Author Archives: Wendy

Phase Shift

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We have names for so many things
we won’t need names for later —
they will be released from thought
in a soft shifting, dissolved in parallax
like gaps between the trees

We will walk then
in a new positivity
where love is substance, essence,
and identity

There will be new names
and things we’ll see so clearly
which, up to then, had seemed
mere speculation

It will be easy, then,
to walk in full awareness
and to wield our power
precise and pure and fruitful
as we truly are.

©Wendy Mulhern
August 4, 2018

Beyond the story

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There is a brand of helplessness
for every story. Let me not
be taken in

There is a way of winning
in every story. Let me not
be tempted

There is a way of breaking out
of every story. This is my hope —
to be unburdened from all former loops,
to be released

Beyond the story, where there is nothing
for me to win or lose or mindlessly repeat,
awaits the unity
or timelessness and opening dimensions.
Beyond the story
I am complete.

©Wendy Mulhern
August 3, 2018

Firmament

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There are those who will take measure
but we won’t be measured. We will refuse
to participate in that game

Foxes may call to each other across the fields,
they may mark out territory.
We will not take sides

There is a truer place for us
than the field in which these things are measured.
We have a worth deeper
than ground, than soil, than earth.
Our being is rooted in the firmament
from which we will not be moved.
There is no limit to our love.

©Wendy Mulhern
August 2, 2018

How You see me

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I start to fathom
what kind of vision You must have
for everything, for entities defined
as yearnings, small and large —
yearnings that flood
through holes ripped out of lives,
yearnings that strain
at the seams of convention

(like water yearns to find its level
and will eventually overcome everything
to reach it)

You see me not as stasis
but as that bright liquid
which You, with a touch, can free.
You, with a touch, can teach me
to quench my own thirst.

©Wendy Mulhern
July 31, 2018

Can you feel it?

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Can you feel what holds you
as well as these birds can,
diving and darting fearlessly
from the tall trees?

Can you feel it bear you up? —
such a gentle touch, with room for air
between your feathers —
room for you to breathe
but not to fall

Hold still, and see if you can feel it
guiding your steps, your work, your thoughts,
ever in the place where the bright surge
of joy, of life,
pours clearest through your being.

©Wendy Mulhern
July 30, 2018

Send my roots down

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Send my roots down
where they’ve never reached before —
the land is arid,
the former streams are dry

Send my roots down
to the hidden corridors
protecting the secret,
connecting the trees

Let the ancient, strong alliance,
feeding everything that touches in,
be what sustains me,
be what grows my trunk
and greens my limbs

Send my roots down —
it’s a long drought on the surface,
but here underneath,
we’ll share the streams.

©Wendy Mulhern
July 29, 2018

Mellowing

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Today I am grateful
for small mellowings,
a little less edge to the heat,
a welling of happiness
softening the ragged edge of torment,
a day to be less driven from within,
to enjoy putterings
and how the moments knit themselves together
constantly, in wind rustles
and insect buzzing
and the contented chirping
of a few small birds
living, as always, for joy,
joying, as always, in life.

©Wendy Mulhern
July 28, 2018

In this heat

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I think of
streams in the desert,
water to a thirsty land,
my soul longs for
something deeper than survival,
something that acknowledges
what holds us together
is richer and more comprehensive
than all these factors
and won’t allow us
to shrivel and die in the heat
but provides, from within,
that which makes us thrive.

©Wendy Mulhern
July 25, 2018

Show Me

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I have pleaded my willingness
many times before, so it seems dubious
to hear myself say no — now I’m serious,
as if at all those other times I wasn’t

Still I’m asking once again —
I really need to understand
the Valley of Bones,
“it shall be well”

I’ve said the words but thought the facts were final —
that what has died is fully dead and gone,
but here I am, daughter of man,
and I say “Lord, thou knowest” —
show me where to look to see Your truth.

©Wendy Mulhern
July 24, 2018