There’s still some value
in these prosaic days,
full of tasks and timelines
and hanging suspended
between past and future
There’s still time here
for the gathering
of news from friends —
children’s accomplishments,
parental worries put to bed
There’s space to rest,
if only for a moment,
in the feeling of having done well,
or at least well enough
to roll over into the next day.
©Wendy Mulhern
August 24, 2015
Our desire to bless
brings us here —
Though we feel empty,
we are attracted to the need,
This is what we hunger for
and it draws us
to the opportunity
We desire to bless,
and bless we will.
The goodness we bestow
will satisfy us, too —
Wellspring of water from within,
coming up infinite,
Filling us
with life’s compelling light.
©Wendy Mulhern
August 23, 2015
I think of this
as if it were utopia,
and yet it should be fundamental —
basic, unrestrained, whole-heart acceptance
of everyone for being who they are
That we could simply be ourselves together —
nothing to withhold,
nothing to bestow,
no accolades to earn, no shame to shrink from,
no hierarchy of “in”, of “hip”, of “cool”,
No chairs to win, tryouts to fail,
nothing to prevent us from just seeing
in ourselves and in each other,
the wholly uncontested and essential,
the deeply needed for the
part that no one else can play,
the curious, ecstatic, quirky wonder
of each of us —
Yes, that would win the day.
©Wendy Mulhern
August 22, 2015
photo by Edward Mulhern
We walk around among each other
saying “sound me, sound me,
send your signal down
the shaft of my deep being,
shine my sacred essence out
so everyone can see it —
if you sound me, I will love you
and I’ll know that I am loved”
But in the end we have to know
no person sounds a man, a woman —
no voice that is itself in doubt
can have the clear tone
that reaches all the way in
This is a work for our creator
which sounds us all so deeply
that we rest, sound, in the
grounded comfort of our essence,
from which we then, too,
can sound each other.
©Wendy Mulhern
August 21, 2015
photo by Edward Mulhern
August starts to daydream
about Autumn, curling her toes
into evening’s cooling sands,
concentrating the shortening sun
into goldenrod, seed pods
The pensive shadow of later mornings
and the cozy closing in at end of day
find her thinking of soft blankets,
still pouring out her strong warmth
to finish the harvest
before putting it to bed.
©Wendy Mulhern
August 20, 2015
Give me the grace
to leave enough space
to hold an open emptiness
in which truth can be heard
Attune my mind
so I can find
the words, but also pauses,
the rests which let the melody
form and come full circle
A rush of argument
will not convince,
however well conceived —
I’m learning now: only in silence
is anything received
Then let me listen
to all the spaces in between,
let me breathe with them
down into their stillness,
Let me wait until
the quiet opens out —
let me not speak
until the space has spoken.
©Wendy Mulhern
August 19, 2015
We have walked in these bodies
unaware of what we are
and what our power is,
and yet, somehow,
we’re not entirely surprised —
We rise into this knowing
like coming home,
recognition welling in our eyes
This is when time fades out
like stars before dawn
and the brightness of each one of us
outshines our former forms,
And the narrow, bumpy trails
we thought of as our lives
recede in the expansive view
of this terrain
The sparks between us
may seem random and erratic,
but as they multiply,
the structure of the web starts to appear,
intricate, enchanting and stupendous,
astonishing and yet profoundly clear —
the life which we are starting to remember,
the endless joy of being here.
©Wendy Mulhern
August 18, 2015
photo by Edward Mulhern
I have my reasons
but they are no reason,
I have this judgment
but it’s not mine,
I need a reset,
a way of seeing
to put my thought scape back in line
There is no purpose
for poison pockets,
no-trespass sections
within my mind,
no animosity
has any value —
it would just keep me
from being kind
And someone with a life that looks to me
like they have tied themselves in knots,
closed others off,
needs, just as much as me,
a gentle touch
to reach beneath the snarl,
to wake us up.
©Wendy Mulhern
August 16, 2015
There is no small light —
Every light is indication
of the vast source, reflection of
the brightness that illumines everything —
Any one you look at
will lead you back
to the infinite
There is no small life —
Beneath each spark, however dimly seen,
is that potent force
that needs to be expressed,
that needs to shine, and to engage,
and dance relationship —
to make more life,
to bless and to be blessed.
©Wendy Mulhern
August 14, 2015
In certain moments we can sit and look
at floes that float down rivers,
clouds that ride in great flotillas
across the sky,
lives that roll
down the slope of time,
accelerating in the weight
of all they have accumulated,
bringing the past with them,
slowly melting in the heat
of the present
What is actively alive here?
And what has settled
for the insulation of memories,
referencing states of being
which themselves, perhaps,
were all caught up
in the glamour and swirl
of confections of stories?
Is this a picture
of how we all go,
or is each of us, in our true selves,
something else entirely,
bemused by the illusion of us
in which we sometimes see ourselves
and which it sometimes seems that others see?
©Wendy Mulhern
August 13, 2015