Eternal Now

We live in the eternal now
and nothing else can touch us -
no troubled echoes from the past,
no fears of future outcomes

Here in the eternal now
we are fresh each moment,
and all the resources of now
are present for our use

In the eternal now,
there can be no sore spot,
no place rubbed raw, no pain
from previous exertion

No troubled memories,
no shell-shocked caution,
nothing cordoned off as minefield.
So we can thrive, forever safe
in the eternal now.

©Wendy Mulhern
July 31, 2020

Willing

I'm willing
to give up
any previous sense
of me,
willing,.instead,
to be mirror,
to let myself be defined
in the light and color I reflect,
let my presence
multiply the infinite,
learn who I am each day
by what it shines.

©Wendy Mulhern
July 28, 2020

Breath of Life

The perfect fitting of things

is not mechanical, 

though we may observe 

the intricate meshings, 

though we may think

it's a fragile webbing -

one strand misplaced 

and all could fall away,

one beat missed

and everything could crash 

But it can't, it won't. 

It's not mechanical. 

No one thing depends upon another, 

though it seems to. 

This is the breath of Life,

everything moving in one Spirit,

each one bound 

in deepest love,

directly to its cause.

©Wendy Mulhern

July 27, 2020

Heat Wave

The heat kept ramping up
through the afternoon,
furnace winds blowing through,
drawing the moisture
out of everything

We looked for places
where we wouldn't wilt,
employed extravagant technology,
and then, in hammock's shade,
a breeze could soothe us some,
as long as we were quiet

Inner peace can help us cool
until the evening finally
releases its refreshing breath
and we can rest at last.

©Wendy Mulhern
July 26, 2020

Alone

Each of you,
alone with your soul,
is doing a mighty work

There is no referent of comparison,
no one's soul against which
you can hold your own
to take a measure

You are alone with your soul.
And what blooms in you -
particular concoction
of what you came from
and what you brought to it -
will always be as much a wonder
to yourself as to the others
who see it shine forth

You are companioned,
but that companionship is deeper
than the sum or product
of everyone you know

You are loved
before you even step out,
loved as you are,
alone with your soul.

©Wendy Mulhern
July 25, 2020

Partnership

The land starts to tell me of our partnership
in phrases I can understand -
scent of sweet grass, and blackberry,
carried on the wind,
fledgling birds - jays, swallows, towhees,
calls of doves and hawks and deer

It hints of sensing our potential,
and patience till we come into our own.-
that we will tend it, and that it will flourish,
with more and more life
flowing in our home

Not a relationship of need
so much as dance - that we will each
bring out the richness of each other -
We will thrive, and it will thrive right with us,
all attesting to the potency of love.

©Wendy Mulhern
July 24, 2020

Chores on the Land

We spent three days
thwarting the plans of tansy,
pulling it by the roots,
cutting its yellow heads,
filling the plastic bags

There was time in the work for thinking -
how you spend so much of your life
trying to prove
to yourself and to others
that you are worthy,

And when you discover
your worthiness never was doubted,
always was secure,
there's still a sweet desire
to be of service,
to lend your gifts
to the great unfolding
of every day.

©Wendy Mulhern
July 22, 2020

Witness

It's so easy, on this wide land,
to see the Allness
and the presence of desire and joy
that rises up to meet it,
sustained in its acceptance,
the full enfolding of embrace
that sees, and so defines
each entity that basks in its all-presence

It's so easy, then,
to feel the Allness -
Spirit filling me like breath,
like wings, bearing my heart
up into the blue, where it unites
with everything alive.

©Wendy Mulhern
July 21, 2020

Reading in the Hammock

The summer winds heat up, crossing the fields,
but here among the firs, they find some coolness
and I find respite from the baking afternoon

Of the many kinds of nourishment,
this one of taking a loved book
and going somewhere else entirely
with my mind, with my attention,
feels like the one I need today

I will want more of this -
more, perhaps, than I will choose
to think I am allowed -
For now, though, I will take it
and escape.

©Wendy Mulhern
July 20, 2020

The Calculus of Infinity

The calculus of infinity
reveals the scope of blessing
prepared for you and me
right here, right now

No relativity of merit,
no struggle to be worthy,
no need to earn, no need
to learn the way to make things better

No need to even calculate
if it was you or I
Who occasioned the smooth running
of communication, whose wisdom
brought the harmony we feel

This presence of the infinite
determines everything, occasions
the overflow of bliss, of brightness,
that we hardly dare to hope for
but which always has been ours -
the largess of infinity
right here, right now.

©Wendy Mulhern
July 18, 2020

Easy Enough

It's easy enough
in the sun and the wind
and the all too rare
time of conversation
to have my head filled up with nothing
as I dump grass seeds out of my boots
and pick them out of my socks

Its easy enough
to let the rhythm of the day
and the chirps and dramas of turkeys
and the quiet fact of friendship
have the last word.

©Wendy Mulhern
July 17, 2020

Temple of Trees

The trees hold this most gracious web
against the heat,
limbs clasped above to shelter, sacred,
the hallowed shade

When we enter, the holiness
is already there,
like it was waiting for us.
Or maybe we complete the arc
when we receive their peace.

©Wendy Mulhern
July 15, 2020

Time Foolery

Time turns back and laughs
at how it has tricked me,
saying I had to wait,
had to wait for my time,
and then informing me
that I'm too late -
I've missed it, I've missed out -
all my time of waiting
was the time I could be doing,
could have availed myself
of all those promises
I sat around and waited for

But I will laugh at time,
for it has never owned me -
my life unfolds in a whole different sphere -
I never was too early, but it's also not too late -
I live in the infinity of here.

©Wendy Mulhern
July 14, 2020

Time for Healing

This is not about something having been wrong.
That topic would have me groping along the bars
assessing their materials and strength,
considering if they have a weak point

This is about the rightness
that has always been here, this is about
the light that can neither be obscured
nor confined. This is about
you here now. As you have always been

Lit up by grace, sliding through the illusions
untouched by them, free as a sunbeam,
establishing your own rhythm,
unfurling your own bright blooms.

©Wendy Mulhern
July 13, 2020

Old and New

The day grows late,
the shadows longer,
much I attended to
has passed away,
old goals abandoned,
and former hunger
is just an echo,
a line erased

Yet new fires burn,
new lights are kindled -
I look out from my eyes
and feel brand new,
for as I turn
from earth to Spirit,
a veil is lifted
from my view

There's still a long road
stretched out before me,
unending need
for me to pray -
the thought that I may
do good to someone
sustains my hope
and points my way.

©Wendy Mulhern
July 12, 2020

In Morning's Grace

Follow this brightness
back to its source,
see if you can fathom
what could bring it forth
morning by morning,
day after day

The magnitude of it, for one thing,
and the fineness of its resolution,
and the way we are given our place here,
in wonder and awe,
and illumined the same.

©Wendy Mulhern
July 11, 2020

Fluidity

A thought flows through itself,
turns inside out,
becomes something else,
like the swoop of a swallow
banking on the wind,
delivering the long sought,
dearly tasted
(in pre-birth memory)
freedom
that can only be defined
in this fluidity -
not in options for future actions
but in the essence which,
like water,
is innately unconfined.

©Wendy Mulhern
July 10, 2020

A Large Place

When I turned back to look,
the argument was still going on
inside my head. I let the curtains fall
and walked away - no point
in going in there

Outside, summer hums -
deer with fawns, swallows,
kestrels, bees. There is room
to stretch out, find fresh perspective

There's room inside for healing .
It is in the space more vast than summer,
than the great outdoors.
To understand the Principle
that makes me, day by day
sets me in my own large place, at peace.

©Wendy Mulhern
July 9, 2020

To Heather

My song sparrow, my thrush, my swallow,
May your sweet voice carry on the wind,
May you swoop in sheer delight
in concert with your kin

Since you took off, I've been trudging up this path,
Sometimes caught up in overwhelming beauty,
Often looking down and thinking it should be so easy
to just leap off and fly among these vistas

But I walk - there's plenty here,
and nothing else to do but keep on climbing -
One of these days I'll catch the peak
and then we'll see you maybe -
in that transfigured place where you have flown.

©Wendy Mulhern
July 7, 2020

Here Among the Daisies

I find myself holding
a hopeful, awkward affection
for people I have never met
whom I may meet someday

Imagination can't provide me words,
but I imagine listening,
hoping I will catch the cues,
and hoping, too, for lenience -
forgiveness for the things I fail to see

We get a moment's intersection
where it's possible
that we could find
a treasured understanding.
This I hope for, but I note
that we could also miss

For my part, I will hold my doors open,
my thoughts focused towards you
and not towards me,
I'll trust that I'll be guided
to the right words and perceptions
to see you as you most hope to be seen.

©Wendy Mulhern
July 8, 2020

Fledging

The swallows may fledge
today or tomorrow,
their parents are showing them
how it is done

I relate to these little birds
doing this thing, with no prior certainty
how it will go -
to fly off a beam and the rest of the day
try to work out
how to regain your altitude

Parents and, so it seems, other flock members
swooping in close, pecking, cajoling,
big clunky humans watching and guarding,
planning to help you up if you should fail

But you made it! The tight spiral up,
one almost miss,
and there you were back on the beam,
eager to snuggle back into the nest,
everyone cheering, especially us.

©Wendy Mulhern
July 5, 2020

The Clear-eyed Stillness

From the clear-eyed stillness
you can watch
while the whole mechanism
grinds out its tales,
ever more colossal in its efforts
to manipulate

You can see what they want.
And you can see how lost
they must be, to think they want that

You can watch them set their snare
and know you won't step in,
and you can see that finally
all it can bring down
is its own lopsided structure

Down with a crash
that will only result
in showing forth the light,
as, ultimately, everything does.

©Wendy Mulhern
July 3, 2020

Sweet

It is a tender time,
and the need for sweetness
may be mistaken for a craving
but it is really kindness we desire,
and the opportunity
to hold someone till all their fears dissolve,
to hold the stillness that can't be moved
because it is everywhere,
to say good night with the assurance
of sweet dreams, deep rest,
and the splendid wonder
of an untrammeled morning.

©Wendy Mulhern
July 1, 2020