We slide into laughter,
an intimate cove,
a secret cave,
a place between the sky
and the deep
(the wet of tears at the edges
making the rocks gleam)
Laughter like bubbling water,
thirst quenching and cool,
a little ledge we can hide on,
safe from the churn of fears and tragedy,
safe from the shafts of analysis
and resolutions.
We bring up the things
that made us laugh before,
just to keep us here
a little longer.
©Wendy Mulhern
November 24, 2015
I will make my home a temple,
I will make this a holy place,
a holy time,
where all who come here
will feel hallowed
No cold will seep in around the edges,
no rain, no fear,
no one will sit in uneasy silence
as if they can’t put their whole weight down,
escaping through the wormhole of their phones,
looking affronted when asked,
“who are you texting?”
I will make my home a halo
so everyone in it is bathed
in golden light
that will stay with them when they go —
They can take it with them
as a homing device
so they can access home
wherever they are.
©Wendy Mulhern
November 23, 2015
When the truth comes,
everything lights up at once.
It’s not a chain reaction,
a far off pulse that makes its way
through time, through space
Inspiration alights
simultaneously
in every cell —
They are all awake,
all intelligent,
all delighting in the instant activation
of their attention,
their essential role
in the great attuning.
©Wendy Mulhern
November 21, 2015
Ah, we have tried
with our minds
and with all our art
to bring the dawn —
we have visualized it,
and declared it,
we have understood its theory,
even publicized our musings —
How is it
that it has not yet come?
What more do we need to do?
People say
that dawn is subjective anyway,
coming at different times
in different places —
If that’s the case,
how will I know it
even if it does come to me?
©Wendy Mulhern
November 20, 2015
One day they discovered
there was much more to sound
than the tinny pings they evoked
by hitting themselves and each other
They found they could stand open
and the grand wind would come in,
would focus their tones
like fine bells,
would ring them crystalline and haunting
in a reverberation
that caught them up in holy awe,
and they all stood still
and listened.
©Wendy Mulhern
November 19, 2015
photo by Edward Mulhern
In the early morning edges
where sleep tosses its transparent images
in fractal ragged waves
across awakeness
In the pre-dawn chill
where an electric light
fails to bring the vigor of the day
There is still radiance,
jewels of peaceful thought
spreading clarity,
rays of awareness
imparting buoyant hope:
this is a day of healing.
©Wendy Mulhern
November 18, 2015
Deepening hue of evening sky
imparts a dusky wonderment
that such a color
(crossed, though it is, by suburb’s electric lines)
carries the evidence
of the goodness of everything,
soft promise
that what stretches out
along my life’s horizon
is also saturated
with quiet joy,
enough to cancel out
the long seep of dread
that used to haunt my edges,
enough to fill the whole bowl of my aural field
with golden sound.
©Wendy Mulhern
November 16, 2015
In this endeavor
I will yield
as gracefully
as a pear tree
yields her smooth fruits,
precious seed entrusted to the taker,
juice collected from the sun
concentrated here,
the best gift I can give
of my substance,
in just acknowledgement that
all that I am is perfected
in this exchange,
all that I am is indebted
to this truth.
©Wendy Mulhern
November 15, 2015
Let’s talk about
silence
Let’s let the rain
do the talking for us
(tapping patter and the rush of rivulets)
Let’s consider
that no raindrop
does the falling of another
It is not my job
to influence, persuade,
not my work
to make assessments,
Not even mine
to set examples
(thinking that they really should be followed)
Mine, instead, to notice
and to magnify
that which rises freely
from its own reception
of the blessed touch of thought,
that which drops unerring
into its own purpose,
from its own source.
©Wendy Mulhern
November 14, 2015
And blessings will come with
the dark wind — rain and
bits of leaves blown from trees,
fresh washed air and the progress
of what has moved all through the night
Blessings, too, of dry warmth within
and the remembrance
that the eternal laws of mutual blessing
are forming their delicate but capable arcs,
in Mind, in body,
in the harmony of all life,
even while we speak,
even as we pray.
©Wendy Mulhern
November 13, 2015
(title quote from Mary Baker Eddy)