Author Archives: Wendy

Gentle

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The gentle laws that hold us
don’t need us to understand —
we can have wildly different concepts,
we can have our faith placed
in all manner of nothings,
we can be full of worry
for all the ways those nothings let us down

The gentle truth is not impressed
by where our minds may roam —
whether we fall or climb,
whether we stall or rage,
whether we pine or ponder,
or place is still assured

The stillness, somehow,
will approach us, will wait,
will be there when we pause,
will catch us up in welcome arms,
settle us in
to where we’ll know for sure that we belong.

©Wendy Mulhern
December 21, 2019

Like Light

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Light comes in the morning,
orange, then gold, then white gold,
etches shadow filagree on walls through windows,
folds its glow through cracks of doors

And if I simply don’t allow
for any place to be untouched,
if I let light bathe every curve of thought,
I’ll leave no place inside for dread or worry,
I’ll entertain no images of scorn

And if, like sun, my love is humble,
indiscriminate because its source is infinite,
it will leave space for birds to shine and sing
in their own language, and smiles to well up
from their profoundest depth.

©Wendy Mulhern
December 20, 2019

Transition Time

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My sense of beauty is enchanted
by this transition time
where windows show
the view and the reflection
at the same strength
and illustrate
things that go through each other —
inhabit the same space
without touching,
move according to their own lights,
their own laws —
coexisting
only in the eyes and minds
of those observing.

©Wendy Mulhern
December 18, 2019

Christmas Travels

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There were shining lights and flashing lights,
mirrored in multiples,
double exposures — reflected people
passing through actual buses,
there was the whirring roar within the terminal
while buses on the outside glided ghostly

We had the vibrations
of day-long air travel
with little food,
and rain outside, and remnants
of earlier snow (which had delayed our flight
and made us miss our planned bus)

All in all, as real, surreal,
as anything, as anywhere,
travel being, in some sense,
our constant state,
home also being
as real as we could make it.

©Wendy Mulhern
December 17, 2019

Prosaic

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What makes a day prosaic?
Surely it’s not a quality of light
or the result of designated tasks,
or the company kept
or the internal landscape of my mind

All of these are full of poetry,
each, when focused, accesses a portal
opening, kaleidoscopic,
to infinity

Maybe it’s the flurry,
the attention taken
by stringed disparate tasks —
how they get loaded
in the barrel of efficiency
and lobbed forth —
how then I fail to feel
the gravity, and poetry, of each.

©Wendy Mulhern
December 16, 2019

Practicing

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Here’s me practicing again,
and my piano practice is rough.
Maybe because it’s plagued
with the same thing that slowed
my other practice, in times past —
a sense I’d done enough, I shouldn’t
have to — it should come to me
by now — it’s come to others —
surely by now I’ve worked
as much as they …

Here’s me applying a lesson
to myself: as with that practice,
so with this — it takes immersion.
It takes abandoning, entirely,
thoughts of time and measurement.
It takes the humbleness
to be the instrument
of what is coming through …

If I can do it there,
well, the question is,
am I willing to do it here?

©Wendy Mulhern
December 14, 2019

The Reign of Truth

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Helplessness is not
an acceptable option.
In the realm of myself,
I take a stand
for the reign of truth

And in small flashes
it seems obvious
that truth is really the only thing
that can actually be
in a place, in a time

And no matter how big
a lie claims to be, it can’t occupy
the ground where truth is.
And if truth is here
(and how could it not be?)
it must assert its essence,
must be seen as what determines being

And however intricate
a web of falsity may be,
it can’t take hold on truth —
something that’s false cannot ensnare
something that’s really there

So in small flashes
I can notice
that no problems of the world,
or of the neighborhood,
or of the heart,
can hold back the unfolding of the truth.

©Wendy Mulhern
December 13, 2019

For This

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We came here for this,
we came here through the rain,
the traffic, the boondoggles and backtracking,
the thought loops and the second guessing

We came here for this,
for this unassailable safety,
this deep rooted presence,
this consciousness that everything
is all right, everyone is worthy,
everything is at peace.

And after all life’s loops and tunnels,
it’s good to know.

©Wendy Mulhern
December 11, 2019

Settling In

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Today I consider
putting my whole weight down,
settling into life, letting it
bear me up

Funny, until now
I didn’t notice that all this time
I’ve been holding back,
keeping the tense pose,
assuming I needed
to hold up my own weight

(As if I could, as if
I wasn’t fully riding on this adventure,
as if I could withhold
any dependence on Life’s uplift)

Today I consider
nestling into Life’s shoulders,
feeling its wing thrusts
surging us on.

©Wendy Mulhern
December 10, 2019