And if we know
nothing we do
holds any weight,
we won’t try to sit down
on our achievements
and we won’t fall through them
wondering, as we fall
what happened — why
we weren’t supported
If we recognize
we are held up by our breath —
all we take in, all we give out,
all we see as true, and honor —
we will move lightly through the day
unmired by past or future,
nimble in the turnings of the moment.
©Wendy Mulhern
August 8, 2019
What we collectively
don’t understand about love
has filled volumes
We keep trying
one person’s map or another,
we feel so sure at times
and then so doubtful,
and much of what we’re sure about
is false, and as for what we doubt,
who knows if it is true?
And yet we keep on seeking it,
and somewhere deep inside we know
that something in us always loves
and so is always worthy
And any love we know
is real
and it will shine out
through our misconceptions —
every love will purify itself
until, with deep relief, we understand.
©Wendy Mulhern
August 7, 2019
In the wilting heat
the songs that come to me
are ones I’ve sung before
or heard so often forty years ago
that all the notes are etched deep in my mind
The same with words, with poems,
as lines I’ve read and loved come back to me,
along with ones I’ve written,
and the only way to find new words
is to seek shade, and the space it brings,
for leaves, and lines,
to hold themselves full.
©Wendy Mulhern
August 5, 2019
Consider your capacity
to bring joy,
for it is the great gift
you share with every living thing —
it is what rouses you, what feeds you,
what makes you feel alive
There are so many ways,
small and large, that your being does this,
just like these trees,
just like these flowers,
just like these people working,
doing their job well,
just like the swallows that fly chirping
through our open house,
the sheer delight they have in living
lighting us up.
©Wendy Mulhern
August 3, 2019
Patience moves through layers like breath,
giving each its needed round,
patience lets the frenzy settle
and begins again
There is time, there is time,
there is time for each idea to form,
to reach its fullness,
to let the circle close
There is a firmness that holds
the wind ruffled page,
that smoothes it out
and lets it turn in turn
So may my hands smooth
the tangled, rumpled tasks
so they can lie flat
along the day.
©Wendy Mulhern
August 2, 2019
We stand at the brink of August
and consider the color changes —
grass from green to flaxen,
daisy stalks to brown
Sunflowers dominate the garden,
tomatoes coming in,
red tassels forming on the corn,
unknown peppers in dark green
There will be other years
when we can shepherd this,
when we have time and infrastructure
to tend the land —
for now we’ll do the work
to make us ready for it,
so we can read the signs
and understand.
©Wendy Mulhern
July 31, 2019
We found songs in the wilderness —
some were left for us
by ones who had traversed the path before —
they told of things
we hoped one day to see
Others rose out of the rock
and the work, and the constant travel,
and the bone pure perception,
in the air, in the stillness,
of the Truth that guided us
along the searing way
We sang songs in the wilderness,
and as the land began to green,
we recognized some things
that we had sung about so often,
only guessing and imagining
how they might be
We sang songs of the wilderness
resting in the promised land, rejoicing in the gardens,
learning the things our songs had named,
also remembering
how we were inspired
when we were headed here
from far away.
©Wendy Mulhern
July 30, 2019
Come back home, little one —
it isn’t far — it’s right here, in fact —
let your curled up body
feel the comfort of the floor,
the cradling earth beneath,
the sky blanket above
You can come back
into yourself, you can feel
strength flowing to you from within.
You don’t have to put on a perfect face,
don’t have to feign invincibility.
What you are will bring itself full circle,
as you wait for it,
when you’re ready,
you can stand up whole.
©Wendy Mulhern
July 29, 2019
The trees give shady respite —
I see their gentle breathing
in the rise and fall of limbs —
they are at peace with wind,
with Spirit
You are like that today —
in the calm of your demeanor
I feel the day breathing,
your spirit a balm against the work,
your steady motion
bearing us forward
along the course that we are learning
not to plan so much as ride,
not to engineer so much as live.
©Wendy Mulhern
July 27, 2019
We looked up, delighted to hear
in small strains, the refrain
of crickets returning
Soft, intermittent, rising and falling,
not in the trees where we heard them
in previous years,
not as a constant, a chorus that stretched
through the days and the nights of the summer
But cricket song, still, here in the fields,
slowly increasing to fill up the late afternoon —
a light recompense
for things we have lost,
a reminder that everything changes,
and things that are missing
can also return
to be loved and rejoiced in once more.
©Wendy Mulhern
July 24, 2019