One Morning

One day you’ll wake up feeling fine —

the dread that sullied

so many of your early mornings

gone — you’ll feel, within,

the strong light rising,

pure as blackbird song

For this, this bright upwelling,

is what you’re made of,

what you’re made for, too.

The thin veneer on which anxiety is etched

must wear away,

leaving nothing but the true,

which overcomes,

which carries all the days.

©Wendy Mulhern

June 17, 2018

Life Flow

In all the things we think we know,

so many things we don’t —

a city in a frond of fern, a universe,

the vast unfolding vibrance 

in the corridors between the cells,

all the exuberance that life can send

coursing through those unseen channels

In these two turkey hens

ambling among the ferns,

nonchalantly snapping up the bugs,

chirping conversationally as they step —

perhaps two nebulae

grandly moving through the depths of space

They all — we all — are orchestrated

in the unceasing law of Life’s eternal joy,

our movement so much deeper than will or whim,

held by its breathing through us all.

©Wendy Mulhern

June 16, 2018

Sea Change

(for Jennifer, from the biking philosophers’ notebook)

If clouds can soften all at once,

so can hearts, so can long-entrenched

opinions, and all our expectations

There is a language

beneath the languages,

there is a way we know

that we don’t know of,

there may be sudden sparks

that arc across the seeming distance,

showing us, at last, that we are one.

©Wendy Mulhern

June 15, 2018

Cartesian

Cartesian calculations fall unevenly

over the land —

we walk on the bumps of frost heaves

and mole diggings, deer boundings

and many other unknown forces

It’s the same with everything we thought we knew —

we’ve learned there’s no point in arguing

about minute alignments in the realm of straight lines —

they may inform us,

but none of them contain the final truth.

We need to find the places upon the land

where they all meet,

we need to soften every view

to find what’s true.

©Wendy Mulhern

June 14, 2018

Life Line

I don’t even wish

I had understood these things sooner —

they render such desires irrelevant.

Loss is gain, life propels us forward

I have clearly reached the place

of the divide of my life line

written on my right hand (not my left)

that I had wondered at since childhood,

told myself maybe the left is what counts for me,

being left handed. Maybe palm lines

mean nothing

In any case it doesn’t matter.

There are no circumstances which

avoiding would release me

from the journey I’ve been given,

no failure on my part which could deprive me

of the path where I’ve been sent.

©Wendy Mulhern

June 13, 2018

Tectonic

The aftermath of this momentous shift

has me rethinking

all the well worn habits of my thought,

noticing the places I have drifted,

how my feet don’t seem to quite touch down

The day hums along its course,

people meet and plan —

their life arcs are as perfect

as the cause that runs them.

And what is misaligned

will shift and come together,

smooth or volcanic,

it doesn’t matter

Just like me, just like my finding

that though I crash through pain,

I do not stay there, and everything

that comes to me can be redeemed.

It may take time, but time is not the factor —

it will take place,

it will be all that’s ever been.

©Wendy Mulhern

June 11, 2018

Dream Light

Where does the light in dreams come from,

here in the dark woods, in the dark cabin,

when rain is falling on the metal roof

and all the lamps are out?

How is it that I can know you in the dream

when I don’t really see you,

when we’re conversing

while both looking at the same object?

What is presence anyway,

and what is absence?

How do we see each other,

how are we seen?

This world is more mysterious

than I imagined, and vaster,

since it also houses the realm of dreams.

©Wendy Mulhern

June 10, 2018