Author Archives: Wendy

Beauty

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(From the biking philosophers’ notebook)
 
Something compels you
Perhaps the way a substance
moves beneath your fingertips
and you can mold it
Perhaps the interplay of laws
as seen in intersecting ripples
Perhaps the strength of structure
and the genius of form
You must engage with it
You have to notice
 
Or maybe it’s the summer-long progression
of how a seed pod forms and opens out
Maybe the way a person thinks or moves
Maybe the tracks of time, the marks of history
Or the recurring changes through each day
 
No matter—
When a thing calls you
and you follow it because you must
And you throw yourself into the quest
to really master, really grasp it
And insist on holding on until it changes you,
You bring forth beauty.
 
©Wendy Mulhern
August 17, 2012
 
 

Wild

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It doesn’t matter
when and how it started—
those first moments of the inner wildness,
The ones that stirred you
till you had to notice
Once you noticed
you had to pay attention
Once you paid attention
it had to grow
and will
Till suddenly it overthrows the systems
Colossal though they are,
and comprehensive, and entrenched
that claimed to rule you for so very long
Those systems have no power
against inexorable wildness
that always follows
the laws of your true essence
You will never again be tame
and you will know 
that being good
has nothing to do with following someone else’s rules
and everything to do with being you.

©Wendy Mulhern
August 16, 2012


Being Here

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(Mid August, Vineyard Haven)

Cardinal swoops over the roof
Chickadee perches on the screen
Behind the songbirds’ companionable chatter,
Motors roar — boats and planes
Voices rise across the water
Metal masts clang in distant wakes

Smell of onions cooking drifts up from the kitchen
Pale clouds drift across the languid sky
Trees and pond stand still in windless afternoon
There’s space enough between the sounds
for each to take their turn

Later come the crickets
till the soft warm rain silences them
Though it can’t silence
the beat of party drums and tunes
and dance laughter
from the town across the pond.

©Wendy Mulhern
August 15, 2012



Alchemy

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Here is an alchemy:
Not lead to gold
But led by the golden
glow from within
that homes to its source-light
steady, unerring

Here is the alchemy
that we behold
as we leave the old focus
and step forward, bold:
This light-washed vision,
All dullness resolving
till everything shimmers
in life’s vibrant tones

This is the alchemy:
Not something changed
But something conceived anew—
Radical point of view
Suddenly lightyears from what we’ve been told
What we had thought was so
Now so illumined
everything that we see
is gold.

©Wendy Mulhern
August 15, 2012


Going away

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The days trip merrily
like mountain streams
collecting memories
and undone things
Pooling deep
in new hopes and dreams
Leaving so many intentions
helplessly behind

Then suddenly
the cataract of imminent departure
approaches, and the urgency speeds up
and as the last tasks get tumbled into
or left behind,
In the swift pause before the fall 
I find
a sweet tug:
Gentle pangs of coming separation
Stretching out the net of our connection

All is well
It’s good to feel this pull
It shows
that even from afar we’ll know
the movements of each other—
Each other’s dreams
Each other’s yearnings
Each other’s tidal swells and drops
Lending a harmonic chord
to everything we do
Heartstrings’ duet—
A kind of double view
to all our days apart:
Stretched across the span of time and space
We each will thus hold one another’s place.

©Wendy Mulhern
August 12, 2012


In this lifetime

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In this lifetime
There is no “not”—
Sweet soul,
Though worlds may seem to wheel
beyond your reach,
Great stars blinking
lightyears away
Though your high teachers
may seem to move
behind a veil
which no travail
can pull you through
And though you’ve felt you failed,
with nothing more that you could do

Rejoice, for this lifetime
— long enough for every dance of grace —
of galaxies, of atoms;
too short for any tedium —
each moment needed, magical —
Has every joy that you can dream
And calls for you to claim it,
Own your name:
In this life
there’s time
for all of you to shine.

©Wendy Mulhern
August 11, 2012


Angels

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Angels, like rainbows
come in the mingling
of rain and sun
of need and that which always stands to meet it

Angels come
because of ever present Love
that shines through driving storms of doubt
refracting light, illuminating, blessing
lending striking beauty to the dousing

Angels glow through you, they glow through me
We shine forth as our splendid halos hover
So we stand transfixed
at this most precious gift:
The way they make us angels for each other.

©Wendy Mulhern
August 9, 2012


Daily Poems

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Every day has a poem in it
— That little girl starting to run,
short-stringed kite two feet above her head
Her mom, walking behind her, smiling
(colors: pink, purple, red)
— That man on racing bike,
his smile denoting deep contentment —
Each of these are poems
though only briefly intersected here

Clouds dance along horizon
reminding me there’s more
than the smell of tar,
the roar of motors;
There are
Echo tunnels on the trail,
A chalk-drawn paean to Love
(now almost washed away)
And a delighted Downs boy with a dog

The sun begins to cook the day under the overcast
The coolness sighs and looks for places to lie down
The wind bears thistle fluff along
and sets it in the river
Small girls with their grandma play around

Every day has a poem in it
I only need to dip my head in
like these ducks
Reach beneath the surface,
Pull it up.

©Wendy Mulhern
August 8, 2012


Reclamation

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After the voice of scorn was banished
Other voices began to rise
tentative at first,
but gaining strength from each other
The voice of wonder
The voice of “of course!
You have a right to joy;
Of course goodness is the organizing principle!”
The voice of liberation
The voice of exaltation
The voice of a continual elation
Realizing every silenced hope
could claim its place
and start to sing again.

©Wendy Mulhern
August 7, 2012



The meaning of hope

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For those of you who never found
in the box of proffered choices
anything that fed your soul
Who turned back sadly 
While others raced towards goals
for which you had no interest

For those of you who never thought it fair
to have to settle for the duties of the day
Who couldn’t bring yourselves to care
for all the regulations of the game
Though voices of authority intoned
“Grow up, assume your role, and play”

Take heart, for that same discontent
Reveals another world beyond the game
A place where all your heart’s desires are met
Where what you are receives its right acclaim

What you must give may not be found in stores
May not be priced and parceled, stamped and screened
But it is real, and when you bring it forth
It starts to map the world for which we dream
Each of your earnest hopes affirms the presence
Of your beloved, unarguable essence.

©Wendy Mulhern
August 6, 2012