Mother Wave

When the mother wave comes for you,

you will be cradled,

you will be borne up,

you will be bathed and buoyant

You will not miss

what you are swept away from,

you will not mind

how naked and how new

you feel, how far away

from your tongue are any words

When the mother wave comes,

you will delight in stillness.

all your worries gone,

your heart at home.

©Wendy Mulhern

March 17, 2020

Circling Home

We keep on circling home

like coins that spin and fall

and ring and ring

before they find their still point

We circle home

and our sudden sadnesses

bring us up short.

It may be a long fly

before we realize

we never left.

©Wendy Mulhern

December 22, 2019

Gentle

The gentle laws that hold us

don’t need us to understand —

we can have wildly different concepts,

we can have our faith placed

in all manner of nothings,

we can be full of worry

for all the ways those nothings let us down

The gentle truth is not impressed

by where our minds may roam —

whether we fall or climb,

whether we stall or rage,

whether we pine or ponder,

or place is still assured

The stillness, somehow,

will approach us, will wait,

will be there when we pause,

will catch us up in welcome arms,

settle us in 

to where we’ll know for sure that we belong.

©Wendy Mulhern

December 21, 2019

Softening

The softness of the day at three

is a fine gift — softness of wind,

warmth from the sun,

a softening of urgency

to get things done,

a sense of progress,

a sense that our release,

while not in sight as yet,

could come some day.

©Wendy Mulhern

November 3, 2019

I take my shoes off

Once again, I settle in to Soul,

the home that dwells in every moment

waiting to support, affirm,

waiting to release me

I take my shoes off.

I breathe deep. No longer

out of breath from sweating,

I can find the rhythm

of the full cycle. No longer pinned

under conflicting propositions,

I feel myself float. I let myself expand

It’s so freeing to remember

I am not enslaved. I owe no consequence,

have no indebtedness,

no fear, no shame —

my life is here in Soul,

and Soul knows my name.

©Wendy Mulhern

September 28, 2019

Home Within

You come home to yourself

and you may realize

you didn’t need to play those games

of measuring, of shoring yourself up,

you didn’t need to feel attacked or slighted

The clarity you felt in moments

when you saw another from the inside,

when you understood a way of moving

in centered calm and mastery —

That’s you — and it can lead you 

safely through the clouds of doubt,

it can deliver you

before you even fall into confusion

It is you, and you can stay there,

secure in what you ever more will be,

home in yourself, and royal

all along the colored roads of life.

©Wendy Mulhern

September 13, 2019

We Call it Home

We call it home —

many other beings

call it home, too —

we find our place,

we make our peace,

we settle in

and start to know our neighbors

We make it home —

many other beings

make it home, too —

we make our place,

we find our peace,

we all are here

in concert with each other

We find it fine —

many other beings

find it fine, too —

we make our place,

we call our peace,

here in the verb

of work and living

the beaded strand of jeweled days.

©Wendy Mulhern

July 7, 2019

The Choir of Heaven

To bring in range the choir of heaven

consider what it means

that there be no more death —

not now or ever — that the whole veil

be drawn away, and we perceive that

no one, and nothing, has ever died

If there has been no loss

of loved ones, or of wisdom,

or of life experience,

of ancient ways of knowing,

of lessons dearly learned,

of birds and animals,

of fish, of trees,

of anyone who loved them

That whole choir of ancestors

and children, and newly resurrected hope

would fill the realm of home,

would fill infinity —

Yes, I will be there, too

and yes, I too will sing.

©Wendy Mulhern

April 5, 2019

Lift

And if, today, I offered refuge,

and if, in any way, it was received,

if I spoke truth about a living comfort

and if, at least in part, it was believed

Then I, too, can ride along the lift lines,

I, too, can share the haloed glow —

the gift of refuge, offered freely, will afford me

peace I otherwise might never know.

©Wendy Mulhern

March 12, 2019

Arctic Chill

Days like this

bring out the memory

of hibernation. We take naps

on the couch, we wake up

to mammalian smells

and dark that fell

while we were sleeping

Our brief trips outside

have sweetened the warmth

of our dwelling,

the fire speaks to us

in familiar tongues.

©Wendy Mulhern

January 31, 2019

Winter Rain

Mist hides the distance,

rain knocks against the house,

we turn on lights against the dark and cold,

a fair-dealt day of winter

eliciting our fair response —

napping, dreaming,

drawing close to family,

seeking the inner light

each holds as beacon,

seeing the radiance

of our harmonic shine.

©Wendy Mulhern

January 5, 2019

Welcome Home

You can go ahead

and set those worries right down

in the hall. You don’t need

to carry them upstairs

Come in, relax — every part of you

is welcome. We will thoroughly enjoy

all that you are

Even Awkward, that funny half-relative,

can feel at home here.

We don’t take him too seriously,

which comes as a relief to him.

I saw him settling in, with new ease,

leaning in to the surrounding laughter

We’re glad you found us. Whether you traveled

five hours in a sleigh, or six in an airplane,

or ten minutes across the bumpy winter grass,

your coming makes our circle rounder —

your presence is desired.

©Wendy Mulhern

November 27, 2018

The Road Home

The road home was clear —

red lights streaming on ahead

but not too many,

no fog, no rain,

music to soothe

and some to keep us wide awake,

navigating traffic, hills, and bends

The road home is clear.

(We’ve learned, for now,

not to talk about it much —

it’s solo, after all,

and not negotiated)

When we arrive,

in some sense, in some aspect,

we may share with each other

what we have gained.

The road home

may not be always clear,

but we will own it,

we will persevere.

©Wendy Mulhern

November 12, 2018

Celebrated

Outside and inside,

two kinds of evening glow,

and there’s one thing —

really only one—

you need to know

As sun’s last light

paints orange above the hills

and the fire has finally

driven out the evening’s chill,

there’s one thing —

really only one needed —

to make the warmth stay,

to make it real

Heaven and earth

may be the same playground

where the children of the house can romp.

They are never uncompanioned,

never left alone, 

they’re always celebrated,

always home.

©Wendy Mulhern

November 9, 2018

Late Afternoon

The bite of breeze

and the smell of earth

and the fading warmth

of the late-appearing, early setting sun,

a time to feel

rich in my domain

and glad of others’ work well done

The land is holy,

full of so much life

that flows so quickly

into any opening

I don’t know what kind of bird or animal

made the trilling, cooing sound

off in the distance

between the noises of machinery

but it sounded sweet,

it sounded like home.

©Wendy Mulhern

November 8, 2018

Indoors

We can also find pleasure

in aesthetics, colors combining

in journals, in fabrics,

musical artistry, broadcast for viewing,

planes of reflection, hum of appliances

One could spend time indoors

in a place like this,

hardly missing the somewhat tame outdoors.

There is time for this

when the rain pushes in,

and there’s gratitude,

gratitude for shelter.

©Wendy Mulhern

October 26, 2018

Coming Home

There are many ways to come home —

driving a truck north through the rain,

building a fire, centering thought 

In each place called home

there are needs to meet

and ways we are met

So we have come home,

today, as many days.

Tomorrow we will come home again,

from where we have been,

in tomorrow’s ways

We seek the same thing

and we find it,

ever the same, ever new.

©Wendy Mulhern

October 26, 2018

Home

In this damp afternoon

you long for home,

and it seems so far away —

removed in space

or else in time

And the memory

(or is it imagination?)

of walking into a place

and feeling you can relax

since you belong here,

since you are loved,

is as palpable as thirst

It can feel like

we don’t understand

our place in time, in this time,

with these currents of culture

so profoundly disconnected

The big trees that thrive here,

trunks heavy and mossy,

leaves fluttering, turning,

have their own sense of time and place

that we could take shelter in

if we knew how.

©Wendy Mulhern

October 6, 2018

Happy Home

Happy to have home, and be home

happy for warmth

and the restitching of friendships,

happy for time together

and the space to be open-hearted,

happy for peace within

Happy for sunshine with crisp, cold edges,

happy for walking beneath blue sky,

happy for trees and their timeless embrace,

happy for miracles.

©Wendy Mulhern

February 22, 2018

Moving out

We will walk out of that house

and maybe leave the sadness behind,

let it become the emptiness

that calls out to another family

Let them imagine

filling the space,

growing up into it,

finding its secrets

and making their own

while we walk

into our new life

surprisingly unencumbered.

©Wendy Mulhern

January 24, 2018