Author Archives: Wendy

True Love

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fireplace fire

We build our little tipis, wait for fire,
we love the roar and warmth
and then it dies,
We’re left with ember, ash,
we’re left to ask:
where will we get the wood next time?

We seldom even notice that we haven’t asked
What lights the fire anyway?
And what of us has been consumed,
What has been fed?
What’s the sustaining substance of our joy?

Here is a secret: in our natural state,
we’re lit up not by burning but by being,
No conditions are required,
and we don’t need to wait —
Our love is in our yearning and our seeing

Our love ignites — it doesn’t need to be ignited,
our love is light before a fire is even lighted.

©Wendy Mulhern
June 19, 2016

The Rule of Hearts

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field of daisies

Let us not sleep.
Justice comes, not by hoping for it,
not by peaking periodically
from the cynicism we retreated to
last time our hopes were dashed

Justice doesn’t come by waiting for it,
for some last straw to topple
the systems that have ruled us for so long

In this moment, I claim my power.
My heart is humble in this, but still insistent.
It knows that every heart
has always yearned the same,
it knows that yearning leads to fulfillment.

This is the rule of hearts,
and when everything else is silent,
they will be known to be
the only ones that ever sing,
and justice is their harmonizing —
when they join together,
we will win.

©Wendy Mulhern
June 17, 2016

Jail Visit

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tree stump

And if you need to talk for a long time,
I can listen for a long time.
I can follow your face and voice
through the laughter, through all those
reflections and memories, down
to the place of tears, back out again,
if you want to keep talking.

I don’t need to say anything
till you’re really done,
and I can’t know what I’ll say
until we get there.
This is a safe place —
you can surely know
that I will hold you in compassion
through the whole anguished tale,
I will hold steady
and yes, I will pray.

©Wendy Mulhern
June 16, 2016

Standing Guard

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storm and sun

What curls into my thought is mine.
It may call itself an imposition,
an annoyance I can’t help but feel,
(given someone else’s words or actions)
a rage, a grief, a clamping up,
a leak that stains and undermines my walls

But everything within my thought is mine
and I can grasp it,
trace it back along the lines of need,
find what’s calling out
and meet it with compassion,
let my love rise up as answer

What comes into my thought is mine —
if I can feel it,
it means that I can also find the truth to heal it.

©Wendy Mulhern
June 15, 2016

It May Rain

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clouds with purpose

Clouds with a purpose
make their way across the hills,
leaning in to their destination,
companionable in their quantity

Tousled daisies tell the news
to each other in little flurries
of excitement,
(I keep taking my jacket off
and putting it on)
It may rain

We may abandon our work, or,
having no excuse, we may continue —
We are working easy today,
our hands not minding
the halting pace of our minds.

©Wendy Mulhern
June 13, 2016

Arc

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arc

Arc of the day —
the silvered breath of early morning,
dew-clad ferns and grasses,
the warming climbing sun,
Arc of sounds — rousing calls
of turkeys, ravens,
mourning doves chiming in later,
cicadas at mid day, blackbirds
all day long, tits and finches
at intervals

Arc of the year — grasses
turning green, then pink and purple,
darkening heads, the onset of golden,
arc of their stalks, bending in the wind,
Arc of blooming — iris, ox-eyes, self-heal,
blackberry, roses

Ark of the covenant —
yea, verily —
all these moments are held
in the perfect curve of joy,
graceful bend of honor
and humility,
softly domed
by the arc of sky.

©Wendy Mulhern
June 12, 2016

A Day’s Gifts

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little plum tree

These gifts are as prolific
as the plums on our little tree,
which last year bore
five delicious fruits,
and this year has so many
(though still green)
that I am in awe of the generosity
of one so small

These gifts — conversations that yielded
bright streams of satisfaction
at their spontaneity,
and the ease of connection
and the fact that I didn’t even try —
they came on their own, sweet signs
of Life’s generosity.

©Wendy Mulhern
June 10, 2016

Fledging

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back deck with honeysuckle

The fledgling crow stood on the bench
for a long time, its eyes blinking,
its claws crooked on the planks,
its tail feathers stubby.
I watched it for a long time,
until its final stubby flight
into the grass by the fence

I watched another one later
(or perhaps the same one)
balancing on too-thin branches
in the brush pile — tentative shifting,
weighing the give of the branch
against the thrust of take-off,
hopping to equally flimsy branches,
getting ready to try again

We are so very much like these crows,
almost or maybe able to fly,
blinking for a long time
in the uncertainty of the tasks at hand,
lovingly watched over all the while.

©Wendy Mulhern
June 9, 2016

Standing With You

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early morning west field

You don’t need me to be with your fear,
you need me to go with you to where
you have never been afraid,
where you are so sure
of your place among
the forces that move everything,
where you own the free walking
down the winds along the high hills,
and the swift soaring
between craggy canyon walls
and the profound stillness
of the center point
from which you know how you will move

I hear the raw keening
in your cry of fear,
but through the static
I also hear your clear tone.

©Wendy Mulhern
June 8, 2016

A Tree’s Counsel

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Oak and Wendy

The tree said:
I am not my branches —
my branches are just pathways.
I am the pulsing center of energy
that pushes up and out and down
through branches and roots,
and if none are there, or if
they’re in the wrong place,
I make new ones

You and I, the tree told me,
are not that different.
You are not your limbs,
nor yet the sum
of who you’ve known,
and what you’ve done.
You’re not bound to the patterns
you’ve lived so many different times

You, too, can pull yourself back
to the dynamic source core,
you can concentrate your center
and from there surge out
in the way that makes
the most embracing umbrella
your love can offer.
You, too, can stabilize the atmosphere,
you, too, can establish life.

©Wendy Mulhern
June 7, 2016