Author Archives: Wendy

Advent

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adventH1a

You put out candles
to mark the advent,
You set your watch
like shepherds
for the long hours of the night
You pray, you sing,
You pause. You’ve done
everything you can.

And then Christ comes,
even before the rolling earth
embraces dawn,
before the final shiver
of the last watch,
before the time you steeled yourself
to wait

Christ comes
now as ever,
singular yet constant
glorious light —
when you most need it,
what you most longed for,
invoking your grateful surprise,
joy to your heart and your eyes.

©Wendy Mulhern
December 20, 2014

photo by Heather Mulhern

Forward

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puddle

There may be times to look back
but this is not one of them —
Not now, when the dissolving floes
are drifting,
breaking up the paths
we used to walk on

Not now, when our only hope
is in how solidly we place this step,
right here. And how attuned we are
to those deep harmonies
along whose lines
reality solidifies

This is the time to create the ways
for those who have been lost to follow,
and for all those coming up
with hope as yet unsullied
to have our boughs to twine on

In this way, we’ll weave a world
we all can stand on
and look around
in any way we want.

©Wendy Mulhern
December 18, 2014

Wasteland

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trees and wires

We could live all our lives
in suburban toyland
with no discomfort,
with our pretend jobs,
with tools that are not dangerous,
that sort of work

We could tell ourselves
there’s no reason for
that reckless longing
that keeps rising up —

We could beat it back
through shopping,
live all our lives that way
But they would be short —
We’d die of shallowness,
of not being able
to get a deep breath

We’d die of feeling no danger,
no aliveness
We’d die because fear
would come and get us anyway
in our little holes
because fear is never conquered
by running from it

We can’t live all our lives
in suburban wasteland.
Wilderness calls us
and from deep in our throats,
deep in our guts,
we answer.

©Wendy Mulhern
December 17, 2014

Taste of Heaven

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winter color

We start to look away
from all the things we thought
we cared about —
mementos, milestones, celebrations,
everything we thought would mark success

The taste of heaven
tingling on our tongues
drives us, hungry,
toward something we’re not finding
in the old pursuits

We seek it
in every place we’ve seen it —
smiles of strangers, twinkling eyes of friends,
wild abandon of winter colors in the land
and the promise of souls touching
hinted in those
inexplicable
sudden moments
when the uncountable
Importance of Everything
gleams clear.

©Wendy Mulhern
December 16, 2014

Snuggle Me

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snuggle me

Snuggle me
for I’ve been playing the grown-up
for too long —
heaviness tugging me down,
hard knots in my forehead

Playing the grown-up
with all of its hang-ups,
studying contracts,
haggling with language

Snuggle me —
Somewhere within
is the timeless and ageless
core of my being
where wisdom runs totally clear

Let your heart reach me there
where the sweet currents
wash away every care,
smooth out the tangles,
free me from worries,
free me from anguish,
from those conundrums
offer release,
rest me serenely
in snuggle-deep peace.

©Wendy Mulhern
December 14, 2014

Madre Terra

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Hileman Oak

We are made to speak with the earth,
Soles to press to loam,
Skin to sing the pure vibrations,
Tongue to taste the curling air
that bears the tale of everything alive

We are made to speak with the earth,
Eyes as emissaries, catching shafts of light,
relaying truth of all that lies within —
blue cast in the scent of oceans,
red in sun-warmed soils,
green and russet wetland grasses,
silvers aromatic in pine and sage,
rosemary

This has long been hidden
under roads and floors,
the pictures all presented
through small and separate windows
so we haven’t known
what they all mean together,
haven’t known how they comprise a whole

But still the earth will call us,
pull us out from where
the dry pursuits have trapped us,
Lead us by some image, by some zephyr
to the place that owns us,
to our land.

©Wendy Mulhern
December 13, 2014

Coming Home

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sunset home

Everybody’s coming home.
What looked like long and rocky trails,
what looked like walls, what looked like jails,
what looked like horrid snarls
of debt and obligation
are all the same

We set out on our journey
with strong resolve,
desperately determined
to give all it takes,
This time to finally leap free
of all those loops that snagged us,
dragged us back
so many times

We’re coming home.
It may be our resolve
or just the truth of our belonging:
The hard travails begin to fade
as we engage them —
We wake,
We wake to find ourselves
home.

©Wendy Mulhern
December 11, 2014

Current Events

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trees at mill creek1

I tear myself away from the pictures
so many times a day,
sickening and sad,
grief hanging with the edge of rain
on my windshield,
on the ledge behind my eyes —
Where can we turn now,
How did we drift so close to checkmate?

I look for solace in the colors —
winter reds of shrubs against storm gray,
dark trees against the sky,
I look for comfort
in the words of friends

These send me where I need to go,
down to the depths of my roots
to find the place where life
is ever coiling
to rise in its own strength,
to claim its truth.

©Wendy Mulhern
December 10, 2014

Strength

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rb tree trunks

Realizing today
(balancing along on a curb,
wind blowing through the city,
clouds clearing)
that strength is in cohesion,
capacity to spread the load
along a span, to share
the impact

Sensitized
in the unity that sends
the darting signal coursing,
wing tip to wing tip, humming
down the bow-taut curves,
every inch in tune,
harmonized, alive

Strength is not in isolation,
not in hardness, not in standing out
amidst a crowd —
It’s in the giving of one’s currents
to the whole, the glad surrender
of one’s atoms
to the grand red rover
of oneness with the team.

©Wendy Mulhern
December 9, 2014

Rome Falling

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seeds_0012-004

How does it feel
to be Rome falling?
— This is something
we can now know

Might have the same urgency
as how we cast our hopes
on what we pray will float
free of the massive
crumbling sham
that called itself
our great society

It’s strange how short a time we’ve known,
It’s strange how obvious it seems —
The utter emptiness of
all we’re told to strive for,
The spirit-hunger in our dreams

Rome falls
and there is much it takes with it
in the roaring vacuum it sucks down,
But if we hold each other
and hold what’s true
we will emerge
ready to begin again,
tender, new.

©Wendy Mulhern
December 7, 2014