Here on the land, I discover
ways I can walk that I never had known,
ways I can think, ways I can work,
direction transcending my own
Learning to trade myself in,
day after day,
for a newer, more humble model,
learning to quiet my mind,
not looking back,
faithfully tending my steps
Here on the land
there’s no need to be right,
only the need to be willing,
willing to listen, willing to move
placing my feet in the light.
©Wendy Mulhern
April 16, 2019
The wonder of the place
makes you forget stuff,
transfixed, as you are,
with translucency,
suffused with a sense of
the utmost importance,
the tenderest smallness,
of you here now,
you as you never have known yourself
but glimpse that you always have been
You find you forget stuff,
but nothing that matters —
wounds fall away,
and old disappointments,
explanations and excuses, too,
in this timeless
newness of you.
©Wendy Mulhern
April 15, 2019
I’ve decided I like being
someone who can’t be let down,
someone who’s always
able to offer
comfort to another
I prefer that to being
someone who has standards of behavior
with the duty to require them of others,
who needs to disapprove
when standards are not met,
who needs to coach when people get it wrong
That way, if you’re falling off the edge,
or if you think you’ve lost all your deserving,
I can let you feel
the comfort that’s unending,
you can know the depth
of that which treasures you
And that’s a comfort which,
when I can give it,
unfailingly will comfort me as well.
©Wendy Mulhern
April 14, 2019
In this moment I understand
how green is magical,
how it transcends the rain
and is exalted by it,
how it finds a way to glow
even under the darkest sky,
how it fills me,
how it elicits joy.
©Wendy Mulhern
April 13, 2019
The land can teach you
about deep breathing —
breathing days of rain
and water running down
under the ground, surfacing
in unpredicted places
breathing hours of sun —
the freshness of everything
shining its praise
in scent and in sparkle
breathing the rhythm of work —
what we can do, what needs us now,
when we can rest,
when we are done
The land is teaching me
ways of fewer words
and more action, less policy
and more decision based on
what is present in this moment,
based on what the land
is breathing now.
©Wendy Mulhern
April 12, 2019
Here we are
playing double dutch
with the rain,
looking for a place to jump in,
feeling confounded
though not yet wet
Eventually we’ll guess
there’s nothing to be gained
by waiting inside
delaying our move —
wetness is, after all,
temporary, as also,
though less obviously,
is mud.
©Wendy Mulhern
April 10, 2019
My hands still smell like loam
from digging with gloves in the dirt
which came in through the fingertips
settling under my nails —
I’ve scrubbed my hands
and the remaining scent
may be more memory than anything
The best part was the teamwork —
the two of us trying to move the black locust,
all stump and spine, rooted tight against the wall.
The choosing of tools, the digging, the prying,
the leverage applied, the clipping, the sawing
till it finally came free, and you settled it in
while I put tools away
and robins sang bright
as evening nestled down.
©Wendy Mulhern
April 9, 2019
I sense now, in many,
a learning to yearn
for a freedom of being
that lives beyond fear,
leaning into their hope
and their imagination
for the wide open space
where their essence
is unassailable,
thus lightening the field,
allowing room, here, for more people,
if not in the certainty of believing,
still in the place of admitting:
this is something that I want,
this is something that I am.
©Wendy Mulhern
April 8, 2019
A sudden light revealing snakes —
twisted, tangled, convoluting —
all the things I’ve thought
about these others here
while never casting light within myself
How could I, then, have thought myself
a better model? How blind to think
that I could hold judgmental thoughts
without the mud and soot of false opinions
smearing all my windows from within!
Well, take a breath. It’s always
a good idea. And let the sunlight
reveal what has been cleansed
and what’s still needed. Let tenderness
towards both yourself and others
wash everything and show you what is true.
©Wendy Mulhern
April 7, 2019
Never underestimate the value
of imagining what’s possible,
never assume you can’t
have what you want,
never believe that you should settle
for less than the whole of your dream,
the whole grand many-branching
multi-plumed array of it —
it is, after all,
in your mind for a reason,
and your mind’s delight
produces clear results.
©Wendy Mulhern
April 6, 2019