Author Archives: Wendy

Purging

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I will clear out
all that doesn’t serve me,
books I never read,
shelves of past regrets,
all the inner stories that stunted my unfoldment,
wily and continual betrayers

I do not need
memories of weakness,
dire affirmations of historical shortcomings,
don’t need all those old complaints
or that dusty disapproval,
don’t need those assumptions or constraints

I’m getting rid of
anything that’s broken,
anything that’s worn out or outgrown,
I’ll let the spring shoots
fill in all around me,
I’ll let fresh new views
become my own.

©Wendy Mulhern
April 3, 2017

The Sharing Space

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Let me remember once again
how to come into the sharing space,
to level the balance,
to leave outside
all impulse to steer
or to get you to change

I come into the sharing space
not with speech but with listening,
I enter the sacred
as seeker, as witness,
prepared to be overwhelmed,
lifted, transported,
prepared to be shined through,
prepared to be changed.

©Wendy Mulhern
April 2, 2017

The Same Stream

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Feel the spreading distance,
my arms no longer reaching,
feel the melancholy seeping
as fingertips stretch empty

Feel the joining current
that holds each of us,
feel the way we’re flowing
in the same direction,
feel the sweet way our connection
is assured by simply coursing
in the same stream

Though the constellations of our friendships
may shift like clouds, may wander and disperse,
we’ll share the resonance
of what is filling us,
we’ll be the rushing song that fills our ears.

©Wendy Mulhern
April 1, 2017

Open Spaces

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My mind is full of open spaces
from the day, from being out in it,
from garden work, its loamy satisfaction

The raspberries and I
were rough with each other —
I shoved their cane tops into the ground,
they marked my arms with scratches.
We ended with them backbending neatly,
lateral buds poised to grow and fruit

The crows are nesting,
the air is kind
and the evening is stretching out long,
promising excitement for those who seek it,
and sweet dreams for the likes of me.

©Wendy Mulhern
March 31, 2017

If

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If love is everywhere
then all the little
tubes and channels
we’ve devised
may be irrelevant —
we may not need
to jostle and twist
in efforts to achieve a perfect match,
may not need to write off thousands
who prove to have a different kind of thread

If love is everywhere,
we may be able
to bypass the conditions of engagement,
to deliver the sweet liquid of acceptance,
receive the luscious fruit we deeply crave.

©Wendy Mulhern
March 30, 2017

Day in the Life

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Whatever happened to us? you said —
sorrow and distance
but sweet close holding

The rain that has driven the day
masked the breath of spring
which was coming in anyway
though we didn’t know

And later the same strong wind
blew white clouds through blue sky
and your hand was warm
walking to the library

The old man walks out of the bathroom
carrying the rug. I don’t need this, he says,
I have my own pants.
The day has had some rough parts
but I will put him to bed.
We’ll have another go
in the morning.

©Wendy Mulhern
March 29, 2017

Hourglass

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A little shift starts the sand moving,
and with the second shift,
the channel opens
and everything is heading down,
small dimple on the top surface
and one by one, the grains dropping

We will streamline ourselves
so we can slide on through,
we will let go of
extraneous appendages,
we will not panic
at unstoppable momentum —
it is what we have been asking for

There is joy here
in the gathering of focus,
satisfaction
in the end of aimless waiting,
there is time for us
in the curve’s acceleration,
there’s a place for us,
and there is time.

©Wendy Mulhern
March 28, 2017

Morning Chat

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with the (virtual) biking philosophers

Maybe nothing changes but your story,
maybe your story changes everything.
Perhaps your being is as vast as mind
and what you see as change
is just a different way of viewing it

Life, after all, is not random —
it persists at being life
in every venue where it finds itself —
everything it’s dealt
becomes its opportunity
to grow, to live, to rise, to be transformed

So through its changes
it remains the same,
although its sense of being is forever new,
and that explains both progress
and immutability
throughout the days of folks like me and you.

©Wendy Mulhern
March 27, 2017

Save, or I Perish

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As if randomly,
through some searing memories
I find myself
fallen between the ribs of normalcy,
lodged in the space between
what I thought and what I’ve come to understand
stuck in a place where I can only cry
“save, or I perish”

Part of me thinking,
are tears so bad, anyway?
Is this agony, or is it just
the stretching of my face
and of the inside of my mouth?

What carried me this far
will carry me all the way.
To the almighty, it doesn’t matter
if my salvation took a thousand years
or one day,
I am not tardy,
I am not far from home —
wait for the clearing,
for surely it will come.

©Wendy Mulhern
March 26, 2017

 

There is a River

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Let the water run and run
until it runs clear,
till it can sit transparent
in a ball jar,
when all the sediment
has been first stirred, then washed away
and we will celebrate
a well-developed well

Let my thoughts stream in goodness
till they run clear,
till agents of opacity
all disappear,
till all my impulses are pure love
and I no longer brace myself
to disapprove

There is a river
running through all consciousness,
its streams will gladden
all the hungry hearts,
I will ride it
all the way to clarity,
yes, I will ride it
from and to my source.

©Wendy Mulhern
March 25, 2017