Myrella's Interpretation

In this video, Myrella Thompson performs a movement interpretation to my poem Taproot, read by Love Rising. The Music is Chilled Cream, by Blank and Jones.

Taproot

The roots of your connection

go down deep —

Like comfrey, they reach into the subsoil,

pulling up the minerals

that rise from ancient bedrock.

Whatever artifice has been applied,

whatever degradation of the soil,

you are equipped

to tap the primal nutrient

and bring it back

into the cycle of life.

Don’t ever think that you can be defeated —

Like comfrey, if they chop you,

you will come back stronger,

by virtue of your simple insistence

on the right of life to thrive,

and of each living thing to manifest

just what it is —

not made for any purpose other than its own

and its essential link to everything.

©Wendy Mulhern

August 4, 2013

On Touch

Last Sunday I did a poetry presentation, with the help of some friends. This video is longer than fits the flitting attention span of social media browsing, but it develops an idea that I’m currently very excited about. I’ll post shorter segments as we are able to get them ready. I also look forward to sharing my friends’ presentations.


)

Metamorphosis

Nothing stops the peace

of this release:

The shrunken husk,

the burst cocoon,

curls in upon itself

and so recedes

No need to seek its cloister

anymore

The bright wings pumping full of life

stretching out to own a greater sphere

affirm my purpose

and epitomize

why I’m here

So I begin to learn

to move, inhabit this expansive dome

To seek the currents in the air

To find myself at home

And if I need to feel a close embrace

I’ll seek it in a way that lets my wings stay free

Angelic cradling and seeing, face to face

how we embody what we’re meant to be.

©Wendy Mulhern

May 2, 2012

Music in background: "Evening Chat" by Isaac Shepard

Bedtime Prayer

One last cocooning prayer

before I sleep

One last tuning 

with that which keeps me

One last recall 

of what prevents my fall

The tender cradle

that enwraps us all

The cozy blankets

and the horizontal plane

won’t, on their own

assure my peace

but my true thanks

and prayer with soft refrain

will bring me home

and set my soul at ease.

©Wendy Mulhern

April 30, 2012

(Background music: Isaac Shepard, "Slow Down")

Infinite Comfort

What rescues you

when you are smothered under

the sense of being thought of as a number? —

the numbing nothingness of being counted,

accounted for, 

packaged and dispatched, 

your measure taken,

assessed, dismissed

and so forsaken?

Any act of life can rescue you

and anyone or any living thing can do it

The scent of petals, kissed by warming wind

A smile unweighed, uncalculated, treasured

Or seeing someone needs you as a friend

A gift of time untallied and unmeasured

Whatever focuses on what is infinite

will make a place for you

and bring you into it.

©Wendy Mulhern

April 29, 2012

(background music: Isaac Shepard "A Fond Farewell")

a humble prayer

today

let me own no opinion

let me be led

let me not try

to construct meaning,

envision purpose,

steer my craft

there is plenty here

in this receptive place

enough to do

in learning, listening, following

that I don’t need

to pull a plan from the air

don’t need to

invent or vaunt myself

it’s enough

to be here.

©Wendy Mulhern

April 25, 2012

Soul holding

And when he leaves his home each day

Embarks upon his sea of consciousness

Alone along the arc he travels

through crowds and conversations, correspondences

Who holds him, stands beside him, with him, guards him?

And when she hugs her cat

and leaves for work

in shoes she chose to play the part

along the corridor down which she walks

so far from any touch or recognition

Who holds her? In whose heart resides her image?

Who keeps a constant cord of close connection

belays her, holds the strong affection

to draw her home, remind her who she is?

How is it that we spend

the vast part of our day alone

tossed in the waves of our perceptions?

So dear it is to hold in thought the anchor

of someone who is holding us within

Then, friends, let us each lift up a soul

For something so intense

it is astonishing

how light they are

And that’s because they’re held already

Glistening as strings on Spirit’s harp

Suspended intricate and steady

Still grateful for our touch

that wakes them up.

©Wendy Mulhern

April 18, 2012

Picture: Jennifer McCurdy, Gilded Wind Nest. Photo by Gary Mirando.  Background music: Max Richter "Andras"

In this house of prayer

In this house of prayer

that is me —

everything I am —

With daily intermittent bursts

I find

the freedom from all other law

No weight of history

no drag of social norms

no march of time

no fear, no fading sense

no falling off of purpose

no decay

can touch the being

I am learning here

Surrendered to the dawn of the divine

my every move impelled

by that which constantly

surprises me

I find its grace, its elegance

so intricate, so fine

unfolds my joy to feel

the Soul-force that comprises me

In this house of prayer

I learn to move in love

to see that this is what I am

and all I live to prove.

©Wendy Mulhern

April 5, 2012


(background music: Isaac Shepard, "Fleeting Moments")

Everyday Miracles

 (Inspired by Leo’s words)

The miracle is what we do together

It’s not required that you or I

should raise the dead

For now it’s plenty

that we be alive

And that we each

bring our small gift

and see it multiplied

by all the others who have done the same

The miracle is what we do together

It’s not required that you or I 

should light the world

But that we each conduct

that bright electric spark

that holds our hands enclasped

while the current

the one that lights our every cell with life

flows through us and illuminates the whole

The miracle is what we do together

It’s how we feel to have our thread of song

caught up in harmony and echoed through each other

in that great chord to which we all belong.

©Wendy Mulhern

April 4, 2012


(background music: Isaac Shepard "back to basics")

Wishing

The power of a simple wish

If left in peace to germinate

Will gather secret energies

Push through the surface

And create

As perfect as a tender leaf emerging

The image that impelled the wish’s urging

You wished for home —

That place we all desire —

Not that we travel all those miles and hours

But that right here, with no need to acquire

You feel home’s deep rejuvenating power

And so it was, a few turns down the road

A sign we followed, mostly just to see

Where every token that, for you, said home

Was waiting there in breathless harmony

And not that place alone, but others since:

Each time we let the wish unfold in peace,

It shows its graceful power to evince

surprising bounty

in the meeting of our needs

Such gifts await us!

Such satisfaction we may know

By cherishing the wish

Then letting go.

©Wendy Mulhern

March 30, 2012

(background music:  Isaac Shepard, "Let Me Sleep")

Love and Magic: Three Enchantments

 I.

When people love

they make magic

Everything living responds to it

Land rises up at its touch

Joyfully bends as it bends them

Brings forth a beauty

that calls forth their love again

making both ever more rich.

II.

In the dance of love

The will does not reside in either entity

It hovers in that charged and potent

mystic space between them

When they move to follow it

it’s nothing like

the simple, hollow closure

that comes from exercising one’s own will

It’s an exhilaration

and it brings a jubilation

and a satisfaction nothing else can fill.

III.

Magic is real

It is the dance of love

Everyone who loves creates it

sparkling in everything they touch

Others, when they see it, know it

Even if it’s nothing they can name

That which has been loved

will lift them

Bless them so they’ll never be the same. 

©Wendy Mulhern

March 27, 2012


(background music: Isaac Shepard, "Into Spring")

The Currency of Hearts

for Leo and Magda

For those who understand

the currency of hearts

nothing else is needed

though many things can be used

A smile, a hug, an offering of food

A sympathetic tear, consoling words

The currency of hearts

affords a richness

you can’t accrue in any other way

It multiplies its treasure instantly

Fills souls with joy as sun fills up the day

It doesn’t matter what you have

How large your gift, how polished you appear

It’s not the gift that makes you rich

But that you honored

your own heart’s desire

to share.

©Wendy Mulhern

March 24, 2012

(background music: Isaac Shepard, "Triumph of Love")

Monday, downtown

Monday Downtown (background music: Isaac Shepard "Before Dawn")


Oh, humanity!

Working at your tired charades

Moving through so many empty boxes

Desiccated corridors

Courses without meaning

Look how amazing you are!

Look how, even when the rules are cast

to close out any purpose, light or joy

You still find ways to shine:

Within this skewed account of life

your light slips through the chinks

and though at times refracted

blazes forth

Makes us maybe take a while to notice

all the places where it is suppressed

Just think: if we were free

what brilliance we would show

It is our destiny

We will prevail

We will shine clear

We’ll banish all the false demands

The failed array of hoops, constrictive bands

Deny the faulty purposes

that disappointed us

Swing free

on the strength of our unstoppable

creative rush!

©Wendy Mulhern

March 19, 2012

Lullaby for Heather

Mother Love, wrap up your child

in comprehensive arms

Broad enough to hold her every hope

Soft enough to nurture all her charms

Close enough to smooth her brow

and rest her eyes

Strong enough to bear her 

swiftly through the dreaming skies

Synchronize her heart with yours

Refresh her with your peace

Deliver her with clarity

and new found ease

Mother Love, infuse her with

your bright delight

and bold and brilliant action

in the morning light.

©Wendy Mulhern

March 18, 2012

(background music: Max Richter, "Fragment")

All I want

(background music Isaac Shepard "All Smiles")

All I want

is everything —

It’s not too much to ask

All I want is oneness

To soar in tune

in the surging seething symphony

of being

To be the roaring pounding flow

of all things living

To have my own song

constantly meet its harmony

My rhythm locked ecstatically

in polyrhythmic counterpoint

My down-bounce catapulting

someone else’s flight

All I want

in this moment

is the bright contact

that multiplies light

That pulses back the richest chord

and wraps us

in its sacred ring of sound.

©Wendy Mulhern

March 11, 2012

Being One

Together we are

so much older

than how we think of you and I

It’s said our DNA is from the stuff of stars

concocted in their furnace

in the ancient skies

The blood we share

knows that it’s one ocean

It doesn’t feel the boundaries between

It pulses through us in a steady motion

Reveals that we are what we’ve always been

Though atomized for now

we are one body

We long for nothing more than going home

to where we feel the fall of every heartbeat

Each keeping our own rhythm

though we breathe as one

To move as one fulfills us primally

Our wave reverberating to eternity.

©Wendy Mulhern

March 9, 2012

(background music: Max Richter "Interior Horses")

Moon Lullaby

Lay my head on moon-touched clouds

Suffuse my sleep with moonbeams

Let their coolness flow along my breath

Their sweetness reaching deep into my dreams

So permeating, let its light refresh

with gentle steadfastness

my halting meditation

Bring to me the comprehensive rest

that stills my heart’s incessant perturbations

Hold me in your light

till morning’s wings arise

to bear me into day’s resplendent skies.

©Wendy Mulhern

March 7, 2012

(background music: Isaac Shepard, "Foolish Youth")

On the bus

On The Bus (Background Music: Max Richter "Horizon Variations")


On the bus

I look at you

and you, and you

and think of you as loved.

I notice, suddenly, how cute

you are — those shoes

and how your feet slip into them

That chin, that slight tilt of your nose

And you, that face, that’s smiled

so many times, that has such memories

within its lines

Could be your smile right now is from the thought

of something twenty, forty years ago . . .

I do it as an exercise

I think of you as loved . . .

I find a smile has settled

on my face

And now, a visual litany

a thought parade of those I love

Recites itself unceasing

in my mind

A treasure, this

Well worth the weight of carrying

Indeed, it carries me

with all the energy I need

into my day.

©Wendy Mulhern

March 5, 2012

Weight and Lightness

Nothing in this world —

Nothing —

Not houses, not credentials

Not webs of friendship —

Has any strength to hold

the steady falling of the heart

They break like spider silk

against its weight

And it will fall right through

until it feels

the centered force of its own gravity

Until it slows

in thoughtful drift

and feels the atmosphere that gathers

meditatively

around its presence

Everything in this world —

Everything —

Each sense of home, each memory

Each smile exchanged —

Has grace to hold

the precious light that shines upon it

Grace to catch that light

and shine it forth

and be illuminated

Light that has no weight

That sits so brightly

on each snow crystal, each

hair of thistle down, each poised hope

that meekly lifts itself

into its own being.

© Wendy Mulhern

February 27, 2012

(background music: Isaac Shepard, "People and Puddles")