature,

become a flame, become a light,

you will be nourished in its service,

even known by it —

it will make you what you are

and guide your every step

and as you tend it daily,

it will be your life.

©Wendy Mulhern

December 28, 2019

Low Points

It isn’t bad

to have to cry

in spite of how

the sun has spun

the grass heads into gold

and wind has gently ruffled ducks

and all in all 

it was a fine day

These low points

come in sometimes

like nomad clouds

that mass and gather

and move through —

They will go as silently

as they came. Either today

or tomorrow — whether

bringing rain or not.

Either the sun will melt them

or bright laughter

will chase them off. 

©Wendy Mulhern

December 27, 2019

Good Night

At the delicious edge of sleep —

the doors of dream enticingly ajar

(or maybe they are more like pools

or limbs exploring towards infinity)

From that alluring edge

I’m reeled back in —

your voice, or at another time

your finger tapping —

engendering my dull reluctant rise

through layers swiftly shredding

back to here

And so my softest thing to do 

is laugh —

it shimmers with releasing ripples,

keeps my thought from coalescing solid,

allows my sleepy drift

back toward the edge …

©Wendy Mulhern

December 26, 2019

Attention

Now that my hope is fully uncoupled

from the day’s outcomes,

now that it holds itself

in its own light,

I can see shoots sprouting

where before, perhaps,

the weight of my wishes

would have smothered them

I have no wishes,

only conviction

that every living thing

forms in this sacred space

of weightless hope,

nurtured to fruition

by the attention,

in wave form contiguity,

to every breath.

©Wendy Mulhern

December 25, 2019