Author Archives: Wendy

Undercurrent

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The swift water runs
under my breath
it is dark and deep
it is not silent
but its tone is so low
it went unnoticed
till I dipped my hand in
and felt its power.
Now it lends a small distortion
to my vision:
I may miss things
on the daylight plane
and notice after a while
that my thought is running
with its current
its murmurings
overwhelming my words.

©Wendy Mulhern
May 30, 2013


The Sea of Yes

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A sea of possibilities,
a vision coalescing,
disparate desires solidifying,
image of a harmony emerging,
which, if achieved, 
would hold the promise
of unfathomable bliss
that when you taste
will fill your heart with longing
till your mission is 
to make it come to pass

But all the while the subtle sea is shifting
and you can see it’s not in you
to engineer a change —
Just in that moment, you saw
how your thought was drifting
from the perfect vision to the things
you’d need to rearrange . . . 

A sea of possibilities:
Close your eyes and rest
and let your vision reemerge
in the sea of yes.

©Wendy Mulhern
May 29, 2013


Seattle Sun

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The sun comes out
just in the evening
and it is like
giddy laughter after many tears
where you can feel your breathing
like a big drama
now the storm has cleared
though there’s no guarantee
the flood will not return
on the flash of some re-tripped remembrance.

The sun has come
too late to warm the earth
but old, tall trees
shake their shaggy limbs
in deep enjoyment
and send their glow
back through
my no longer spattered windows.

©Wendy Mulhern
May 28, 2013


Passage

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Give me another turn
let me roll in flashing silver
down the curving spiral
waterway, way of light
Let me be delivered
in the way of
shining eucalyptus limbs
wet and gleaming in the half sun
between the rain

All this is —
integral, whole, contiguous —
can’t be mistaken
for anything it isn’t
All this is
displaces
anything that doesn’t have its essence —
Uncompromising fact
whose quality
outweighs all else,
scattering it,
defining everything.
In that royal splash
let me emerge
same as I ever was.

©Wendy Mulhern
May 27, 2013


Art and Song

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Even art,
even song
Rise up from the joy of perfect systems,
echoes of the primal dance of oneness
which everything that thrives
must celebrate

Or in its absence
Art and song reach forth
like species pioneers
beneath the damaged soil
and spread their green above
to help restore that primal dance again.

©Wendy Mulhern
May 26, 2013


After you wake up

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After you wake up
you no longer see the point
of doing things senselessly,
of hauling your water uphill,
and making children sit
like monoculture rows of plants,
not touching, on the classroom rug.

And you no longer can be made
to spray the space between them
with things that kill all other plants
and break the life-engendering connection
whereby they might gain strength
from one another.

You will not force them to grow
by virtue of some outside fertilizer
which you’ve distilled and now will re-impart.
When you wake up
you’ll let them them grow as they’re designed —
a liberation that will also feel most wonderful
to your unfolding self.

©Wendy Mulhern
May 25, 2013


No Hurry

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There’s no hurry here
in the wayward wandering of bees
or in the darting flit of smaller insects,
No hurry in the dark, damp bed of seeds
as moisture slowly moves in
towards their center
No hurry in their swell, their split,
their first root sprout uncurling
Or in the turn of sun across the sky,
through soft cloud edges burning

All gifts that softly rise
against the glow of muted skies
or in the brilliance
of their unsheathed blue
know in their code
how they must grow
and so they do

There’s no hurry here:
You, too, can walk this calm,
drinking in the strength of days —
your hope, your balm.

©Wendy Mulhern
May 24, 2013


Considering Life

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Maybe
it doesn’t matter
Maybe all the howling failures
and the little opportunities
that were missed
And all the things you didn’t say
or wished you hadn’t
Were just some of many shoots
put up in hope and exploration
from some much grander system underground
its purpose irrepressible
And some will thrive
and some will be cut off
but all will serve
and in the end, like the beginning,
Life will spring forth
making pathways for more and greater growth.
And we will bless,
each in our niche in time and space
and we will know
There’s no way we can fail
at grace.

©Wendy Mulhern
May 23, 2013


Spirit Home

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This is where our spirits fly
when they need to be at home,
when they need to be seen,
when they need to stretch out
along the lines of one another,
need to glide in the steady intention
of time-lapsed clouds and plants,
ever attending the trend of our merging,
in sinuous touch of this moment emerging

This is the nest of spirit home
feathered with gifts we each have grown,
welcoming each, in touch and song,
making each shining our own.

©Wendy Mulhern
May 22, 2013


Impending Farewell

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It’s a different kind of sadness,
imagining you gone —
Not the gaping hole of
many times and talks, now missed,
But more the sense of
all we could have shared together
that we never did
and how the opportunity
will soon be lost —

A sadness bittersweeter
because lately
there have been a few times —
like pioneer species that grow in,
repairing ecosystems —
A few sweet shares,
A few bright laughs,
Some brave attempts to find again
the closeness
buried under several awkward years

And I can only hope
our separation,
like the drawn-out pauses
in a storyteller’s tale,
will pull us back together in an eager depth,
With our communication easy, broad, and clear.

©Wendy Mulhern
May 20, 2013