Author Archives: Wendy

Guidance

Posted on by
Reply

I am thankful your desire
is stronger than your will,
stronger than your resolutions,
stronger than anything that I,
in my foolish teaching,
may have installed.
Your desire is a persistent weight
that always, in the end, plumbs true.
It will lead you
to just what you need.
It will feed you
all that completes you,
all that delivers you
to the life-filling purpose
that is you, that is your home.

©Wendy Mulhern
August 31, 2013


Symphony Road, Boston

Posted on by
Reply

Through the city windows throb
music and voices from a life
that is not mine,
though the tendrils of connection
from my past
still reach deep into my psyche,
and the allure
of living that life
with the skills I have now
tickles my dreams.

But my face in the mirror shows me
this life is as far removed from me
as those voices,
close across the narrow street,
stories and walls away.

©Wendy Mulhern
August 30, 2013


Doing Things Together

Posted on by
Reply

We did not sail in the rain
though we came right to the edge of it
in the sweet game of willingness
to enter the space of shared experience,
to find the delight 
in each other’s pleasure,
to join in at something 
that all of us love.

Anyone’s strong intent
would have brought the others along
but we all decided
in the grey mist and wind on the shore
that we’d be better served
going home
to hang out together and bake things
in the cozy kitchen,
letting the wind outside
wrap us in a soft cocoon.

©Wendy Mulhern
August 29, 2013


Logan Airport — Ground Transportation

Posted on by
Reply

Certain things can be written
in the roar of the airport terminal
where buses wheeze and screech
in the echoing concrete beneath the interchange.

The words are not soft,
though there’s a calmness in our waiting
and good-naturedness in others
in this slowing space
along the disparate trajectories of travel.

It’s too loud and hard
amid the engines and the beeping carts
to find an outward peace —
It is a time to patiently endure,
a din to send my focus inward.

©Wendy Mulhern
August 27, 2013


Refuge

Posted on by
Reply

I’m putting down roots,
finding anchor
against the dizzy winds,
the strident lying stories
that have swirled us all our lives
as we tried to find meaning
in the vague continuity
offered by their endless repetition.

In the stillness of groundedness
the winds seem harder
but they serve to reinforce
the sense of refuge,
the place of home,
the finding of the solid truth on which I stand,
the rock from which I now shall not be moved.

©Wendy Mulhern
August 27, 2013


Napping

Posted on by
Reply

While we nap
wind blows through the house,
doors slam,
rain patters outside.
Your hand twitches —
you’re already under.
I hear the cars roar by.
A jay squawks, and a flicker.
A little dog is yapping
and we are here in a sweet space
connected by the rise and fall of our breathing
and this short span of time
before I go.

©Wendy Mulhern
August 26, 2013


Desire

Posted on by
1

In your time
you will find
the sweet imperative,
the nectar you must drink —
the one, right now
that shoots through you like light,
that holds you up
as water holds up herbs
and makes you grow,
ever more unfolding into what you are.

And when it’s done
there’ll be a new imperative —
It will taste different
(the old one will no longer do)
and you will know it from your craving
and how your thirst rises up to meet it
and to crest in satisfaction
as you’re nourished.

This is how we know our way —
we are designed
to want what we most need.
It is the way of everything that lives
and it has worked
for more years than our counting minds can fathom.

Trust your truth!
It will grow ever clearer
as you lean into
the wind of your desire.

©Wendy Mulhern
August 23, 2013


Paradigm Collapse

Posted on by
Reply

In that weightlessness
before the house’s falling,
after the struts were pulled out
one by one,
the structure growing ever weaker
though we hadn’t noticed

(distracted as we were
by the eventually frantic
clang of loud music
and waving of hands,
garish colors paraded
ever more urgently
to keep us from paying attention)

But it gets to the point
where each strut, as it’s removed,
may be the last —
The structure is swaying,
soon to twist and crumple
and when we see it there
in that weightless moment
before the fall,
We start to realize
This all has been a dream.

©Wendy Mulhern
August 22, 2013


Transformation

Posted on by
Reply

In the chrysalis
there’s nothing to talk about —
nothing of the former experience
with any relevance
to the transformation at hand

Unless, of course, there is —
unless the subtle flavors
of all those different leaves
you munched voraciously
with no articulation as to why —
Will now reveal themselves to be
precisely what you needed,
as their gifts are taken in and reconfigured
in the life for which the caterpillar had no words
but maybe somehow craved.

©Wendy Mulhern
August 21, 2013