I’ve been going to these wonderful, intimate poetry open mics at the Bai Pai lounge and reading from my books. Here’s a video of my second appearance, where I read poems from my book Cuddle your Curmudgeons — domestic storms and sunbreaks.
We are blessed —
Blessed by the way summer
flits around us, holds us light
in its chime-full, fragrant air,
Blessed by the sudden
wistfulness that rises
in the lengthening of shadows,
Blessed by the lofty clouds
and the fingered rays
that stream upward and eastward
from the sun
Blessed by the freedom
that hovers about us
in this moment —
brief as the weightlessness
at the top of a jump
but euphoric nonetheless.
©Wendy Mulhern
August 3, 2014
Every one of us is drawn
with lovingkindness
to our truth
There is no need to push each other,
no need to direct, persuade,
cajole, dictate
another’s course
There’s no perspective
held by any one of us
that is the one
that everyone should use
We each are drawn
from where we are
to what we are —
Our truth, our love
will guide us
And we can trust each other
to be led,
however blind we may be
to each other’s leadings —
We can wait, and watch to see
the growing masterpiece
come in to view
in how we all are drawn.
©Wendy Mulhern
August 2, 2014
Summer blazes on
day after sun-ruled day,
Night’s sweet release
comes late
We start to wait
for the wind-chime heralded
south breeze,
to signal change,
to signal rain
For years we wished for this,
A summer we could count on.
We can’t complain —
Every day is splendid
and their still are places
we can hide from heat
And the city haze,
though it accumulates,
has mostly blown away,
Our slightly sun-stressed
crop of gratitude
still sturdy.
©Wendy Mulhern
August 1, 2014
I wait for inspiration
as cedar boughs wait for dawn,
foreshadowed in a subtle definition,
a whispered dark emerging
from the darkness,
imperceptibly gaining clarity
until they stand in silent, muted green
And then suddenly
dawn blazes through,
lights them up with gold
suffuses them
with incandescent glory
I wait, for
sure as dawn,
it will come.
©Wendy Mulhern
July 30, 2014
The internal call is promised —
There is no one it will not reach.
They will be called from within
by their own truth,
by the imperative of their life,
by the enduring fervency
of their love
They will not stay scattered,
each one thinking
what they are is not enough,
that it’s too much to ask
for their gift to be valued
to the point of being able to sustain
They will no longer close off hope
as if it were a wound,
won’t lose themselves
in efforts to conform
They will be gathered
by the radiance
of everything they are.
It will lead them to the circle
where all the light is magnified
and they are celebrated,
and nothing will be wasted,
and there’s ample room for everyone inside.
©Wendy Mulhern
July 28, 2014
Perhaps my biggest foible
is to try to hide my foibles:
If I succeed
I have no safety net,
no understanding hands of friends
who have learned how to catch me
when I fall
And when I fail
(at least, at times, it’s been like this)
I am the last to know,
the last to see, with grateful eyes,
those steadfast and ironic hands
of friends who know this foible
and don’t tell me,
kindly shielding me
from the imagined fall
of seeing I’m not perfect after all.
©Wendy Mulhern
July 27, 2014
What can I give
to comfort you
when you are hurting?
I know through trial and failure
there’s no help
in sharing implications of my world view,
the fine-tuned systems
of my mental geometry
And there’s no help
in psychological analysis
or offering the latest theory
or the hottest healing fad
But I can stand with you
in the quiet of my own thoughts
and I can hold
my vision of your wholeness,
I can witness
the hidden strength within you
that knows how to lead you
to what you need.
©Wendy Mulhern
July 25, 2014
Time to stop talking about it.
Time to wait for the understanding
to catch up to my words,
Time to think about it . . .
Time to stop thinking about it.
Time to move, with my hands,
into the thick of it,
Time to walk into the air
and engage with each breath,
Time to interact,
Time to be this truth,
Time to heal.
©Wendy Mulhern
July 24, 2014
rain falling like grace
falling grace
the rain can’t fall from —
as every drop falls,
grace is what stays
soft melting edges —
somewhere, the will disappears
and the form begins to meld
with what it’s pressed up against,
yielding, yielding itself —
a bleeding from form
of its essence
till form dissolves
while the essence now flows
with new purpose
and insistence
down the next fall line
into the next crack
onward with ever-seeking
curiosity
into the next adventure.
©Wendy Mulhern
July 23, 2014