Author Archives: Wendy

Rain in the Forecast

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angel clouds

Strong wind from the south.
The sky has angels in it —
broad wings stretched out
against the fervent blue
bearing word of change

The water speaks of sun and cloud —
silver sparkle, metal gray,
Small children play at lake side,
my tears just out of range

The girl plays with her dad,
the boy plays alone.
They want to play together
but can’t quite make it happen

I help myself to some of their longing
while warm wind intermittently
brings the scent of blossoms

Cormorants and gulls
sit out on pilings,
Some gulls fly low
playing knock-you-off,
Coots float in flotillas
bobbing in the waves

This day, and what will save it
fade in and out like wind and sun
taking their time
before tomorrow’s rain.

©Wendy Mulhern
March 27, 2015

Joy Rising

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sun mist

Joy rises like heat
from all that breathes
in the landscape of a life,
all that connects and releases,
all that takes in and gives back

It isn’t packaged in discrete parcels
to be won or bought,
doesn’t depend on reaching
designated goals
It doesn’t hold back, doesn’t wait
for anything

Joy rises like morning mist
to meet the sun,
from all that breathes,
suffusing everything.

©Wendy Mulhern
March 26, 2015

Life Force

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clear water

I think of sinking
to the silent place of upwelling
where the life force springs forth
inside of me

I see the soft, brown depression,
a sign of water past
but nothing there

I pause before attempting
to dig deeper —
It is not in me:

The life force comes from everywhere,
quicker than instant —
It fills me full

Clear, clear water
cold and warbling
refreshing as
presence discovered to be infinite,

Flowing me,
showing itself to be me —
liquid elation,
treble peace.

©Wendy Mulhern
March 25, 2015

Hold Me

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moss-armed maple smaller

I will hold you
until all your anxieties
and all your busy analyzers
turn around three times
and settle down

I will hold you
till the counsel of your inner stillness
finds its fire,
lights up its knowing

I will hold you
until all your little animals —
the ones that hover in the dark
just out of view —
come curious and hopeful
to the fire, and,
still alert but now calm,
lie down

You can hold me
till all my little animals
leave all their little dreads,
come in to settle by the fire.
Yes, you can hold me the same.

©Wendy Mulhern
March 24, 2014

Held

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paramount reflection

Let me remember
what holds me,
close as my skin,
close as my breath —
what bears me up,
what launches me
on every leap, each earth-blessed step

Let me lean in
and feel its strength sustaining me,
Let me feel its soft, abiding rest —
I cannot fall from here,
I can’t be helpless —
It guides me through my pathways unsuppressed

Let me not be fooled
by the illusion
that I walk unsupported
through indifferent air,
Let me be free from memories of pain,
let me be free from fear

That law that holds me now
has always been here,
close as my thought,
close as my name,
And it will always be
the arms embracing me,
Its comfort sure, its soulfulness the same.

©Wendy Mulhern
March 23, 2015

Stealing Away

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mossy trees

We are stealing away,
feeling the need to be quiet
lest our escape, somehow, be arrested

We are not talking about
the wasteland we are walking out of,
not yet. Not till we are safe
on the other side

We have seen many things —
Things that were not hidden, really,
but we just couldn’t see them
without a reference point

Now that those points
have come into focus
we are going, as fast as we can,

Less fleeing than walking rapidly
towards our destination,
to that safe haven
where we can be real.

©Wendy Mulhern
March 21, 2015

Tree Full of Birds

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bird tree

We’ll ride on the memory
of a tree full of birds,
We’ll hold it to us
amid the roar of traffic
as hearth to our hope fires,
promise of home,
a place for our dreams to be landing

Many a span we have to cross —
seasons and processes,
efforts, expenditures,
many occasions we’ll have for rising
to feats that we’ve never yet dared

Far away, in a pasture
that old oak stands
and the birds come and lodge in it
singing and flocking

Later, the quiet night
will rest in its branches,
wind-sighing lullaby
soothing its sleep

It will wait for us, too,
standing through rain,
through spring kissed air
till we return
to breathe with it again.

©Wendy Mulhern
March 20, 2015

Eternal

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bluff morning

It’s time.
It’s time to pierce this bland shroud,
this heavy and impermeable sense
of being held down,
of having an internal weight
that droops my efforts ever toward inertia,
proclaiming all that’s good must end
while what is bad will rumble on forever

Every live thing testifies otherwise:
Every green shoot pushes up and out
against its boundaries,
reveling in strength
turning the downward pull
into its springboard
in its eternal act of living power

Every sentient being
delights in helping others,
in striking up the magic multiplying
chords of giving joy
that flow in sweet increase from hand to hand,
that sing forever down the grateful land.

©Wendy Mulhern
March 19, 2015

Sentience

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moss tree

I see my sentience
is entirely thought —
pervasive loops which constitute
my sense of being here,
of who I am

I see how easily the perturbations
(suggestions of alarm, of need to see
what I have wanted as an outcome
come to pass,
the wavering braids of hope and fear
and then the closing sentence)
can form and sway what I have called my life

But this is not my all:
These things which claim
to be the outer world,
and chance, and fate,
and what might come of me today,
are currents in the same domain of thought

In which I would be rudderless
if not for this release:
to give it up,
to still my oar,
to calm my care
and ride the stream in gratitude
everywhere.

©Wendy Mulhern
March 18, 2015

The Plight of the Middle-Aged White American Middle Class

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pretty picture

Oh, we have been
folded in and folded in,
our ignorance inculcated
through twists and turns
and suffering, and the one
apparent truth, that we are
not yet happy

We have done all the right things
and still it eludes us. We
have our good days
where we’re turned in such a way
that we don’t see the black wall looming;
We have our seminars and chants
to protect us from what we see
out of the corners of our eyes

We can’t be called complicit
if we haven’t seen the system,
can’t be called complicit
when we’re impoverished.
Yet when we see the role
we have been made to play,
It’s time for us
to find a way to stop.

Yes, we’ve all been victims,
no less we, who’ve ridden on the backs of slaves,
whip in hand, all our lives,
We who wondered where the ache was coming from —
a pain we couldn’t locate for its distance,
We who now watch our kids walk aimless,
having come to the end of the road we
(innocently) sent them down

So now, if we have any power at all,
the one thing we can do with it is turn —
turn away from our sugar-drugged,
glamour-brainwashed,
fear inflicted stupor
and find a way to live.

©Wendy Mulhern
March 17, 2015