Author Archives: Wendy

Centrifuge

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Hold my hand,
for we are spinning
and I feel the power
of the centrifuge:
We could scatter,
we could be adrift,
we could grow cold.
Hold my hand
and we will be a wheel,
Hold my hand —
we’ll be a constellation;
With the force
of our collective gravity,
we’ll keep this warmth;
With our collective radiance
we will cohere.

©Wendy Mulhern
July 28, 2013


A Moment of Silence

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(for Chris and Aviva, or maybe for the rest of us)

A moment of silence
for the parting of worlds,
a separation I don’t understand
though it is frequent —

It’s like when a stone
drops into water —
the ripples spread out on the surface
as the water is opened
and then closes
with the blip of its round edges
coming back together

But the stone is in a different world —
the medium is thicker
and it falls more slowly
down and down
even as our marking of it
moves out and out

I can only imagine them —
all the edges of awareness
keenly open
as they enter
the next adventure,
perpendicular to that which we perceive.

A moment of silence
to let the stone fall through,
and feel the ripple.

©Wendy Mulhern
July 27, 2013

Living at the cambium

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I start to understand
living at the cambium —
that thin and vibrant layer
between structure and protection
where everything is new-born
and anything can change

I may have viewed my life
projected over time
as some determined specimen
which could be judged and graded
and would end

But here in this experience
of ever-new creation
in the eager greening 
before the form —
this place of generation
which pushes out the growing tips
and thrives,

There is no noun of me,
no stepping back for an assessment,
no self-image, nothing to defend,
just this new greenness,
this reverberating verb, 
the forming of a now that never ends.

©Wendy Mulhern
July 25, 2013


Turn Away

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Turn away —
Do you have to see each hook,
each place along the ladder
where each of us has been
so deftly tethered?

(Most of us don’t even try
to find release,
deeming the resulting fall
too perilous a risk)

Turn away,
for you don’t need to fight the structure,
You only need to cease to give it life.
Turn away
by turning towards your truth, your love,
Walk there
and all the hooks will fade.

©Wendy Mulhern
July 24, 2013


Guarantees

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Though you can’t bet
on this or that falling ball —
where it will land in the bell curve,
and you can’t count
on this or that seed —
if it will grow, if it will bear,
You can still count
on the filling in
of every niche
till every need is met.

It is the law of water,
it is the law of love
that in the snowmelt,
though some places
thaw more slowly,
every channel will deliver
down the mountain,
with mounting joy,
the full reward
for winter’s meditations.

It is the law of truth
that with abundant acts of life,
some will sprout,
enough will bear,
and you will be sustained.

©Wendy Mulhern
July 23, 2013


Your mind is fine

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I invite you to consider:
If you ever felt stupid
because of something
you couldn’t grasp,
however often people hashed 
through explanations,
Perhaps you couldn’t get it
just because it made no sense,
and where you stood,
you couldn’t see 
the flattening
that lent a sense 
of contiguity,
or how others could think
that it was clear . . .

And even if
no words arose within
to clarify your reason for confusion,
it still revealed perception
of something left unheeded,
a missing piece of something
maybe you could sense was needed.
Your mind is fine
and it will guide you,
if you give it rein,
into your truth.

©Wendy Mulhern
July 22, 2013


No Regrets

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No regrets
for life falls like water
down its course —
The same law always pulls us,
The same law always rights us —
What we choose in any instant
is the product
of precisely where we were,
and from precisely where we are
we always choose
what seems essential

No regrets —
in the wild space of now,
suspended in air,
in vapor or in free fall,
in current or in back flow,
or sucked up in the taproot of a plant,
We still are held
in Life’s law,
and Life will always see us through.

©Wendy Mulhern
July 21, 2013


This is real

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We will seek the place
where our hands can tell us:
This is real —
This is the deep soil
that clings in fingerprints,
that insists on connection;
This is the hidden liquid
that rises up through stems and leaves,
its constant, unseen circulation
the standing wave for all the green of life;
This is the spark —
electrical and necessary interchange
that makes us sure
we are alive and needed,
Where our hands and hearts can tell us:
This is real.

©Wendy Mulhern
July 20, 2013


The Tutelage of Life

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The garden and I
start to blur our edges
as I lend it my substance
and it feeds me:
Weeds become harvest,
Crucial factors, before inscrutable,
become apparent

From humility
arises mastery,
From tending ground
arises groundedness,
From placing myself here
in the tutelage of life,
I find my native stride,
I find my place.

©Wendy Mulhern
July 19, 2013


The Law of Life

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There is no wiggle
in the law that holds you,
no way to fall out of the cause
of your every movement,
no way not to be swept
in the wheeling intricacy
of the cosmic dance of all things.
No way not to act
according to your nature,
as simple as the goodness
of each intention,
as complex as
the allness of the law.

©Wendy Mulhern
July 17, 2013