The wings set down in slow motion,
the beat, the beat, the fold,
the shift from flight to stationary balance,
a daily sight, a wonder to behold
And may the wings of my great aspiration
stretch out from stillness in the morning air
to gather wind beneath them and pump higher,
and take my wonder with them everywhere.
©Wendy Mulhern
February 28, 2023
Although the tales seemed so important,
perhaps they weren't -
perhaps all of us let pass
so many potential rides
to where we thought we'd go
But we're here anyway,
however much the same or different it is
from what we thought
And what I now know is,
I can't default to death -
it never was a train that I could board
However long it takes,
I'm bound for immortality
in my return to knowledge
of who I am.
©Wendy Mulhern
February 27, 2023
Long after dark, as night drifts on,
I wait for motes to settle,
but they don't, they float -
what do they know of gravity?
I sink deeper into myself,
beneath the weighting of importance -
everything is equal here,
everything is loved
And nothing that aspired to dominate
can touch any of this -
its motion and its stillness
are undisturbed
What holds them here
stays close around them,
cushions their essence
in perfect peace.
©Wendy Mulhern
February 26, 2023
We stretch out nodding off
before the fire's dry lullaby,
our toes up close
The cold wind that blew all day
keeps trying to snatch the heat
from the house
And the smiling setting crescent moon
casts its pale light
through the window
We have ways to keep warm
and ways to keep busy,
one of them being
to tuck ourselves in till tomorrow.
©Wendy Mulhern
February 24, 2023
Who wouldn't like to know
their song has been
like this one is for me -
profound experience of coming home
The well known journey language
of the music scale,
used simply, but with a reaching honesty
that finds the deep tones
supporting high, sweet shifting harmony
to tenderly induce in me
this longing, this relief,
this gratitude, this peace
We ply our art, we let it go
out in the world - we never know
if someone, somewhere,
has found that it transports them
to some inner chamber
or some wide, wild view
I will fill my world
with the lights of others,
I will use them to understand
the way we're knit together,
the way each of our gifts
can multiply collective bliss.
©Wendy Mulhern
February 23, 2023
I don't mind
being rendered silent,
my words, heretofore,
having, all too often,
served a regime I didn't even know of,
and certainly would not support
now that I know
Let me serve instead
what speaks for itself
in the web-connected movement
of every atom reaching
into its purpose, into its bliss,
every being finding, in its living, exaltation
in its joyful contribution to the One.
©Wendy Mulhern
February 21, 2023
No shadow is cast
upon that which glows
with the light which is given
to every thought of it,
every one of its conceptions
No shadow can cut across
the fact of love, known from within
as the only cause of being,
a care so infinite,
it wouldn't let any state be a mere reaction
Every mote of consciousness
is love, is loved,
is caused alone by Love,
and so the whole of it
is ever free.
©Wendy Mulhern
February 19, 2023
All of us want to be seen,
and all of us want to be known,
and each of us senses
the worth of our being,
the light that is wholly our own
And none of us want to be judged,
and none of us want to be told
of changes we need to make,
habits we need to break
if we would enter the fold
All of us want to be free,
and want our connections, too -
we want to belong
in a place where we're honored,
and honor our friends through and through.
©Wendy Mulhern
February 18, 2023
For after all, what are we about but
kindness?
It's our best sense of ourselves,
our best hope. It is what fills us up with sweetness,
enough in a moment to last a day,
enough in a day to rocket us
clear up to the stars
So how could we ever think
there is some score to settle first?
(I would be kind if only others
weren't mean to me)?
We've never really been about reaction.
What we are comes only from ourselves,
and what we are is kindness,
that dear embracing wisdom
which resonates within as deepest truth
and solves everything.
©Wendy Mulhern
February 17, 2023
And if you seek a meaning
somewhere deep beneath the surface,
if you seek a core, a source,
a point that doesn't move
with winds or time or changes of the light,
as you're coming closer
you will know you hope to find
what touches you, and what you touch,
as home
It is a well known feeling,
it's a tune
around which symphonies are written -
when you hear them,
you will circle, you will settle,
and your peace
will ring out like a truth you've always known,
will sound you as a song that is your own.
©Wendy Mulhern
February 16, 2023
It was a reminder
that February is still winter,
and that our rising plans
need patience built into them,
and that nature's gifts
require our attention:
What looked like moonlight at 3 AM
proved itself a carpet
and a sweet wet falling
of night time snow,
and displayed itself, come morning,
as early brightness, and an invitation
to go out, to take it in, to be directly under
geese, in constant commentary,
emerging low over the woods
and landing in the pond
And hearing blackbirds with their morning exaltations,
and seeing blue stretched out along the white
in what became shadows when the sun emerged
It became a snow gone conclusion,
as is often the case,
augmenting our gratitude
for our brief immersion.
©Wendy Mulhern
February 14, 2023
Just let me have
each day be as this one,
a practice within the art of perfection,
nothing essayed but that which arises
in service to the love and hope
that signal life
And let my practice
come to full fruition
so the truth I know
is seen, and celebrates
what holds us all in presence,
what brings up our desire and sense of purpose
and satisfies them.
©Wendy Mulhern
February 13, 2023
If a word could be a touch,
if a touch could change a mind,
if a mind could take in
every fact of presence,
that's the word that I would want to use
We spoke of
something beyond language -
the next, a deeper, comprehensive way
to share, communicate, express,
and come to understand
We felt the longing for it,
felt the hope that it be something
we will learn,
and maybe, truth be told,
this hope is proof
that this is something we already know.
©Wendy Mulhern
February 12, 2023
If I could put this picture
into your mind, if I could have you
feel the way it feels,
if I could draw the links to show
the concept that it illustrates,
maybe I could fully grasp it, too
And so I seek
the language that doesn't hinge on words,
that doesn't need the fraught traverse
from my thoughtscape
to some guessed construct
that I have of yours
Instead, this language holds your heart
as something infinitely dear,
and offers it a hearth
and traces what it longs to hear,
and lets you feel the welcome
that all home is made of,
and your heart will draw the picture,
absolutely clear.
©Wendy Mulhern
February 11, 2023
The central peace doesn't care
if plans are wild threads flung quickly
across the hours, snagging where they will,
or if the day unfolds as grass grows,
steady, but too slow to see
The central peace finds ways to touch down
in consciousness, with a task, with a smile,
with some small outreach of help
that stitches a moment in place
We are all embraced
in the central peace, which means
even if we think we don't have time
to pause, and let it come,
it still will find us.
©Wendy Mulhern
February 10, 2023
In the still, early morning,
when high fog masks
what the day might become,
in the span before colors
start to emerge from shadowed forms,
the internal song
and the heart of movement
rise up in the pre-dawn light
I must not direct this motion
lest I stifle it,
lest I frighten it away with expectations -
I can only present myself, willing,
bare feet to the floor,
and feel what happens
And the song starts up,
or maybe the movement first -
they incite each other,
and that consciousness I know of as my body
rides in the perfect harmony,
expressing, not inventing,
exploring, not directing,
making the dance its own,
knowing as it is known.
©Wendy Mulhern
February 8, 2023
Nothing really broke except a taillight.
Though it seemed for a moment
that every path had shattered,
that there was no more sense
and nothing more to follow,
in fact, the way that we could navigate
was still there - we could still take
the needed next steps,
we could come home
with a load of trees
and a replacement part,
and our sensibilities
could break through like sun
after all that rain.
©Wendy Mulhern
February 7, 2023
And as for the things I was thinking about,
in the air that feels like spring
while frogs sing in the north pond,
and the list of things to do
is long enough
that whole categories routinely
drop into the void,
and we feel good if there's one thing
we can check off the list
(though fifteen more creep onto it)
I forget what I was thinking about,
or what leaves me this odd contentment
while the fire has warmed the room
as evening slides towards night
and our moments, while prosaic,
show small signs of the gravitas
of eternity.
©Wendy Mulhern
February 6, 2023
Be astonished at what you find
in far-flung reaches of your mind -
more than difference,
what surprises
is recognition
What you were sure of
will surely topple,
and you will have
no will to stop it
as your eyes find
the hidden topic
and substance is revealed
So you're inducted into the secret,
no mystery to those who seek it,
and when it's time,
you, too, will speak it -
harmony of Mind.
©Wendy Mulhern
February 5, 2023
Memories flicker like lights
in the fire, in the windows' reflections,
and their reflections of each other's light,
dimmer, smaller, greener
in more distant iterations
The lights were real, and they still are,
however faintly I perceived them then,
however tenuous they may seem now
They may not light or warm me on their own,
but they do show me
the constancy of light through all my times,
which, when I turn to now,
lights up my present,
and also all the tunnels of my past.
©Wendy Mulhern
February 4, 2023
Young trees, we have great hopes for you -
we'll set your gangly roots down in our earth,
we'll try to keep you safe
from what would gnaw at you,
we wish you each a life of robust growth
We hope your limbs will soar and branch,
and birds will rest upon them,
we hope your roots will travel far,
communing with your neighbors
May your blossoms nourish bees,
and may your leaves be splendid,
may your shade be sweet and broad
and child befriended,
may we tend you well enough that you, in turn,
will flourish in your tending of the earth.
©Wendy Mulhern
February 3, 2023
I can almost touch
the sun-colored ripples,
when they come close, by my shoulder -
reminder of my essence and my source
So I remember:
my intimacy comes from there,
the present shimmer
gives me my constant light
No need to throw myself headlong,
down among the shadowed rocks
of circumstance, of social history,
of old and current wounds -
there is no comfort there, no guidance,
there's no solution there, no truth
And since the truth is here,
I will not leave. When I am tempted to,
I will be still, and bask. I will be still
and draw, from my life source,
all that I need,
and all I ever want.
©Wendy Mulhern
February 2, 2023
