They roar and rage
outside the door,
they hurl their cries
against the walls of their frustration.
They wouldn’t have to scream
if they could just get in,
if they could have the streaming
of connection
There is no pressure
when hand clasps hand
and understanding finds its level
in the flow between them.
There is a great release
as they let go of static standpoints
and embrace the view
that sees them all as one.
©Wendy Mulhern
January 5, 2018
We get to the point
where pretending we have magic
does no good at all
And pretending we have power
and pretending that we’re unafraid
will fail us quickly
(Not to say we don’t have magic,
not to say we don’t have power,
not to say we have no basis
to be fearless)
Just to say pretending
has never been enough.
That’s why I’m not talking
right now.
©Wendy Mulhern
January 4, 2018
We will do this even though
we don’t know how it will be done.
We will ignore the many voices
telling ways they know that it will fail
We will do this because
it is the one thing that can prove to us
we are here, and we are not pretending
From the depths of each of us
we’ll bring our capacity to know the truth,
and we’ll see the truth together,
rolling into awareness like some grand dawn,
evoking cries of wonder
from all who see it
This understanding
will unify and strengthen
what we are together
and what we are alone.
©Wendy Mulhern
January 3, 2018
There is no one who is not affected.
There is no one who is not lit up
(though comprehending a light that casts no shadows
may take time)
You can feel it radiate through your fur,
all the way to your skin,
you can feel it in your lungs like flight,
in your throat like fire
coming up from embers that lie deep within,
fueled by ever-quickening desire
It makes no sense, after this,
to go on as if there were a path laid out,
it makes no sense to follow
former modes of measurement
The roar this light ignites
will burn through everything that lied about us,
we will be seen as we will see —
all things new.
©Wendy Mulhern
January 2, 2018
We have moved from the place
of hopeful milling about,
of waiting liquid at the lip
of some great movement
(the general goodwill of our presence
bright enough to make us feel at one)
Almost unthinking, we have plunged
along the run life set for us —
maybe we thought it was a choice,
perhaps we only noticed
by the coursing of our fluids,
by the pounding force
of that which bore us,
that, indeed, we’ve moved along
And that the quiet pool
in which we hoped and waited
(and chafed at our incompetence
to stir it up)
will not be seeing us again
for a long time
Who knows where all the others are
and where their rapids bear them
and if we’ll meet again,
changed and unchanged
at the waiting sea?
©Wendy Mulhern
January 1, 2018
Soft jewels in the dark
as I gathered rosemary
for root vegetables
I touched their shine
to see if they were water
and felt their smooth leaf
Ah, they are oregano
glowing with perhaps a hint of moisture,
grown up among the fragrant brittle sprigs
catching little pools of moonlight
mute and low
celebrating what I’d hardly seen —
a gift of the moment
offered, on this year’s last night
to me.
©Wendy Mulhern
December 31, 2017
The magnitude of this redemption
is that it glows through all time
even as dawn
glows through all our space,
even as the radiance of love
makes everything alright,
even our history.
Any fears and sorrows that lurked there
are resolved,
for truth’s appearance
alters the past
as surely as it does the present
As for the future —
what will we know of it?
— when we are so rapt
in the presence
of unfolding day.
©Wendy Mulhern
December 30, 2017
They catch you up
in rings of kindness,
they cradle you,
they hold you sacred,
they wish to see you blessed
with everything you need
This gift to you unfolds
as gift to them —
they are caught up
in the light that kindness brings,
they define it with their actions
They summon it
from the ever-presence —
so they become light bearers
and also light.
So you have catalyzed
and so you shall receive.
©Wendy Mulhern
December 28, 2017
It was, for each of them,
their own moment
but as they turned
they could hear the corroborating roar
as many others
caught up in the singularity
of their own experience
simultaneously turned,
surrendered to the force
of what actually
had been their essence all along
Less a surrender, maybe,
than a standing up,
though both those actions
were clearly present
in their acclamation
of their source and destiny.
©Wendy Mulhern
December 27, 2017
photo by K Norton Photography
We go through the times
of these deep colors,
we are soaked through
in these dark tones,
we see the sediment suspended
in slow-moving oceans,
we feel the sifting settling
and its countering stir
There are no lines
to trace around these motions,
there is no story
that we can tell,
there is no waiting
that gains us information —
we find our meaning
in moving ever forward,
chiming our presence
into the days.
©Wendy Mulhern
December 25, 2017