Awake

Jamaica Plain

Across the street,
I see an upper window,
across the day a light,
a leap of concord,
a resonance of consciousness,
a sense of presence,
signal of life, though no one can be seen

Within each dwelling, everywhere I look,
I feel the power,
for any one of us can transform everything.
The calm insistence on the truth
of our infinity
blows out the whole illusion
of our chains.

I see you, indeed I see you!
The great wakening is here
and we will move, astonished,
from the cruel story
into the clear.

©Wendy Mulhern
January 26, 2016

No Lie

looking north

Don’t be overwhelmed
by the size of the lie,
how comprehensive it has been,
how many generations
it has taken in

Far more impressive
is the size of truth,
and its solidity, and its
dependability,
and the fact that,
right now, it is establishing itself
and we are seeing
the lie falling away,
all of it —

It all must go,
and its purported consequences
can leave no mark
on the grand display of being,
never bring one light
down from the sky.

©Wendy Mulhern
January 25, 2016

Going Home

rock with puddle

We’re all trying to go home.
The flailing stumbling is part of it,
the bold euphoric leaps are, too,
as is the boisterous chatter
and the quiet yearning,
as are the careful plans
and the impulsive searching

We’re all trying to be home,
and we will find it,
because it isn’t far
from every one of us,
for in home
we live and move and have our being.

©Wendy Mulhern
January 24, 2016

Winter

winter maple

Winter is not finished.
Perhaps it has not even begun —
it paces wide fields, pauses
in wooded corners,
turns with an abrupt flourish
of long, dark cloak,
releasing torrents — wind and rain,
maybe even snow

Head down, it broods,
and now and then
lifts blazing eyes
to meet your gaze,
to draw you in.

©Wendy Mulhern
January 22, 2016

Rags

Richmond beach driftwood

In this threadbare place
where I can no longer settle
for the flimsy garments
of my past, fake life,
for the oppressive garb
of my appointed station

Where I have yet to find
the robes of power and of justice
(though I have dreamed them
oh so many times)
I stand in rags
but not for long

The force that makes me,
that places me at rest,
possessing a prodigious energy
I’ve yet to tap,
that gives me everything I’ve ever been
and all I am to be,
that grants deep decency to all,
will clothe me, too.

©Wendy Mulhern
January 21, 2016

Sovereignty

Carkeek reflections(or how to heal the world)

There is no grid of time or space
through which we move,
tracked along the x axis
through the highs and lows
of daily random y’s

These lines bend at our will,
we hold them, gathered,
in our hands,
we roll them out
through all the planes of consciousness —
they move at our command

We are not in the world, rather,
the world is in us,
so in the steadying of ourselves,
we steady it —
we calm it, reassure it, and set it
gently on its course.

©Wendy Mulhern
January 20, 2016

Fallen

mushrooms

Having fallen from the story
(like a lost glove, in the rain,
the present sodden reality
seeping unmistakably in)

I find I am no longer concerned
with what will happen
in that white paper world
that knows no wetness

And I sense the presence
of others. Ah! There is a heart bond
in this shared element. We see
it doesn’t matter what you fell from.

It never really mattered,
even up there. Down here
we instinctively reach for each other.
We bind each other up

We open all our senses
(many that we never knew we had)
to take in the nuances
of this emerging truth.

©Wendy Mulhern
January 19, 2016

 

No Worries

sailboat through trees

Here is how I let go
of the string of worry,
here is how I keep it
from pulling me sideways,
from making me say things
(in my resultant wobbliness)
that make the air tense between us:

I let go by remembering
no one has ever soared
with worry on her wings,
and if we lived by worry
we couldn’t move at all

We are in Mind
and nowhere else,
and Mind knows us balanced,
and Mind designs all the spaces —
the flow of us,
the cushioning air,
the trail and all the riders on it,
and their balance and their thoughts.

It’s the nature of Mind
to be harmony — we are all expressions
of one grand idea.
We can’t fall out of it,
so we can’t crash. So there’s no place
for worry here.

©Wendy Mulhern
January 18, 2016

Inner Voice

crow landing

Truth is,
you need to trust
your inner ear,
your source of balance,
your intonation,
and no attempts to balance you
from over here
can be of any use. I need to trust
that you will calibrate
and find your finest tuning
on your own

Truth is,
I need to trust
my inner voice
and not let it be silenced
by reasons formed somewhere outside
the center of my being —
by my mistrusts, or by concerns
of others, or second-guessing
how its counsel is perceived.
I need to hone its clarity
by listening and following
and holding true,
even if I’m not sure why I do.

©Wendy Mulhern
January 17, 2016

Reconciling

tree limbs, sky

Still longing for
the completed circuit,
the gathering of everything,
the fulfilled promise,
putting it all to bed
at end of day

Longing for that,
even as the greater light
begins to rise,
providing higher resolution,
where the dearly held
dream of reconciliation
is subsumed
by the fact of oneness.

©Wendy Mulhern
January 15, 2016