Author Archives: Wendy

As it is written

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“a man shall be as an hiding place from the wind, and as a covert from the tempest; as rivers of water in a dry place, as the shadow of a great rock in a weary land.”

If it is so, consider
how we will meet each other,
what joy will be occasioned
at the appearance of any one of us,
how glad we will be to receive each other
and to be received

The surrounding land will thrive in our presence,
life will spring up abundantly
in great diversity

And is this not — be honest —
what you have always hoped for?
— Of course it is, for this
is what you’ve always been,
this is what you always have deserved.

©Wendy Mulhern
September 9, 2018

After the day’s work

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Limbs lie down and wait for ease,
a place to decompress
from the efforts of the day’s work.
There are moments where it seems they won’t find it,
but then it’s 3 a.m. and they feel better,
ready to stretch, ready to turn
and catch the rest that will prepare them for the morning

They are willing servants — they will trust
they can perform what they are called to do.
They’ll find new sturdiness
as they bring ease to others,
and feel their worth
in every earnest hour of honest work.

©Wendy Mulhern
September 8, 2018

Building

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This work is changing us.
We are tacked and tapped
and jostled and nestled,
whacked and wrestled
into a closer fit

This joinery, of old called harmony,
will make of us a sturdy structure.
What we build upon it — ah,
that is unfolding day by day,
in rhythm and in dreams,
in understanding and in laughter.
Maybe someday
we’ll have time to see it.

©Wendy Mulhern
September 7, 2018

Workmanship

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I am the workmanship
of what I love.
So I discover my Maker.

What I thought it was my duty to uphold
is what is holding me,
what I believed was my creation
was my perception, blurred though it was,
of my Creator

This is cause for laughter
and deep sighs of relief —
I thought that I must fail
to bring the vision forth,
but it is brought —
brought to me by the only eyes
I’ll ever know, the only Mind
in which my love can dwell.

©Wendy Mulhern
September 5, 2018

Foundation

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To dream deep
and wake up happy —
this is the gift I’d give you
if I could — give it to you
every day, let whatever faces you
be met by this foundation

So you can then receive
the countless other gifts
bestowed in every breath,
in every smile, in every challenge,
so you lie down in peace
and dream again.

©Wendy Mulhern
September 4, 2018

Realized

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I can say at this time at least
that I don’t fear the shattering
of my world, don’t fear that anything I love
can be shattered

I plant my feet, one after the other,
in each place the earth receives them,
feeling the gift travel up
through my frame,
feeling the blessed caress
around my toes

I find myself in this place
where what I am becomes real
as it is realized,
set down like these footprints
on the terrain of consciousness
in the fruition of my mind.

©Wendy Mulhern
September 3, 2018

Never again needing

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It’s no small thing that we are given,
an afternoon with wind and ravens,
wind occasioning the dance of gracious firs,
ravens giving distant comment

There’s more — the blue of sky,
the blessing of companion hammocks,
the sense of never again needing
to have a story,
the blessed absence of internal words.

©Wendy Mulhern
September 2, 2018

Feathers

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I hold you as a frame,
as branches frame a far off scene,
as a path frames the woods,
showing the exquisite composition
of the view
and turkeys, browsing every day
along that path, frame the afternoon

I see feathers. They fall from the sky
or are found, in delicate perfection,
along a road, beside the lake.
I take them as signs.
I think of you every day.

©Wendy Mulhern
August 31, 2018

At Dawn

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Be not tormented —
you weren’t, after all,
any darker than the whole canvas,
any darker than the dark on dark
of stories about darkness
and rumors of a thing called light
sometimes dreamed, more felt than seen

And in that darkness,
no one prescription
is any better than any other,
however much prevailing topics
are wrongs of others, wrong on wrong

At dawn, it is revealed
none of these paths
are inaccessible to light,
none of those torments
have any staying power

They will lift
effortlessly as shadows,
we all will bask together in the sun.

©Wendy Mulhern
August 29, 2018