Author Archives: Wendy

Haloed

Posted on by
Reply

red dogwood

The halo rests around my eyes –
I see it everywhere I look —
Red dogwood in the heaven of the winter sun,
contented trills of frogs and blackbirds

And in these moments, a lightness,
borne by the sound of wind chimes
and the unexpected scent of daphne —
gift of sweetness to the whole yard

My steps walk connected,
along the path, behind the wheelbarrow,
and in the gentle placement, day by day
of what must next be done
and how to do it,
and how illumination is provided
in the glow of each thing touched,
each touch received.

©Wendy Mulhern
January 26, 2015

Light Travels

Posted on by
Reply

magnuson wetland

Teach me this way of moving
through the ephemeral —
swinging on shafts of light
too thin to hold my weight
yet somehow able
to pass me from one to the next

Teach me to hold without grasping,
just tight enough
to slide along
to the next bright thing
I can’t quite grasp
but which may send me
on down the bright lines

Sustained by nothing I can touch here,
held up, in some still dimly comprehended way
by something I can’t see
the source of all these lights
which, in its time,
shines me home.

©Wendy Mulhern
January 25, 2015

The Great Rising

Posted on by
Reply

bluff madrona

None of these arrays,
none of these enemies
make any difference

There’s no need to analyze,
no need to have a contest
to see which ill is most egregious

One group’s pleasure
is another group’s primal, causal bane —
that which, if once snuffed out
would let the touted virtue save the day

No matter,
for we’re all just trying
to find the same thing —
the same mother’s milk,
the same father’s smile,
the same certainty that
our being is worthwhile

There will be many
with whom we don’t connect
but that’s OK —
They, too, will lift a load
in the great rising
in which we bear each other up
into the new day.

©Wendy Mulhern
January 23, 2015

Consent

Posted on by
2

consent

So gently wooed we are
by quiet songs that thrum
against our bones,
through urgings, ocean deep,
that, irresistible, sweep us
into the slowly rising current

We can pretend we haven’t heard,
pretend we aren’t moving,
pretend we don’t notice
how our yearning now
has gained a little courage,
how it senses itself part of something grand
which never is delayed
and cannot be ignored

We are wooed gently
so we won’t resist
until it’s too late —
Too late because we’ve thrown our whole consent —
our hearts, our hopes, our will —
into the thronging force
that bears us on.

©Wendy Mulhern
January 22, 2015

Request

Posted on by
Reply

madronas touching

I want you here
not for the tasks you do
so much as for the way your presence
settles me, gives me something
to lean into
lets the flurry of my worries
start to find
some resting place,
precipitates
some kind of peace

I want you here
not to possess you,
not to clip your wings,
but so the weight
of our shared intention
can focus, gather power
so together, we’ll have enough strength
to persevere.

©Wendy Mulhern
January 21, 2015

New

Posted on by
Reply

new

This is not my dormant season:
Every day, the sap is running
smooth and cold and sweet
along my inner courses
as the fresh form swells and claims new space,
ventures out across the wheeling rays of day,
skin touched, as for the first time,
by sun, by rain, in the eager stretch of greening
that meets the tingling air

And in the unseen places
vast networks of fine and tender roots
spring out along the paths within the soil

This is how it is —
selves of yesterday
fall off like sheathes, like scales,
each day I give myself to this life.

©Wendy Mulhern
January 20, 2015

Alignment

Posted on by
1

far oak close

I am not astonished
at all that falls away —
I have so little time to notice,
for the cause
to which I find myself inherently aligned
reveals itself so vast
that there are no edges —
just the rapid sudden rise of color,
close and quick, enveloping,
overwhelming any standpoint
that could put it in perspective,
overwriting everything,
filling me so comprehensively
that I could never want anything else,
owning me
just as (I now see)
it always has.

©Wendy Mulhern
January 19, 2015

Crucible

Posted on by
Reply

far oak1

Oh, these things we are so proud of
and the things of which we’re so ashamed.
these things that cling to who we think we are,
these things we carefully arrange,
These things we call ourselves
and what we call each other
all must melt
in the rising heat of change

And what we are
beneath our self stories,
What we are
beneath all our facades
will seem a small coal
when we first see it
but we will know we must acknowledge it
as ours

As ashes fall away, we’ll see the glow,
and as we hold to it, we’ll see it grow:
It will survive the fire,
it will endure —
It may be faint as yet
but it is pure.

©Wendy Mulhern
January 18, 2015

A Great Calm

Posted on by
Reply

calm

This is a great calm.
This is the calm of beginnings,
of the virgin field

This is the calm of a warm core,
liquid and unformed,
brewing place for strong motion

This is the calm
of a darkness so great
there’s no room for anything but trust

Trust in the warm core
and what forms there,
Trust in the autopoiesis of everything
Trust in the harmony to which
we all are drawn
when we leave our schemes behind
and enter the great calm.

©Wendy Mulhern
January 17, 2015

Dream Light

Posted on by
Reply

froth

The light comes through
the suboceanic dream,
through folds and fissures,
growing green with distance
through the deep transparencies,
reflecting and refracting
down and down towards where we sleep

We will follow all of its lines —
we’ll call them story —
We’ll look for something
that will bring us out,
or closer to it

We’ll always choose
whichever one seems brightest
in our unceasing struggle
to find the real light,
the one whose rays
have found their way
to all these stories,
which they can be touched with
but never contain.

©Wendy Mulhern
January 15, 2015

photo by Heather Mulhern