It’s not a case of truth winning —
truth is unopposed.
The lie may say it’s taking truth on,
the lie may brag about a battle,
but truth is never in a battle —
truth is unopposed
And as for you, your being
is ever, as it’s always been,
of truth. This truth you are
has never had to fight to be itself.
The truth you are
is ever unopposed.
©Wendy Mulhern
November 2, 2019
When in the pauses, once again,
the clamor rushes in, the cluttered thoughts
of everything you’re certain
you want, and never want, to be,
the roaring doubts, upon that field,
of where you stand
Be still. Here is a voice that silences
all that clatter. This silence
is like velvet, like infinity.
This silence is the love
that holds both you, and what you thought of
as the other side.
It renders the winning
and the losing
fully irrelevant —
glows you all like coals
in the same fire.
©Wendy Mulhern
November 1, 2019
The good you are
is so much bigger
than the little checkered parcels
that you tried to earn,
the sit still in your seat
do what the teacher says
kind of good
The good you are
is so much bigger
than what you hoped you might achieve
or what you hoped
to be accepted for
Note this: the good you are
could never dim out towards the edge,
could never fail to fill
every niche and corner of your being
The good you are
has no nemesis, no cavity.
It is not part of you — it’s everything —
all of you — clear, whole, free.
©Wendy Mulhern
October 31, 2019
I hold the blessing
in the laugh behind my eyes,
in the warm spots on my cheeks,
and in the warble that burbles
in the place where I might speak
It isn’t mine — it is a gift
passed to me freely, just an hour ago,
not me alone — given to many,
and I imagine
they all took it home
As I assume also it will multiply
as mirrors magnify,
as smiles create a surfeit of good will,
which cascades outward
touching people who
don’t even know each other,
though they’d recognize the kinship
with anyone in whom they saw the light.
©Wendy Mulhern
October 30, 2019
Streams of living waters,
rivers of pure light —
we speak of it in metaphors,
for how else can we convey
the feeling, and the importance of it,
the way we’re borne up
in the swift current,
the way it fills us
and lifts us
and becomes that which we are
And if we thought love
was a distant spark
that might or might not ignite,
if we thought love depended on
finding someone, or being found,
if we thought love was anything less than
the fountain of life itself,
or anywhere less than right here,
this changes everything.
©Wendy Mulhern
October 29, 2019
Frost lines the edges of our days,
encasing them with torpor,
lacing us with eagerness for warmth,
of which there is enough, still, in the middles,
for us to work, for us to dream
And in the morning and the evening,
fire is our friend —
it takes the edge off,
fills us with ease again.
©Wendy Mulhern
October 28, 2019
Life, as it turns out,
is not always instructional —
less and less so, in fact, these days
There is a statement
in the curl and color of a fallen leaf,
the reddened stems
of blackberry and bracken fern
But they don’t seek to teach,
just to be,
just to let the light of this one
moment of afternoon
glow through them,
just to rest in light gravity
against the cool ground,
or to stand still
in the pauses between the wind.
©Wendy Mulhern
October 26, 2019
I tell myself, in those days
I didn’t understand much about love,
though I did love
(as now I see we all do)
haplessly, perhaps,
helplessly at times,
with an intensity that could have been a key
I didn’t understand love’s power,
didn’t know to use it
so the ones I loved would feel encouraged,
safe, encircled, ready to go forth
to meet their own exigencies with love
I ask myself, well,
how much more of love
do you know now?
And are you able
to shine the light in such a way
that it illuminates instead of blinding?
And if I am, and when I am,
then all those other times of love
will also be redeemed.
That is the way of love,
and love will teach me how.
©Wendy Mulhern
October 25, 2019
You’ll hardly recognize your demons
when they’re sitting, clothed,
at their master’s feet
They may be sheepish about
their former torment,
they may want you to understand
they really only meant to help
They wanted you to get to this point
of peace that’s larger
than any field in which you’ve been ashamed,
and any field in which you’ve been afraid —
a peace in which they have no role at all
They never would have let you settle
for a small corner of being OK —
they wanted this huge place for you,
where you can smile, and rest, and breathe.
©Wendy Mulhern
October 23, 2019
Before the sun set,
the first silvered wisps of fog
began to form low in the valley,
tending slightly upward
as they drifted south
Five minutes later
the valley had begun to fill,
fog rising between trees
setting off the different distances,
the fall colors looked more red
amid the rising clouds
Meanwhile, behind the hills,
the sun had set
and the sky was turning red,
marbled and magnificent
And I thought: here, just here,
is exactly where I want to be,
above this valley and on this journey,
upward as I’m led, attended by beauty.
©Wendy Mulhern
October 22, 2019