The nature of my needed lighter touch

(in nurturing the music in my son)

Today I saw music
as it lit
(iridescent angel)
on the tip of sound
Tracing its bright melody and swift delight
Sending its rich pulsing through the ground

Today I see that music
doesn’t come at coarse commands
of sharp regimentation
nor years of dogged discipline and work
For, sunken under critical dismissal
How can the magic of the sound emerge?

But rather, music rises from
the gentle kiss of close connection
of the grace that is one’s being
with the grace that is the song
A lighting in the joy of it
A natural touching down
A cross-time current drawing out the tones
of all that’s beautiful in kindred souls

My job then: to protect
the sphere of space in which the music can appear
To let it grow by feeding it
with light and approbation
so it’s free to flit and choose to land right here
Where its reverberation will be clear.


©Wendy Mulhern
February 4, 2012



Deliverance Prayer

 

Deliverance Prayer (background music “The Blessing” by Isaac Shepard)

Bring my soul up out of Egypt
Walk me step by patient step
out of the patterns that enslave me
Release me from the lockstep
that doesn’t look
that is afraid to seek the kinship of a smile
 
Teach me to spin out on the leaf edge
of the wind
and twirl into the knowing
of the infinite variety —
Intricacies which Life has ever blessed
 
Let me no longer follow
the commands that run them over
that allow us three or four straight norms at best
Unclamp my feet from marching
Free my toes
to find the subtle footholds
midst the wildness of the river
 
Free the rivers, too
and let us all please tumble brightly
down the perfect, wild, unchanneled 
course that we were born for
Let us know each other 
deeply, truly, freely
 
Bring my soul up out of Egypt
That I may worship
My Good.


©Wendy Mulhern
January 3, 2012
 
photo by Edward Mulhern
 

Waltz Time

I was dancing with my darling
The night they were playing
That beautiful Tennessee Waltz
And you know how it goes
Well, we stepped on some toes
But we’re certain it wasn’t our faults.

For we swung round and round
Round and round, round and round
Till the ceiling spun into the walls
And though we heard people swear
As we crashed here and there
We hardly even noticed their falls.

I was dancing with my darling
The night they were playing
That beautiful Tennessee Waltz
Till they cleared off the floor
And showed us the door
And brought all our fun to a halt(z).


©Wendy Mulhern
Spring, 2009



Opinions

Having an opinion about everything
May be a sign of loneliness
Like playing cards with yourself
Everything finished, nothing waiting
For input from another hand.

Having an opinion about everything
Makes it harder
To find a match
Since meeting point for point
At every tooth of thought
Would be required to turn the key
To lift the latch.

Alas for you, then, who collect
Large bellies of opinion
That block your movement
And mistake correctness for dominion

Here is your hope:
Opinions can be left behind
You can abandon them for love
And thereby liberate your mind.


©Wendy Mulhern
February 1, 2012


Soporific Rain

Soporific rain
Robs the morning
Of its earliest pursuits
Yet the sweetness
of the night remains
Wraps itself around my dreaming music

Languidly we move
There is no way
The clock can catch us
in its marching regimen
We’ll slide in languid sloth into the day
Let later light, in its own time
attract us

The day has duties that we dare not shirk
But we can meet them softly, without stress
Yes, we’ll take on all our needed work
But through a film of rain-kissed happiness.


©Wendy Mulhern
February 1, 2012