Reins

Here is a dream of sweet movement,

something to find in the time

before attempted sleep,

something to bind myself to,

to embody, to walk in the steps

in which my feet rejoice

Here before lethargy paints

a bland blank wall,

let life bound up in me

and take the reins.

©Wendy Mulhern

March 6, 2020

Parade

Sure, the thoughts of things

I could have done differently

do parade themselves along

from time to time, still sail by

trailing their pronouncements

about how much better things could be

if only …

My policy is

to let them go by once

but not repeatedly,

and never to climb on board.

The now I have is, after all,

the only one I’ve ever had

or ever will. And so it follows

that all good things are here for me,

as they’ve always been.

©Wendy Mulhern

March 27, 2019

Artifacts of Refuge

Every one of these structures

is a place of refuge, a thing

cobbled together against the void,

the glass-crushing nothingness

of rejection. For fear that we’d

implode and shatter, 

we have built these forms —

so many of them,

in such different modes

And if we knew there is no void,

no vacuum, we could walk free.

We wouldn’t be attached

to all those convoluted rules,

those strange behaviors

If we knew the Allness

covers all of us, 

we would be united.

And we would know we’re safe,

and be at peace.

©Wendy Mulhern

February 13, 2019

Simply

It is a simple thing

being here, in the land of reflection

There may be refractions,

bright angles, shafts of light

coming in from unexpected places —

they magnify the radiance,

they show its different facets

Sometimes I can trace them,

sometimes not. Yet simply

I am filled up with the glow

and simply

I am satisfied.

©Wendy Mulhern

December 26, 2018

Just Saying

I’m not saying anything

about the quality of the box.

It’s a lovely box, and I can see

how it has given sense to your life,

a frame from which to view,

with which to order

all the currents streaming through your mind

I’m not saying anything

about the quality of the cage.

Certainly it’s a fine cage,

gilded and artful. It sets off your plumage,

provides a visual counterpoint

to your graceful lines

I’m just saying

something inside is making me

want to walk away. I don’t want

to try those containers out,

at least not now.

©Wendy Mulhern

November 29, 2018

Drug of Choice

Every one of them, it was said,

has their drug. Once they taste it,

they’ll go to great extremes

to get their next fix.

They’ll feel the promise of that

rush of aliveness, they’ll crave

the affirmation that seems

so certain to be felt

as they receive, once more,

the dearly sought elixir

Every one of them, it was said,

can be roped in just like that,

can be controlled, can be enslaved . . . 

They didn’t reckon on

the dawning recognition

of the light that saturates everything,

that satisfies everyone’s desire.

©Wendy Mulhern

July 26, 2017

Satisfy

What satisfies?

What fails to satisfy?

What offers home,

what fails to?

What is family?

How does it meet our needs?

We’ve been tricked for so long

about all this

As things we’re told to hold to

sift like light between our fingers,

as each promise glimmers

always out of reach,

as all the coached for goals

bring rewards that echo hollow,

we turn and turn 

until we cease our turning

What satisfies

like light to open eyes

opens home and fits us safely in it,

finds cords of family

that pull enduring love

down and richly down

through generations.

©Wendy Mulhern

June 1, 2017

The Moments of My Knowing

I had a hunger today

that paced around looking

for what would satisfy,

coming up short

time and time again

I wanted that hardwood core,

that heartwood coal

whose glow spread clear and even

with a heat that burnt through

all illusions,

resolving the confusions

of generations of lost souls,

the weariness, the giving up,

the vague loss of attention

that set us drifting

(even as I was today)

in search of something

we have lost the definition for

So to become lost

in a body not of my choosing,

so to be self-punished

for all my shortcomings

When truthfully the center

of my satisfaction

is something that I own

and am able to fulfill,

daily, in the moments of my knowing,

here, in the place I am aware.

©Wendy Mulhern

January 17, 2017

Fathered

We had felt ourselves fatherless

for so long. Bereft of the security

of a wise hand, a holder of place 

for us, a steady arm

guiding our wobbly efforts

We had been fatherless, and

so had our fathers, betrayed

when they reached out

for crucial aid

We carried ourselves thus,

tentative, cringing from expected blows,

trying to take up less space,

to go unnoticed 

and so avoid expulsion

So astonishing to learn

Our Father has been with us all along

providing bright support around our heads,

plenty of ground to stand on,

plenty of headroom,

extending past to future

all along the presence of our days

As we walk, now royal,

in the exclamation

of our stature as beloved

sons and daughters of our Father,

welcomed home.

©Wendy Mulhern

December 29, 2016

Unveiled

My eyes are new,

the dew still rests on my perceptions —

they have that brighter than life quality,

the startling delicacy of something 

not yet parted from their maker

I blink, I feel the moisture

around my eyes —

may they so ever stay!

May every day refresh my vision,

may the new edge of my learning

always roll out in surprising colors.

If there is a destination

let me not dwell on it

till I arrive.

©Wendy Mulhern

October 24, 2016

Need

Look up —

Right here where you are,

exactly what you need

is at hand. Each moment is packed

with more richness 

than you could have imagined,

each person equipped

with what will fill you

with the heart-full rush of sustenance

However barren the landscape may look,

however threadbare your prospects,

however empty you may feel your interactions are,

what you need is ever always here

Look again —

The power of your love

will open all the secrets,

and the bounty that is waiting for release

will tumble out for you in grateful eagerness

to be the priceless thing that meets your need.

©Wendy Mulhern

September 3, 2016

Joy in Heaven

We’ve been dwelling in that bright edge

called Joy in Heaven, called

glory of needs met, the clasp

of reunion, the satisfaction

of soul-hunger fully fed

We didn’t know

that what seemed to us as

long nights with no stars,

deep tunnels with no exit,

hopes dashed again and again

was really just a backdrop

for the enduring truth

of our awakening

We didn’t realize that the bitterness

of what we thought was our perpetual betrayal,

when sweetened by the taste 

of our belovedness,

would turn out to be

something else entirely,

something deeply craved

by all the host,

something greatly celebrated

as we come home.

©Wendy Mulhern

August 24, 2016

Waves

I watched the waves come in steady —

for each three breaking, three more would appear.

At every moment, some were ending,

some were forming,

some would break and some just disappeared

I thought of life, of opportunities

as if each were a wave, as if I had to choose,

as if some waves would bring me

the fulfillment that I hoped for,

while other choices might well disappoint

and then I watched the light across the water,

the brightness of the blues, the constancy

of all the pattern, and I knew

what comes into my life is not beholden

on luck or on the choices that I make

Just as all this sea

is given to my eyes, and all this beach,

so all my days are given me, and all their joy —

There are no misses, no crestfallen choices.

The one who gives me life 

has promised goodness, too,

and gives it constantly

throughout my days.

©Wendy Mulhern

July 9, 2016

True Love

We build our little tipis, wait for fire,

we love the roar and warmth

and then it dies,

We’re left with ember, ash,

we’re left to ask:

where will we get the wood next time?

We seldom even notice that we haven’t asked

What lights the fire anyway?

And what of us has been consumed,

What has been fed?

What’s the sustaining substance of our joy?

Here is a secret: in our natural state,

we’re lit up not by burning but by being,

No conditions are required,

and we don’t need to wait —

Our love is in our yearning and our seeing

Our love ignites — it doesn’t need to be ignited,

our love is light before a fire is even lighted.

©Wendy Mulhern

June 19, 2016

Pioneers

In time we stopped wishing

we knew someone

who knew the answers,

stopped fearing

we would make terrible, stupid mistakes.

In this place, we are pioneers,

alone in the stature of our own thoughts

As we work

the generous scent of kindness

rises from the land,

blackbirds trill by the pond,

a raven riffs in a nearby forest

while songbirds fill the closer,

lower, places

with their exuberance

What we need to know

will come to us

in the logic of our needs

and in our birthright of belonging.

We find clarity as we listen,

we will fill our place

as surely as all of these.

©Wendy Mulhern

May 30, 2016

Bread of Life

Oh — taste this:

The bread of life

is not a metaphor —

What really sustains us

is not metabolism,

and what we’re made of

really is the one thing,

the flavors of which 

are joy, exhilaration, love

What sustains us in our being

is kindness, and seeing others true,

and gladness to be here,

to be the light of life.

©Wendy Mulhern

May 10, 2016

Shelters

Later in life, I’ve found

there are many kinds of shelter,

many ways we lean upon each other,

many structures that give us what we need

(fairy tale castles, after all,

being hard to come by,

and within, beset by drafts and rodents,

picture perfect cottages proved lacking

in dimension)

I have a lean-to in a corner of my mind

that’s made of nothing, as far as I can tell,

except my love,

I have a fire

that delights me every time

I find it still burning,

its cheering flames

produced by time with friends

I have a sense that after

all my fumbling efforts at this life,

the shelters lost, or casually abandoned,

I’ll come to find that nothing mattered,

and everything did,

that shelter resides

in any circle of support,

and they are numerous

as crystals on the shore.

©Wendy Mulhern

April 28, 2016