Dream Scenes

Behind my closed eyes

images form on black,

an illustration for the music —

big wheel rolling, big cogs turning

I wonder about light in dreams,

how it comes in, at what point

my mind decides it sees,

and when and how the vibrant colors

tune themselves into being

I’ve been journeying again —

errant socks lost

in the picking up to move —

some caravan, its character

mostly unremembered,

The trundling of the dream

interrupted

and so quickly left behind

with the dawn.

©Wendy Mulhern

November 9, 2014

Cozy

Within the warm enclosing orb,

a concentrated calm,

a softly emanating glow,

a home, a welcome balm

Come in, come inward —

Here is the essence of cozy —

This house, this room,

these people,

This place inside yourself

where you are content,

where your inner lamp

warms your corners

and draws your world 

into your embrace.

©Wendy Mulhern

November 8, 2014

Day of Color

Today the artful wind

harnessed exuberance,

filled the early sky with roiling gold,

chased it, then, with dark showers,

burnished leaves whipped along the road

Then momentary blue, then

the full palette of fall’s splendor

lit up against the backdrop

of a gray sky

And I was nourished

by tunnels of color,

roads wreathed in leaves

above and under,

Fed by red, maroon, gold and umber,

eased into evening

by the sky’s 

wind-swift turning.

©Wendy Mulhern

November 6, 2014

Channels

We are so at home together here

in the realm beyond the worries and the posturing,

beyond the trotting out of

constructs of ourselves

comprised of fear, resentment, and bravado,

We are home together here

where your sweet, responsive 

flowing essence

runs so close against me,

merges in the harmony

of what we are

and what we now discover

in the streaming of our being

down the deep swift channels

of our common Soul.

©Wendy Mulhern

November 5, 2014

The Daily Choice

In the riddle there are two knights —

One can only lie, and the other

only tell the truth,

In the riddle you don’t know

which is which

but in real life, you do

So stop conversing with the lying knight!

He won’t, at any given time,

decide to guide you right.

He’ll keep you rammed against the same brick wall

facing disappointment, facing blight

In the daily choice for joy or misery,

the misery will tell you you don’t care,

that nothing matters much, and death comes anyway

and nothing is worth trying hard for here

But joy waits too, in every moment

steadily affirming life’s sweet worth —

If you don’t want it for yourself,

choose it for others —

It will rescue you and bless the earth.

©Wendy Mulhern

November 4, 2014

The Void Again

They say to go ahead

and feel your feelings,

breathe them deep,

rock and keen,

go down, go down, go through

And that may be more colorful

than this rain-pattered gray,

neither here nor there,

this suspended mist

and the house’s quiet

barely masked by music,

and its emptiness

not half mitigated

by a half-sleeping old man

intermittently creaking the chair

But it’s ridiculous

in my supremely easy life,

my running hot-water,

washer and dryer,

thermostat-heat controlled life

for me to entertain complaint

No right to it,

yet something is required —

A new pursuit of inquiry, some industry,

a project that will capture my attention

Or some new way to look at things

to rescue my infinity,

retrieve it from wherever I have left it.

©Wendy Mulhern

November 3, 2014

What Speaks to Us

There are so many channels

through which the message speaks —

It can seep through the proximity

of parallel poses, bodies stretched in sun,

the rhythm of repose,

the undertone

of the quiet breathing of afternoon

as shadows slowly lengthen

on the grass

It can dance along the synesthetic glance

of light on sun stroked grass stalks,

wave in the instant shimmer 

of seed heads,

dart like sudden song

into the senses

It can rumble kindly

in the connection of laughs and hugs

and the quick kindling of love-light

in the eyes of family

So many channels through which it speaks,

The message still the same.

©Wendy Mulhern

November 1, 2014