Dreams will be my friends

I find myself suddenly hungry

for fiction, for magic,

for peppermint mochas

in well-lighted places,

for time to get lost in a book

At the end of my dream

I found myself flying,

flapping huge wings

that started as arms,

down the dirt and gravel road 

through the woods,

back to the cabin

I stayed up late last night

reading and tending the fire

till I was too sleepy to continue.

The sleepiness returned today

before the work was over,

and the book was also calling me

We’ll go home soon,

and dreams will be my friends,

giving me story while they also

give me rest.

©Wendy Mulhern

November 10, 2019

A Truer Story

We are hungry for stories,

for story is the mind’s path,

the promise

that we could wend our way

out of the dullness of where we think we are

to something redemptive, 

something we can almost taste

And we are foiled

by the devil’s practice

of shoving the tails of the stories

into their mouths, of making sure

they only lead us back

to the same place

We are foiled by opposition —

by the assertion

that stories require enemies —

good guys and bad guys,

even if only in our own minds

There is a truer story.

It exists in the place before the impulse,

before the thought. It exists

in searing lifting pure light

of your still unnamed desire,

and if you follow it,

it will lead you home.

©Wendy Mulhern

October 19, 2019

New Sight

I will turn all the pictures in.

I will set my eyes to see

at cross dimensions,

in places that cut between,

that take the same colors

but make of them a wholly different story

Every story told in terms of good and bad

will change to true accounts of fine engagement —

they will sparkle easy grace

and glow with an intensity of depth,

they will shine with courage and surrender —

courage in how much we give for love,

surrender as we recognize

we never need to earn it

There won’t be anything there

that puts us in a bad light,

for there we will be seen for what we are.

©Wendy Mulhern

September 27, 2019

Day of Freedom

And now I’ll tell you of the time

when we all took off our crooked glasses

and shook our heads to focus our surprise

and spent some puzzled moments

trying to readjust our eyes

but then admitted

that here and now, as never

in our prior experience,

we could see

— because no longer did we need to fear

what someone else might think of us,

no longer did we need to squint

to weigh each other in the scales,

no longer did we think that judging others

was something we or anyone

was tasked to do

So we were free —

free to move with all the strength

and competence, and sweet compassion

that we always dreamed comprised our being,

free to love, with no fear of rejection,

free to trust our clarity of seeing.

©Wendy Mulhern

July 21, 2019

My ipod serves up love songs on the plane

I listen and my empathy

follows the threads of passion

(threads like water veins

upon the land below,

the rivers, lakes, the melting snow,

the cities clustered there, along the roads)

I feel the longing and the pain,

I feel the exaltation —

my spirit hums an all-embracing chord

that circles round the threads

and drops beneath,

enfolding them in overarching blue.

©Wendy Mulhern

April 24, 2019

The closest thing to a night without a poem

Days like this

it’s a good thing

it’s not up to me

to keep myself going

I would shrivel up, no doubt,

or wander aimlessly

toward the next thing

to put in my mouth,

would stumble around

from armchair to couch

I would be hopeless according to

all standards of achievement.

But here is the marvel: 

it’s not up to me. And here

is the moral: there’s no need

to hound myself (or anyone).

Our presence and goodness

are assured. Just not by us.

©Wendy Mulhern

March 24, 2019

Never again needing

It’s no small thing that we are given,

an afternoon with wind and ravens,

wind occasioning the dance of gracious firs,

ravens giving distant comment

There’s more — the blue of sky,

the blessing of companion hammocks,

the sense of never again needing

to have a story,

the blessed absence of internal words.

©Wendy Mulhern

September 2, 2018

Elemental

And if I am released

from the story of myself,

from its hopes and conflicts,

from its worries and pains

If I am willing, rather,

to find myself elemental —

swelling like magma behind the impulse,

comprised of the joy of the growing edge

Can I then cross over

into timelessness and wonder?

into selflessness and understanding,

into living as lens and mirror

to all that shines?

©Wendy Mulhern

August 22, 2018

Smoke in Seattle

We became subdued

as sun through smoke,

our motions neither radiant nor bright,

we found ourselves waiting

for rain, for wind, for night

but there was nothing, no change in sight

I didn’t want to see the trees die,

I didn’t want us to be cooked, slowly or rapidly,

I still believe

that this is all a story

and we will close the book and walk away.

©Wendy Mulhern

August 21, 2018

Beyond the story

There is a brand of helplessness

for every story. Let me not

be taken in

There is a way of winning

in every story. Let me not

be tempted

There is a way of breaking out

of every story. This is my hope —

to be unburdened from all former loops,

to be released

Beyond the story, where there is nothing

for me to win or lose or mindlessly repeat,

awaits the unity

or timelessness and opening dimensions.

Beyond the story

I am complete.

©Wendy Mulhern

August 3, 2018

The Costume Room

In the costume room

there were many choices —

things to put on you, things to put on me,

faces, masks, and characters,

roles and stories

In the costume room, we know

all these things were put on

and thus could sense that also

we could take them off

Here in the mirror world

it’s not so clear

what I project on you,

what’s really there —

we could be completely different people

in each other’s plays,

not even knowing it

and thus surprised

by all the things we see each other do.

Has it ever seemed that way to you?

©Wendy Mulhern

February 11, 2018

Mindful

Put your mind

in a place where it will dream,

let it be a wide open space

You will have, after all,

all the freedom you give yourself,

you will be able to get around

the things you stumbled on before

Let your dreams be teachers —

Even if you don’t remember

where you were,

you may be able to bring back

a way of understanding,

you may bring back

the potent calm you walked in.

©Wendy Mulhern

January 7, 2018

Release

They roar and rage

outside the door,

they hurl their cries

against the walls of their frustration.

They wouldn’t have to scream

if they could just get in,

if they could have the streaming

of connection

There is no pressure

when hand clasps hand

and understanding finds its level

in the flow between them.

There is a great release

as they let go of static standpoints

and embrace the view

that sees them all as one.

©Wendy Mulhern

January 5, 2018

Rebuilding

Lift up your eyes from the rubble —

these blocks are broken, crumbled,

they will not be re-stacked, reset,

they won’t be home or citadel

No use to pore, again,

through all the plans,

no use to wonder

where they were wrong

or why they failed

to keep the city from going under

Let us arise and build —

not with these

but with the substance

we are made of —

bright vectors of intention,

strong cords of close connection

and the steady purpose

that knows us even when

we don’t know it, the one

that guides us ever to our own.

©Wendy Mulhern

December 1, 2017

Our Transformation

When you looked up close at us

we were a misfit bunch —

none of our shapes exactly fit,

our parts adapted from some other use

We limped and lumbered along somehow —

it seemed remarkable, in fact,

that we had come this far,

and then the light shifted

and the vectors of our power aligned

Those parts that didn’t fit

never supported us.

As our lines straightened

and our rays gained strength,

the jalopy of our former sense of self

chugged to a stop,

abandoned in our upward climb.

©Wendy Mulhern

November 28, 2017

Sky Writing

Aghast at the clunkiness 

of words, I sit down

on a block of them,

unwilling to lift any,

unwilling to make a wall

Whatever it is

I may want to have said,

it’s better that I let

the surprise blue

of late afternoon sky

convey my meaning.

©Wendy Mulhern

November 15, 2017

Weight

It was a light task

picking up the ashes

though they are heavier

than they look like they’d be

It’s not so surprising, however,

that a lifetime of stories

would be ponderous

and besides

There are roots that go down

that must be still connected

where we can’t see them

that would also render

a package like this

hard to lift.

©Wendy Mulhern

November 14, 2017

A poem that almost got away

In order to take off,

thought needed

a bit more of a runway,

enough space between the tasks

to gain continuous speed,

(the weight of thought being

ponderous as it is)

In order to be caught

thought needed to soar first,

far enough that its arc of sparks

could be seen

That was the story, at least,

that was told 

to account for the silence —

thought, of course,

made the whole thing up.

©Wendy Mulhern

October 4, 2017

Paying up

There’s no escape for me

from the debt I owe

to my past,

no self-satisfied slide away

from what I was cast in

To be truly free

I must go back

to what I walked away from,

must bring the liberation I have won

to my perception

of those I left behind

This is not a task for intellect

nor for alleged virtue I have earned.

I surrender it

to the great truth that lifts me —

if I am lifted,

so, too, must be we all.

©Wendy Mulhern

October 1, 2017

Reassessing

And if it turns out

the rules we’ve been playing by

are not the real ones,

if it turns out

the object of the game

is not what we thought

and all our cheering on

and all our disappointments

all this time

have been askew

from how the actual score was counted

We may find

we still have made

progress we weren’t noticing —

skills attained, if faultily employed,

and gains that came 

from bringing our best efforts

to what we thought, till now,

had been the game

And then we’ll have a new focus,

and then the way we move will change

as we employ a more attuned alignment

and stretch into our fuller range.

©Wendy Mulhern

September 20, 2017