Hum of the earth,
web of life —
No need to assert yourself,
no need to fight
against relentless chains
You meld into the strength
of all that holds you —
It will affirm you
without your needing to break anything
It folds you in,
you take your place —
It holds you so true,
all that was false about your life
must fade away
So we return,
so we arrive for the first time,
breathing the ever new
ancient
rhythm of all that is.
©Wendy Mulhern
September 21, 2014
photo by Heather Mulhern
Your clothes don’t matter
in the place where we are all naked
Your habits, your opinions,
your credentials
weigh nothing, when we shed them all
For to bathe in this river
everything but the pure
sweet streaming of you
must be left behind
(or else it will be washed away anyway)
No one wants a piece of you
Nor can you rest on past laurels
Nor need you feel you have no name
to pull the proper recognition
Everyone who dives in
is borne along the bright current
and the river’s song
sings through us all.
©Wendy Mulhern
September 18, 2014
Here is the offer
contained in every now:
For this one moment
to slip off of the page
into the sphere
to feel the depth
of all these dimensions
where the old flat knowledge
is entirely irrelevant
as we learn to move
among the wheeling elements
All the former prohibitions
are erased
as we soar and dive and glide
And miser’s calculations are replaced
as we encompass
our immeasurable size.
©Wendy Mulhern
September 17, 2014
I’m eager to publish my upcoming book, The Law of Life. It delineates, poetically, what I am coming to understand, and am in awe of, about the natural laws that govern the cosmos on all scales, from stars to quarks. The book is illustrated with compelling black and white photographs taken by me, my husband, and my daughter, and it is beautiful. I keep picking it up and reading through it when I have many other things to do. It draws me in.
The heavy school bus groans
and blinks
and rolls
So it begins
(or it continues, for no doubt
it starts at home)
The inculcation of the mess we’re in
The press of lessons telling us again, again
We can’t expect to do the things we want
We’re told we don’t deserve to
and shouldn’t even ask,
We’re told its childish
and it’s selfish
and such hopes are sure to crash
against the real world
and what other people want
So we are severed from ourselves
till we no longer know
our deepest yearnings
and how they tie us
to the order of all things
Then later on we take a quest
to find out what we want,
And when we know it
we are told
we have to find a way
to compromise
to monetize
to pull out some small piece of it
that we can sell
and hope it satisfies
We’ll be so rich
when finally we come to understand
the things we want are keys —
They are the plan
for how we give our gifts,
how we receive
and how we interlock in harmony —
How we all long to serve the whole,
How doing what we want achieves this goal.
©Wendy Mulhern
September 16, 2014
In every wilderness
are rocks that can be struck for water
There is hope beneath the sand
Every living thing attracts
that which desires to bless it —
What it needs is there
and will come through
There is a power in everything
to summon what completes its arc,
There is a power in all of us
to meet what makes us spark,
When fear is banished,
the souls that shine alone
will call forth constellations from the dark.
©Wendy Mulhern
September 14, 2014
We are not prisoners
There are no bars upon our days
We are not pawns
and we are not enslaved
No grid constrains us
nor makes us walk its lines
nor forces us, through fear
to leave on lights against the night
We are not prisoners
There are no chains upon our thoughts
We’re not compelled
to think in boxes
No boundaries block us off
from realms we might explore
No lines of inquiry
can be forbidden
We are not prisoners
however fearsome the array
of shadow makers
designed to make us stay
within the lines of pre-established norms
Our deep completeness
still has the final say
and leads us, fearless
out to grander forms.
©Wendy Mulhern
September 13, 2014
The chaff is not nothing
— nothing is nothing —
It has a history
It has a future
It follows the dispersing energy
along the edge of wind
It lands against a fence
and gives its final nutrients
back to the ground
Or it ignites
in one last sparking,
its light and heat
a parting gift
before it burns to ash
becoming even more diffuse
The wheat is weighty,
concentrated in,
It holds the seed of life
It holds the focused plan
It is prepared for next year’s season
to drink the draft of life and thrive
And those first blades it sends
in vibrant springing green
to take in sun
to make the next year’s seed
will then at season’s end grow dry,
becoming chaff
So goes the cycle
with nothing wasted
Nothing is nothing —
All that has loved
still has a value here,
still has a place.
©Wendy Mulhern
September 12, 2014
Here is my love
that doesn’t cling
that doesn’t slide around its objects
to the dark side
that doesn’t grasp
that doesn’t weigh them down
or take up residence within their forms
as jealousy, possession
Here is my love
that must stay love
— all light —
illuming and infusing everything
and never changing —
Light as these wing tips
poised on the edge of that taut span
that masters flight,
poised to guide my actions
in the nuance
of the sweet embrace
of all that shimmers
and all that waits to shine.
©Wendy Mulhern
September 11, 2014
When you’ve lost your footing
sometimes the only thing to do
is tumble
Some things there’s no way
to put right
no words to reestablish
some former stance
Sometimes you need to let it go
in the turbulence of the roiling waves,
sand suspended, water full of it
turbid and thrashing
until they find their limit and recede
setting everything down smooth
gleaming innocent
along the stretching shore.
©Wendy Mulhern
September 10, 2014