Manifest

A day can break forth
from the crust of the other ones,
can boldly stride with progress,
unfurl its possibilities,
attain fruition

I can have this reminder
that what is manifest,
while never my invention,
still matches, intimately,
my fruits to my desire

And like today,
each day can open up –
create the field
for what will multiply tomorrow

We’re here to manifest,
and that is what we’ll do,
today, each day,
beyond the end of time.

©Wendy Mulhern
November 28, 2023

A beginning

I stand here at the beginning,
having spent so many years
in the illusion of paths,
the illusion of progress

Gather, my thought forces –
we will go together from now on.
You will no longer be repositories
of false starts and dead ends

I will listen to you, and we will listen,
together, to what calls us to life,
what unifies us, and unites us
with others who are traveling

I’m sorry for all my foolishness.
But there is a way before me now
which promises to steer me wise.
I give us to that purpose
day by unfolding day.

©Wendy Mulhern
March 23, 2023

Living itself

Well, the day won’t live itself –
the wood will not be chopped and stacked
if we don’t do it. The garden plot
won’t prepare itself for planting.
But the clouds will roll on through,
sun glad-handing among them,
the deer will make their rounds,
and in the subterranean
channels of thought,
the unseen steps you take
may be the greatest thing that’s happening.

©Wendy Mulhern
March 1, 2023

Gain

Maybe it’s not important,
the roll of days, the roll of years –
we are not stuck on them –
our lives move forward in the stride of Spirit,
our gains swift rides of capturing the wind,
and revelations, slow unfurling as a sprout,
coming present like the dew
in the dip of late night’s coldness,
suddenly apparent when the morning light
finds it on the grass.

©Wendy Mulhern
September 10, 2022

Stripping

These old habits I drop one by one,
unravel them string by string,
approaching, thus, a clearer way of seeing

Why not be comprised, after all,
of the light, the spark, the truth
of my core animation?
Why not release the constructs
of needing to accumulate
a fat enough accrual of accomplishment?

I practice stripping my thought
of all but the joyful wonder
of being here, given the gift of sight,
I practice receiving,
honoring life,
finding myself in that which I perceive.

©Wendy Mulhern
August 3, 2022

A thought

Maybe I’ll change my ways.
Maybe it’s not enough
to do the same thing day after day,
because of some agreement that I made
with no one, really,
a thing that may have had some worth,
but now its value is declining

Maybe it’s time to forge a new way,
to force me to consider
what I’d need, and how to work it,
set my feet to ground, here,
just as with all the things
I’m learning how to do –
to have my outcomes be
the gift that’s now required,
and what is not so
can fall away.

©Wendy Mulhern
March 30, 2022

Retrospective

Again I see I haven’t changed
(this observation, too, it seems,
I”ve had with equal puzzlement before)

Here I was thinking I’d come so far,
so many steps on the relentless road,
so many lessons,
so much left behind,
so many strengths newly accrued

But now I see that I was writing
about the same things years ago,
exclaiming over these same revelations
and views I was delighted to outgrow

I could be rueful,
or I could conclude
my wing tilt is designed for updrafts  –
it’s in my nature
to feel like flying,
a habit I instinctively employ  –
the sense of gain is not illusion really –
it’s just the uplift of my native joy.

©Wendy Mulhern
March 20, 2022

Daily

I’m learning not to pine for
the big enlightenment,
the grand moment
when all illusion is stripped away

Instead I practice gratitude
for each new place
where I can be struck with love,
each small blindness from which
I can be enlightened

For there are so many!
Maybe even enough to last a lifetime  –
daily bursts of waking up
just a little bit,
daily bright joy for my new small glimpses
of infinite Truth.

©Wendy Mulhern
January 1, 202
2

Looking Back

According to my journals,
I’ve made no progress at all.
I’m wrestling with the same stuff,
I’m flying on the same hope  –
I see the bracing path rise up before me,
feel stronger with each vista I attain

I had imagined I’d be coming back by now,
bearing treasure, telling tales of all my victories,
but the trail demands I keep attention forward
and leave my dreams of accolades behind

According to my journals,
back last year I also battled darkness,
and last year I also walked in light,
and maybe there’s no final victors’ banquet,
just the daily work of taking steps aright.

©Wendy Mulhern
December 22, 2021