Asymmetries

These asymmetries

must have their reasons,

a needed distinction

between upper and lower edge,

a way to account

for a difference in pressure, or drag

They must be balanced

by a corresponding weighting

on the other side —

the existence of one reveals

necessities of others

Nature doesn’t deal

in imprecision,

doesn’t throw any shape

carelessly about

Any distortion reveals the influence

of other forces,

the partnering in patterns

greater than oneself.

©Wendy Mulhern

January 18, 2020

Snow Drift

Day dawns slow and pretty

in the sifting, wistful snow —

sky dark, snow light,

air held in windless stasis

These days, our sense of purpose

can easily drift, though we walk

in the cold air and the snow crunch

and ground ourselves, as best we can,

among the winter trees

We will hold hands and remind each other

our work is not in things

we can tick off lists,

and our gain, from each day,

is somewhere deeper than here,

something we may see again sometime.

©Wendy Mulhern

January 14, 2020

Winter Sap

You wake and seek the life elixir

but the sap of trees is sleeping

and yours — perhaps it’s crusted over

in the stress of things you tell yourself

and the press of boxes you’ve taken in —

cold steel against the softness of your inner parts,

dull ache from where you try

to bend around them

But still there’s something —

the touch of air, or movement

against the blankets,

a feather breath of light, or of another,

and the warm liquid stirs, finds strength,

begins to run the lengths

up and down along the inside of your hopes —

you stretch yourself, you move,

you feel alive.

©Wendy Mulhern

January 13, 2020

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

Induction

I make my way by induction,

as by candle light, long before dawn —

I look, first, for the first reason —

why you would even open your eyes,

why you would care, 

why you would rise

I see you couldn’t be there

without the spark, you would be nothing

without desire

And if the spark is present,

it must really be the only thing —

it wouldn’t let itself

be mostly snuffed out

It wouldn’t let itself be used

to power anything unlike itself —

to power dread or burden,

or soul deadening requirements

If the spark is here

then it will dictate joy —

joy, and strength, and vigor —

it will spread the whole day

with sweet harmony,

for so it is, by nature

And if this is what’s here,

I’ll see it. Gently,

modest as the dawn,

radiant as day. I’ll recognize it

in every light that shows the way.

©Wendy Mulhern

December 4, 2019

Purpose

I will not look anywhere but here.

Here is the place where focus is possible,

here it can bore to the needed depth.

Things that fly outside may look attractive —

I may think I wish to turn, to sample, find them,

but that kind of skittering, finally

won’t drill down into

what I need to understand

This is something I know within.

It is a deep unarguable truth.

There may be stories told of freedom,

of flying high and wide,

but freedom without purpose

can’t sustain me,

and purpose is what’s mine to find right here.

©Wendy Mulhern

December 2, 2019

As it is written

“a man shall be as an hiding place from the wind, and as a covert from the tempest; as rivers of water in a dry place, as the shadow of a great rock in a weary land.”

If it is so, consider

how we will meet each other,

what joy will be occasioned

at the appearance of any one of us,

how glad we will be to receive each other

and to be received

The surrounding land will thrive in our presence,

life will spring up abundantly

in great diversity

And is this not — be honest —

what you have always hoped for?

— Of course it is, for this

is what you’ve always been,

this is what you always have deserved.

©Wendy Mulhern

September 9, 2018

Old and New

I can’t walk easy

along the paths I used to walk,

hedged by familiarity,

bordered, more distantly, by fear.

I can’t pursue the old hopes,

flanked by worry, with the protections

of bravado and blurred vision

I have to walk

now as ever

in the clear bright world

that has always been here, too —

a plain without paths,

a presence without arriving,

being caught up in the offering

of myself, like a mirror,

to the light.

©Wendy Mulhern

July 8, 2018

Open

The day has its gifts,

they require of me no planning,

just the openness to see them and receive

My worthiness

requires no earning,

just the willingness to be

open eyes to bring the moment home,

grateful heart to notice where I’ve come.

©Wendy Mulhern

June 28, 2018

I tell myself

It is good, I suppose,

that the hardest work of my life

be now, that there be no hope of

sliding into comfort, letting go the reins,

letting the next generation take over

I would find such comfort meaningless,

as much so as the offerings our culture sells

(having stuff, being stuff, doing stuff)

My need remains, for once, to find

what really heals the moment and the world

and it’s worth working for (this I tell myself,

though I feel so tired)

this I tell myself, knowing that it’s true.

©Wendy Mulhern

June 23, 2018

Cup and Puzzle

As to the question of

why I am here:

I am here for this moment,

here for this healing,

here for the cup of

whatever fills my day

The puzzle piece I am

is not improved

by trying to make it more

like other pieces

that have already fit in.

The puzzle piece you are,

likewise, will not be helped

by alteration

It is not mine

to choose another cup

but to drink this one

and be satisfied.

©Wendy Mulhern

June 3, 2018

Roofing

We get into the rhythm of the work,

pneumatic nail gun and the air compressor,

the scratch of asphalt shingles laid down against each other,

the soothing arc of our repeated motion

It smells like blossoms when we stop and notice,

the air is warm enough, cool enough too —

while many pieces of our lives are scattered,

this work is something we can do

The birds are taking up their evening chorus,

smells of people’s dinners join the breeze,

it feels like it’s a mode we could continue

for another couple years at least —

could be the course we take, the path we climb

unless, until, we’re lifted out of time.

©Wendy Mulhern

May 21, 2018

Rooftop Prayers

Dust and pollen have sifted

through the quiet air,

the soft breezes,

warm and wistful

have lifted 

the scent of lilacs

and brought it here

I will reach through this 

drifting afternoon, 

to find the prayer

that knows the heart

of all these living things,

and brings me there,

where I, too, can know

my core and highest cause,

where I, too, can be the message

long awaited, gladly shared.

©Wendy Mulhern

May 8, 2018

Calling

We will claim our purpose,

we will walk in it,

we will be as one with it

as it gives us power

and we propel it forward

We will be inseparable,

for, in fact, how could it be otherwise?

How could we be here

without our calling,

and how could our calling

exist without us?

©Wendy Mulhern

March 31, 2018

resolution

the anger of helplessness

the desperate resolve

the anger of helplessness

the rage of having

nowhere to stand

the desperate resolve

the anger of helplessness

the rage of having

every protest cut down

nowhere to stand

the desperate resolve

the anger of helplessness

the desperate resolve

the shift of paradigm

the letting go

the end of helplessness

the sudden silent dropping

of all the binding boxes

as contexts fall away like ash

the end of helplessness

the seed of hope.

©Wendy Mulhern

February 17, 2018

Touch me — a prayer

Touch me with your spirit,

touch me until I am lit up

to the point of discovering

I am all light

and my rays

are all yours

and my desire

all comes from what you are,

what you impart

Touch me so I feel recognized

from the inside out

so I know

there is nothing of me

that you don’t know,

nothing you don’t love,

and the lift I feel

all along my form

is just me touching in

to what you have held for me,

what you have held me as,

how you have beheld me,

all my days.

©Wendy Mulhern

February 16, 2018

Now

You don’t owe loyalty

to past stories,

you are not bound

by what you’ve done before

You are not bound by thoughts

or what you think people expect

or by trajectories you launched

from where you were

You are here now,

and what you are

comes to you fresh and pure

in this moment of your being,

in this moment of receiving

what is given you

and what you’re called to give.

©Wendy Mulhern

January 11, 2018

Still

I am with you

because we have found a way

to gather, as a thing distilled,

in the condensing places

where whatever mattered

from our words, and from our efforts,

what we noticed, what we cared about,

is concentrated in the quiet that we sit with

and shines the crystal brightness

of what’s true

I am with you

through and after all our struggles

because, willing or not,

we have been pressed to this purity.

Having come this far,

nothing else makes sense.

©Wendy Mulhern

January 9, 2018

Meaning

Nobody’s life has meaning

except for the shine,

except for the treasure

inherent in each breath,

each moment,

except for the purpose embodied

in the reasonless love,

the unquenched presence,

the truth that is always here.

©Wendy Mulhern

December 19, 2017