Author Archives: Wendy

Light and Heat

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carkeek6

Light answers light —
the brightness multiplies

Heat is not the same:
heat flows towards cold —
the same desire perhaps
but different mode

Heat spreads its blanket out
towards all who seek it,
cooling down with distance,
still too generous to hoard

We make heat inside —
we make it from our substance,
from our thoughts.
We feel and feed the small fire
that warms like coals
somewhere behind our hearts

So we come to know
the essence of this gift,
the little inner furnace
by which we recognize the sun.

©Wendy Mulhern
March 3, 2015

photo by Eric Mulhern

Riding the Beast

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We’ll keep on holding
the tail of this beast
though it lashes
and the beast bounds through mountains
and low limbs threaten
to wipe us off

We’ll keep on holding,
our arms just barely strong enough —
We’ll brace each other,
our clasp together
strengthening our grasp

We’ll have no time to notice
all the little things that otherwise
might take up our attention
but in some brief moments
as we catch our breath
we may notice
that we’re flying.

©Wendy Mulhern
February 28. 2015

Enchantment

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enchantment

Don’t be afraid
that you might lose
the bars of colored light
that bend so generous
through leaded glass
and now adorn your walls —
bright gems to cheer your day

Don’t be afraid
for cheer comes through
in countless forms —
through mystic fog, in birdsong,
in all the kindness
that can fill your thoughts

The color bars
are just a token —
they convey a message
but what renders them enchanting
lies within.

©Wendy Mulhern
February 26, 2015

Progression

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As we roll down the landscape
like wind-riding clouds
exulting in our stretching
and our shifting
and our effortless progression
through the expansive blue

There’s no need to remember
the shells we left behind —
how rigid they were, and how fragile,
and how essential we somehow
thought they were

No need to consider going back,
for everything we ever were is here —
our substance and our power,
now finally liberated
can take their place
in heaven’s sphere.

©Wendy Mulhern
February 25, 2015

The Work at Hand

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Madronas at work

What’s required here
is to not be distracted —
The same old hand waves,
of course, will be employed,
and the frantic flashings
of threatened loss
if things should go a certain way.
You’re right to be on edge, we’re told —
The stakes are high

But none of this is true.

The only thing required
is to maintain the steady focus
of what puts us here, of what
maintains our being

The only thing required
is to be quite sure
of our inheritance —
the substance that outweighs the world.

©Wendy Mulhern
February 24, 2015

Talking With the Devil

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trunks crossing

The devil says,
Here’s some nice good for you —
Where do you want me to put
the bad stuff?
You could put in on those other people,
call them enemies,
or put it in events and call it fate,
I can hide it deep inside you
where you’ll mostly never see it,
you can take it with you everywhere you go
Or I can let you pull it out and wear it like a badge,
proud that you’re not hiding anything

Then tell the devil:
No, I’m not signing.
My good is mine already
and it doesn’t need your seal,
It doesn’t need the bad you offer
to contain it or define it,
doesn’t need to be legitimized by you

You tell the devil no —
There is no place
in the grand sphere of all my being
for your lies.

©Wendy Mulhern
February 23, 2015

A Place

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suntouched trees2

There is a place for you,
an ever present opening
in the dynamic slipstream
of the now

There is a way for you to enter
and be fully integrated
in the endless flow
of life supporting life

There is a welcoming
whose chords touch every harp string
of your being, sending the chiming
of your life song
rolling out and out along the hills

There is a need for you,
and where you are
the need is met.

©Wendy Mulhern
February 22, 2015

Surrender again

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surrender

Here I am again
considering infinity
and the swift intake of breath
that meets the deep cold plunge
of surrender

Here I am
releasing my impressions and opinions
and the sense of things
I held so hard as true

Here I am falling
into the sky
where the searing immensity
of what can be healed
shimmers all around.

©Wendy Mulhern
February 21, 2015

Severance

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hollow tree

I will pay quickly
I will end my connection
and walk away
I will not be involved
anymore

I have paid dearly
for my blindness, for my
neglect to heed the subtle signs
But the price, perhaps,
is not that bad

Perhaps in this failure to find trust
I have learned to place it
on sounder ground —
Perhaps in this severance
of dubious dependence
I build a firmer trust
within myself.

©Wendy Mulhern
February 19, 2015