This battle is too great for me.
Let me be washed
in rising tide
that comes to me
here where I lie,
that cleanses me
without my doing anything,
that gives me back my reason why.
This battle is too great for me.
Let me be bathed in warming sun
that never rations its rays,
but floods out the sorrow and failure
with clean washed, clear eyed day.
©Wendy Mulhern
April 16, 2017
Black lives matter,
and fair contribution matters,
and mending and cleaning and sorting matter
And underneath all the matter
is the current of Spirit
that doesn’t even need to get involved
in all that tortuous stitching,
full, as it is, of its own surging intricacy,
its fractally multiplying joy,
its amnesty for all.
©Wendy Mulhern
April 15, 2017
photo by Edward Mulhern
Walking with a box of stuff —
it’s awkward and it’s heavy,
and now I notice
that the bottom is giving way
and the box sagging misshapen
as my knees try to catch the falling items.
They are slipping out anyway,
tripping up my feet
Let it go. Let it all go —
There’s nothing here you really need,
your new life will have no place for this,
no time, and no allowance
for all this dusty mustiness.
Let it go, look up —
the sun is shining through plum blossoms.
©Wendy Mulhern
April 13, 2017
A herd of swine
may run violently down a hill.
This is not a strange occurrence —
it happens all the time,
betrayal hard on the heels of betrayal,
blame hard on the heels of blame,
all those justifications, all those
indignant and disappointing stories
following each other to their
collective destruction
What’s wonderful, and what may seem miraculous
is what remains when all the herd is gone,
the beatific peace
that was your essence all along,
ultimate justice, fruit of an act
that’s truly kind,
to sit now clothed and quiet
in your right mind.
©Wendy Mulhern
April 12, 2017
How can we leave? you said,
How can we let this all go?
We let it go because it never held us —
We held it, just as we hold ourselves.
We contain each feeling we’ve imbued this place with,
we take the substance with us
when we go
After all, we always have been travelers —
before our birth, and through this time
and onward,
we move, to our delight,
in waves of constant newness,
explorers of infinity,
our never ending home.
©Wendy Mulhern
April 11, 2017
What can you make out of
old connections, letters from people
long lost track of? Is there value
in the warmth of their tone, the obvious
love they shared?
Is there a reason to hold on to words
whose context is long gone?
And is this related to hunger
that keeps coming back
however much I eat?
The past may be remembered or forgotten,
I can think of it with fondness or regret,
and maybe truly, all there is of it
is what I carry in my daily steps and breath.
©Wendy Mulhern
April 10, 2017
I don’t want to spend more time
in the house of sticks
with its rickety stilts
sticking down into the river,
not enough integrity to be a boat
and so required to constantly
resist the flow
I don’t want to rely
upon its chinks and weaknesses
to let the flashing light into my vision
(its shaking makes the roaring current fearsome)
Don’t want to be
the victim of its fall,
pierced with broken points,
toppled in rigidity
I want to slip free,
lower myself gently
into the coursing brightness
and glide.
©Wendy Mulhern
April 9, 2017
Storm at the windows
keeps us indoors,
wind flinging rain
all along the south side,
white pine bending,
tossing itself back
Some of us find goodness
under the storm,
some of us find it
in the shining of fine days,
proving (though we may come slow
to concluding it)
goodness is everywhere
And though it may seem treasonous
to abandon the system we’ve known —
small brightnesses etched out of darkness,
sadness and fear as defining factors —
in truth, Life wheels itself quite well
in the overarching fact of all goodness
Nothing is missing,
nothing is left undefined,
Life sings through all the storms
and all the clearings,
thus showing itself to be all.
©Wendy Mulhern
April 7, 2017
Notice the changes
from walking through time,
things that shift,
things that unravel,
ways we thought were the givens of life
suddenly proved
to have been gone
long before we noticed
We fall quickly
through things that we counted on,
feeling the searing fear
mixed in with soaring free
not to be held in the place we were sewn
We walk through the fringes
reach for connection
trying out how we can reweave the fabric
to hold us together
but in a new pattern,
one where more of the bright threads show
one that will hold up the weight of our souls.
©Wendy Mulhern
April 6, 2017
This shadow warfare is elusive,
for when I raise my hand to strike,
I make another shadow
I chase them inward
down all the corridors
where more and more of them have hidden —
they lay blame in sprawling overlapping patterns
over me, my circumstances, and the entities
identified as other
If I turn on them with anger or with loathing,
I’ve embodied their dark quality
and they win,
so I continue inward
till I find the only tool of victory,
inward to my grasp of endless love.
©Wendy Mulhern
April 5, 2017