Remembering



















We walk almost in trance
Remembering
Doing things no one has taught us
Doing them because we must —
Some ancient edict
has brought us to this point
Insistent hunger drives us to the place
where we may find ourselves together
learning grace

Slowly, we pick up and wear the wisdom
Older than the schools
and the long, loud rush of words
and the frantic reasoning
intoned over and over
The words of those who would impose
a logic to their will
and make us think we need to do
the things that scatter, kill
us off, to cull the ones
who for a time can do the bidding 
of a voice that doesn’t care.

But we return
Some of us, at first
Then a few more
We come in ones and twos
But we are many
And listening within
Each of us knows 
this thing we need to do

So we unite
First join hands
Then learn to breathe together
Then learn to hold the space for one another,
To shine the light that magnifies each person’s gift
That brings us into peace and closes up the rift
Till we can weave our separate music into one voice
To reconstruct our primal song, and so rejoice.

©Wendy Mulhern
May 9, 2012


Picture: Jennifer McCurdy Vortex Vessel, Photo by Gary Mirando



Together













If we breathe together —

the whole earth —
in grand and rushing intakes,
curling into every cranny,
long, sustained releasing,
returning and returning

If we fly together
riding on the currents 
and creating them
swooping, swirling, echoing each other
cushioned by the air, ecstatic, gliding

If we hum together
all the toning of our integral vibrations
finding unforeseen harmonics, deep support
joining in the long reverberation
of all we are, and all we’ve been before

Then we shall later walk enchanted
through the richness of each moment’s breath
knowing that no gesture goes unanswered
each movement met by all the ones we’re with.

©Wendy Mulhern
May 8, 2012



Elementary















Love is easy

All you need to do is hold on
as to five hundred helium balloons
You’ll fly alright
Just don’t let go
for anything

Love is simple
One action only is required
Take hold, decide to do it
No more decisions need be made
You’ll be all right
It’s your toccata waiting to be played

Love is safe
The law of Love releases every fear
For though you fly
you never fly in peril
You can’t fall out of love
for Love is always here.

©Wendy Mulhern
May 6, 2012




picture: Jennifer McCurdy Golden Water Photo by Julius Friedman

Drifting















Lapping over my consciousness

like waves of incoming tides,
Cross-currents weaving
between each others phases,
The soporific influence
of three fronts:
The lateness of my sleeping
The coldness of the day
The dream-like memories
of last night’s celebrating—
Doubled rhythms
concatenate along the line of waves
So I have drifted
and the forward march of progress
has been arrested
attention sifted
and the beach-ward wash of thoughts
bobs there suspended
Till some renewed resolve should lift me clear
Return me to my traction on the shore.

©Wendy Mulhern
May 5, 2012



photo by Casey McCurdy

Holding On

Take me in

to hidden chambers
Lift the secret latches
Solve the puzzle locks
Bring me into mystery
and endow me there
What I’ve heard in silence
I will shout from mountains
It is right
that everybody hear this truth
That it begin to offer
another way of seeing
another way to be:

Spirit, I will hold you
I will cling
like an infant
to my mother
I will not let go
I’ll feel the flow
of infant love
that holds on tight with such need
in the instinct of connection
but not in desperation —
in affection

Spirit, when you fly
and the wind rushes around us
and the land 
falls away beneath us
and the air grows cool
I will cling
to your warmth
I will hold on with love
and whoop
with heart-rush joy.

©Wendy Mulhern
May 4, 2012


Chain of Lights

It’s an unexpected gift
to be seen
and to find myself to be
part of a chain
A chain of shining lights
pulled along in awe and joy
on through the rolling wave of time
The pulse of undulation
and the centrifuge of spinning
augmenting our connection
to each other
Leading us enchanted
to the place of no beginning
The place from which we came and now return
knowing it has always been our home.

©Wendy Mulhern
May 3, 2012



Metamorphosis



Nothing stops the peace
of this release:
The shrunken husk,
the burst cocoon,
curls in upon itself
and so recedes
No need to seek its cloister
anymore

The bright wings pumping full of life
stretching out to own a greater sphere
affirm my purpose
and epitomize
why I’m here

So I begin to learn
to move, inhabit this expansive dome
To seek the currents in the air
To find myself at home

And if I need to feel a close embrace
I’ll seek it in a way that lets my wings stay free
Angelic cradling and seeing, face to face
how we embody what we’re meant to be.

©Wendy Mulhern
May 2, 2012
Music in background: “Evening Chat” by Isaac Shepard


Reconciliation

Consider reconciliation:
It seems a miracle
to have a change so radical
not just the filling of a black hole
but actual radiance
a star that burns 
with joy as precious treasure
in the place of former pain

This shows the fact that love
though misdirected, sent out
clothed with barbs that tear —
expectations, disappointment
exercise of will, manipulation —
in the end, will do no harm
for in the time of reconciliation
all the hurt dissolves
and what is left is love

This at least is what I hope
in light of all the harm I may have done
I hope my love will still remain
and all the hurt be gone.

©Wendy Mulhern
May 1, 2012


Bedtime Prayer



One last cocooning prayer
before I sleep
One last tuning 
with that which keeps me
One last recall 
of what prevents my fall
The tender cradle
that enwraps us all

The cozy blankets
and the horizontal plane
won’t, on their own
assure my peace
but my true thanks
and prayer with soft refrain
will bring me home
and set my soul at ease.

©Wendy Mulhern
April 30, 2012

(Background music: Isaac Shepard, “Slow Down”)

Infinite Comfort



What rescues you
when you are smothered under
the sense of being thought of as a number? —
the numbing nothingness of being counted,
accounted for, 
packaged and dispatched, 
your measure taken,
assessed, dismissed
and so forsaken?

Any act of life can rescue you
and anyone or any living thing can do it
The scent of petals, kissed by warming wind
A smile unweighed, uncalculated, treasured
Or seeing someone needs you as a friend
A gift of time untallied and unmeasured
Whatever focuses on what is infinite
will make a place for you
and bring you into it.

©Wendy Mulhern
April 29, 2012


(background music: Isaac Shepard “A Fond Farewell”)