Author Archives: Wendy

Faith

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faith

You scoff at the stories
of how people found God —
I love you and the aliveness
behind your stance, the unwillingness
to be sold salvation by anyone,
to swallow stories
that set things neatly up —
castles made of blocks —
and plant the faithful conveniently
at the top

Some people may be called to faith
as if it were a club, and some, as if it were
network marketing.
You will never believe
what someone else tells you —
The voice inside,
deeper in than where suggestions can be planted,
whispers what you are:
You’ll follow that.

©Wendy Mulhern
June 12, 2015

Light through Leaves

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carkeek maple

This color of green —
light on leaves, light through leaves,
invokes a happiness
that shows my empathy

Like other living things
they are most beautiful
when they are receiving
that which feeds them,
when they are giving
that for which they were made,
when they are being
what they are designed to be —
drinkers of light,
bringers of sweet energy.

©Wendy Mulhern
June 11, 2015

carkeek dancing tree2

The Dawn of You

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the dawn of you

The sky is waiting
for the dawn of you —
your full orb to follow
these beams which already
have lighted and thrilled it

We are waiting
for our fingers
to meet your outstretched hands,
for the sweet interlock
through which will course
unbounded joy

There’s no hurry about it:
What we see already of you
is enough for now —
the bright anticipation
kindles us, in this moment’s reception
of all that glows glorious
as your heart rises.

©Wendy Mulhern
June 10, 2015

Seeing the Light

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window

We will give up
trying to be good
and trying to look good
and trying to justify
relative worth

We will give up
the anxious glances,
the frenzied measurements,
the sad assessments
of us and the world

For we will know
that this good of us
is not of our doing
or our undoing —
It is held immutable,
unsullied,
and will glow triumphant
and enlightening
through all our days.

©Wendy Mulhern
June 8, 2015

Evil’s End

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The veil has been rent —
the illusion that plagued us
is gone, like the face of a burst balloon,
and even the reflexive repugnance
that trickled bitter down our throats
has disappeared

So we are no longer willing to accept
wheels ever-spinning in mud,
and the dragon no longer gets to
sweep away a third of the stars
from heaven

All the things we were struggling for
are lost from view —
we see the remaining distorted image
now two-dimensional
on the scrap of discarded balloon
And day rises, dew jeweled,
before our grateful eyes.

©Wendy Mulhern
June 6, 2015

Our

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our sky

Beneath the sky
my phone reports as cloudy,
my love darts up
to the soft curved body
of the gull flying low overhead,
pale morning color
glowing around its belly

And I feel sure
that it receives the love
as all bodies are designed to do —
receptors and transmitters
of what shines
brighter than light.
So I begin my prayer:
“Our.”

©Wendy Mulhern
June 5, 2015

A Day Under the Sky

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shoveling

Today my pleasure was
weeds and a shovel,
and a job that required
that I keep on working
long past my usual
sense of endurance,
past being tired,
past making choices —
at the command
of the process at hand,
focus and repetition,
into the place of
not thinking anything

I have certainly earned
the rise and fall of my breathing,
the languor of abandon,
this feeling of being stretched out
like long winter grass
pressing into the earth.

©Wendy Mulhern
June 4, 2015

photo by Edward Mulhern

Reveal

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When all the masks dissolve
(as well they must, against the potency
of our being)
We’ll see each other, and we’ll know
that nothing we have fretted over
ever mattered at all

The person each of us has always been,
the one we’ve always known,
turns out to never have been sullied
by failures or by fears

That deeply lovable, delightful being
we each so valiantly
have striven to defend
is who, now that the mask is down,
appears,
never faded, never fallen,
never broken, never marred by years,
ever shining, radiant and clear.

©Wendy Mulhern
June 3, 2015

Seed Bed

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seedlings

Let my spirit
be generous enough
to offer soft landing
to the hard points,
the ragged edges,
the bony joints that come jabbing,
the blunt words that fall graceless

Let my spirit be deep enough
to see beneath the mask of self-seeking,
beyond temptation
to let stridency annoy me —
After all, we all are asking
for the same thing

We all are hoping
to find someone who will
give us what we need,
to fill the hollow hunger for
deserving approbation

Let my spirit be a rich bed,
moist and warm enough to nourish
all those worthy seeds
till the burr becomes irrelevant
in the new green.

©Wendy Mulhern
June 2, 2015

Gulls

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gull

Gulls glide like boats
up along the bluff,
their wings unmoving

Their eyes look like they’re riding
instead of flying

They come along in ones and twos
appearing between the tops of trees

They fly mostly
into the prevailing wind —
some up-close eddy must aid their flight —
their casual purpose
no more obvious
than any effort on their part,
their presence too common
for comment.

©Wendy Mulhern
May 31, 2015