Short swoops of comprehension
give me the exhilaration of flight,
my heart filled with sky and already,
even in the breath-catching pause
after the high,
the prospect of the next rush
is forming, small,
in my mind
I don’t have to remind myself
how to do this —
just have to go out and
do it again.
©Wendy Mulhern
September 8, 2015
“You almost always plant
for people coming after you,” he said.
“The trees we now enjoy
were planted here by others,
Your vision will be seen, perhaps,
in thirty years (except for fruit trees —
they may bear in two or three)”
The things we’re building now
will be loved by others,
and maybe that’s the reason —
Maybe when that impetus is gone
and what is left is just the search
for what to do today —
what entertainment, what exotic play —
we find our colors cooling,
and the urge to live
to gradually begin to fade away
But as long as we’re impelled
to keep on building,
we’ll be living in the timelessness of love,
blessed by others who have built before us,
blessed by what we give to future years.
©Wendy Mulhern
September 6, 2015
Within the restful hush
of pre-dawn stirrings
you can feel the low tone of patient stone
that took in fall’s impassioned chill
all through the night
and now releases it
with no hurry,
equalizing the swifter emotions
of day and night
in slow perspective,
as elders view the young
with quiet humor —
nothing of heaven or tragedy
won or lost in a single day.
©Wendy Mulhern
September 4, 2015
In a departure
abrupt or gradual
as leaving a dream,
I grasp onto light lines
I find them in faces,
in flickers of hope,
in the never-completely-hidden
desire to be seen
I see them in the eye-catching
that perceives a sly joke
and sends cascades of laughter
into the shared space
I see you, Oh, I see you
riding strong along your current,
throwing off the crust of
who I might have thought you were
As I, too, flow out from my crust,
swifter than lava,
carrying my new form
out into the light of day.
©Wendy Mulhern
September 2, 2015
Catch me up in the echo of wind
blowing through the dark
with the comfort of miles traversed
up along the coast and through the city,
journeys of clouds and rain bringing promise
of the year’s steady, steadying turning
Let my wistfulness, that longed
to be wrapped and held,
be cradled in this,
the purpose that works its
equalizing movement
all through the night.
©Wendy Mulhern
September 1, 2015
It takes so little time
for wind and rain
to blow and wash away
the memory of that long stretch of heat,
for me to feel the quickened pace of fall —
The strong insistence of its shorter days,
the drop of needles, leaves, and time,
the carpeting of dampened, waiting ground,
the swift intake of cooler breath
There may be sun again
before the winter —
I just can’t feel it now
in this particular cross-pattern
of internal and external weather,
its mix of colors
bright and dark against my eyes.
©Wendy Mulhern
August 31, 2015
There was a moment
when the fields were gold
You could say
their essence was illumined
in that moment
You could say
they were made for this,
you could say that they were vessels
for the sun’s essence
in that last kiss of day
You could feel in that moment
like golden fields —
all lit up —
It would be bliss,
you and the sun —
it wouldn’t matter
how you defined it.
©Wendy Mulhern
August 29, 2015
We are not who we thought we were,
beset by helpless needs,
buffeted by forces that could grant
or else deny them,
pleading for the mercy of the fates
We are not placed here
ungrounded and bereft,
seeking to find some anchor
to afford a fleeting feeling
of belonging
We are sovereign —
The Mind we access
is the universal I Am,
with which we hold all forces
at our center, with our hand
With which we preside over
all the harmony of being
not pushed around by actions or conditions,
instead, ordaining them —
setting everything in place
in concert with the law that loves us all.
©Wendy Mulhern
August 28, 2015
We resonate
as effortless as A strings,
for the frequency is here —
We hum, we sing,
no exertion on our part —
just what we feel, just what we are
This joy of being sounded
is like none other —
We recognize that it is everything
we’ve always longed for,
why we are here.
It fills us with the thrum of our own essence,
gives us our place
in the sweet melody and chords
that modulate exquisitely
all down the vast curve of being.
©Wendy Mulhern
August 26, 2015
Vessel by Jennifer McCurdy, photo by Julius Friedman
Well, in fact,
it’s not possible to waste a day
but if it were,
it might be like this:
too caught up in chores to notice
how blue the sky was, how crisp the air,
how clear the sun . . .
Since it’s not possible to waste a day,
I’ll cash in the recollection of my moments,
I’ll pull something up from within
that wasn’t even there
(at least, not that I’d noticed)
I’ll remember
the attentiveness and power
invoked by driving
a borrowed stick shift car,
and the sweet search for humbleness
that followed a rejection,
and the glimpse — twice —
that acknowledging the hold on each identity
of the one sovereign, infinite Mind
makes a difference in the thoughts and actions
of individuals and the collective,
and it’s something I can do
today, right now.
©Wendy Mulhern
August 25, 2015