Monthly Archives: February 2012

Convergence

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As words come to me,
my receptivity
rises up to meet them

As my seeking for a way to bless
ranges out across my consciousness
Your arms extend a place for it to rest

Such bliss! To meet in the convergence
My need to give, your willingness
now, to receive
In this, your hunger blesses me
and meets my need

The figure loops, we spin around again
This time you give, and I receive
But then
Perhaps as current flows
dynamic, into one
Our pulse, too, unifies
and every boundary
becomes undone.


©Wendy Mulhern
February 17, 2012



Chasing love

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After much pursuit
(sun through trees rendered strobe-like
by my frenzied pace)
Desire made wild by the elusive flitting
of something always held
just out of reach,
I wake—
Jolt of awareness:
That which I’ve been chasing
is right here
and it has never been withheld —
By nature, it is infinitely present
Though I may miss the rush
I also like the flood of peace
that comes from knowing I will always
have enough.


©Wendy Mulhern
February 16, 2012



Shelter

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A house of cards
A house of straw
A house of words
What gravitas can they afford?

A bold, invented self
Or even one that hides
And only tells itself its little stories
How can it feed the hunger of my soul?

I’m rendered quiet
I don’t even have two cards
To lean against each other
No straw that isn’t old and wet and mildewed
No words to form a self-respecting cover

So I go and dance
I build my house of arcs of reaching arms
And light that flows between each darting glance
All filled with music and the moment’s charms

And if my gesture shelters someone else
And gathers others as its moves unfold
I, too, will find a shelter for myself
In that sweet harmony
The dance can hold.


©Wendy Mulhern
February 15, 2012



Soul Retrieval

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No, no,
This is not the promise you were given
Mountains of detritus,
Self-enforced confinement
Stress and tracks of weary years
Across your face

No
This is not your course
The clock-enforced conformity
The envious and jealous stabs within
Reflexive judgement,
Passing down the curse
Of being conquered

However much the rules you’re taught
claim to control
You never could be severed
from your soul

Hold with me now
Together, let’s sing your song
It leads you back along the lines of longing
To where you’ve always sensed that you belong
We’ll all converge there jubilantly thronging
At home as if we never had been gone

Let our eyes now feed each other’s embers
Resurrect our light so we remember
What had seemed so lost from us, so far
Who we’ve ever been
And who we are.


©Wendy Mulhern
February 14, 2012


(background music: Max Richter, “Embers”)

Dancing free

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There are natural ways
for things of different type to separate
The wheat from chaff with weight and agitation
The silver melting free in fervent heat

What then releases our presuppositions
that hold us stiff and stressed and isolated?
What focuses our sense of truth conditions
that home us to the joy for which we’ve waited?

A centrifuge, a tone, an ionizer
The kindled heat between caressing hands
A touch of grace that leaves us kinder, wiser
A place we feel we have the right to stand
The light that sparks and rises from connection
Illuminates our timeless, deep perfection.

©Wendy Mulhern
February 13, 2012


Beam me up . . .

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The place beneath my breath today
is full of lights
Brilliant as pointillist dots
that seethe and swarm and dance
and form a scene
too close for me to see
But when we sit together
Lights reflecting lights
and multiplying
Then the scene appears
So clearly scrying
That which lifts us up
and sets us flying
out beyond old limits, fear defying

So many lights! Lighter than air
Light enough to lift a whole dream
into lucidity, light enough to stream
through solar systems
Light enough to beam us
Beatific
Pulsing clear and true
across the night.


©Wendy Mulhern
February 12, 2012



Serving Light

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In this temple of the dance
You can put off your shoes
and join the sacred rite
Enter anonymous into the holy trance
to be a vessel, bearer of the light

(You’ll choose it for the way
                                        the light transfixes you
         Fills out your being, flowing from inside
                   against your skin
                                              suffusing you
         until you glow and radiate
                       and float in brilliant bliss
                 across the room)

Moving then in service to the light
Your eyes can touch another’s, and ignite
The signal can be passed from hand to hand
Each one who joins will cause it to expand

You may come back to find your boundaries shifted
Your thoughts now finer, softer, lifted
Buoyant, like all things light has sifted
You’ll see yourself anew as blessed and gifted

(Not that you ever have to look at it this way
This is the work, but it is also play!)


©Wendy Mulhern
February 10, 2012



Thirty years ago today

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(To Edward)

Thirty years ago today
in Philadelphia
I awoke to a quiet that told me
snow had fallen
Magic blanket that kissed the ground
and faded
in time for me to take
my one-pedaled bicycle
and ride (in my grandmother’s skirt)
to a dance I had never attended
where, in a mixer
your eyes twinkled

So I came and talked to you later
leaning against the wall,
standing by the chair where you sat.
Unpracticed and hopeful,
I asked you about yourself
Dazzled . . .

Together we had enough money
for two Dr. Peppers
which bought us a table at Carney’s
and time to talk
Our voices alive, our hands animated
Leaning towards each other —
Intentional community
Bell curves, affinity . . .

You drove me home
(my bike in the back)
Our parting kiss held a promise
“I like your ideas,” you said
thus assuring that I would take interest
The rest, well
The rest was destiny.


©Wendy Mulhern
February 9, 2012



Love is a Decision

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Feelings are so fickle
Love is much more than that
Love is a decision

You may wander
into the room of oneness
where you see the wonder
of infinite connection
You may want to match
all your points of unity
To line them up
one along another
and follow the diverging vectors
out to new dimensions
broadening the scope of who you are

You may try
to anchor down your feelings in reality
Negotiate a steady reciprocity
And if you don’t succeed
or if you do but later it becomes unsprung
Your feelings will not hold you there
They turn around, or simply float away

Love is much more than that
You may wander any day
into a room of knowing oneness
Love is the decision
to stay.


©Wendy Mulhern
February 8, 2012


Idols

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Winds of Spirit
Sweep my thought
It’s time to cast out idols
Those who ask for time
Those who ask for blood
Those who ask for tiresome daily ritual
Who say they have the power
to save my sorry life
or, if I fail to worship,
occasion my demise

But they know nothing, and their mouths can’t speak
The life they offer is anemic, weak
And Spirit shows me, right here, what I am
Exposing all their noxious threats as sham

I will not worship
the god of appearances
I will not worship
the god of social norms
I will not worship
the god of shopping bargains
I will not worship
the god of health concerns

Winds of Spirit, sweep my soul
for I am made to worship 
what is true and whole
That frames the space for all that’s free and wild
And holds us each as Life’s untrammeled child.


©Wendy Mulhern
February 6, 2012

(background music: Max Richter, “Haunted Ocean”)