Author Archives: Wendy

Languages

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Perhaps the language of words
is overrated
There’s really only so much words can do
You can use words all day
and not be satiated
Words can leave you worse than empty, too
There are some other languages that can’t lie:
What’s said with touch,
with movements synchronized
with laughter, gesture, easy time together
and signals sent across from eye to eye
consider what we can communicate:
the hum of home, the grace of shared space
the heart’s current, and its precious weight
the way our love so naturally reciprocates
Words may frame thoughts
but still be thin
It takes the other languages
to fill them in.
©Wendy Mulhern
March 25, 2012


The Currency of Hearts

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for Leo and Magda

For those who understand
the currency of hearts
nothing else is needed
though many things can be used
A smile, a hug, an offering of food
A sympathetic tear, consoling words
The currency of hearts
affords a richness
you can’t accrue in any other way
It multiplies its treasure instantly
Fills souls with joy as sun fills up the day
It doesn’t matter what you have
How large your gift, how polished you appear
It’s not the gift that makes you rich
But that you honored
your own heart’s desire
to share.
©Wendy Mulhern
March 24, 2012


(background music: Isaac Shepard, “Triumph of Love”)





Wedding Poem

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For Casey and David

March 24, 2012

Two trees
Stand side by side
Each one has grown according to its species —
followed the demands of its own essence —
Yet over time the trees have grown together
Their branches making room for one another

And underneath the ground
Their roots are intertwined
So they support each other
and they find
a common sustenance within the deep ground
and shared appreciation for the rich land

You two are like those trees
You blend your sweet graces
You draw a common sustenance
from deep places
and send your leafy blessings towards the sun
You revel in life’s breeze
and sway as one

And may your lives, like trees
be rich and strong
And may your branches join the wind in song
May you enjoy companionship together
and shelter all the places you belong.

©Wendy Mulhern
March 17, 2012



Time In

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Let me give you a “time in” —
A time of contact,
of enough cuddle
to be an answer to your lost cries
A time in
Like time before time
when everyone knew
what to do about cries
that cry meant cuddle me
Bring me in
Let me know home
Oh yes
Now is the time
for time in
for everyone:
The hothead
The curmudgeon
The one who cringes inside his shell
darting in alarm at each approach
The one who sits alone
The one who sits with all her so-called friends
hiding isolation under loud words
The ones who make their dogged resolutions
with no idea what would earn the in ticket
The ones who hide their keening under sharp motion
The ones who try all day but can’t fix it
Oh World!
Let us give each other time in
Let us come home to connection
until we have the circuits to unite
in tender understanding and affection.
©Wendy Mulhern
March 22, 2012


Basic Needs – A Checklist

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For someone to find you magnificent
in the peculiar, unvaunted ways you are yourself;
For you to feel the same about another;
To freely give the world that whole magnificence
in ways that make it multiply;
For your magnificence to blend with that of others
creating one grand splendid harmony
a seamless shining fabric made of life;
A center still point and a way to get there;
A way to see grace, and the habit of noticing.

If we commit to meeting basic needs
What greatness we shall know!  What joy,
What peace!

©Wendy Mulhern
March 20, 2012


Monday, downtown

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Monday Downtown (background music: Isaac Shepard “Before Dawn”)


Oh, humanity!
Working at your tired charades
Moving through so many empty boxes
Desiccated corridors
Courses without meaning

Look how amazing you are!
Look how, even when the rules are cast
to close out any purpose, light or joy
You still find ways to shine:
Within this skewed account of life
your light slips through the chinks
and though at times refracted
blazes forth
Makes us maybe take a while to notice
all the places where it is suppressed
Just think: if we were free
what brilliance we would show

It is our destiny
We will prevail
We will shine clear
We’ll banish all the false demands
The failed array of hoops, constrictive bands
Deny the faulty purposes
that disappointed us
Swing free
on the strength of our unstoppable
creative rush!

©Wendy Mulhern
March 19, 2012


Lullaby for Heather

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Mother Love, wrap up your child
in comprehensive arms
Broad enough to hold her every hope
Soft enough to nurture all her charms
Close enough to smooth her brow
and rest her eyes
Strong enough to bear her 
swiftly through the dreaming skies
Synchronize her heart with yours
Refresh her with your peace
Deliver her with clarity
and new found ease
Mother Love, infuse her with
your bright delight
and bold and brilliant action
in the morning light.

©Wendy Mulhern
March 18, 2012

(background music: Max Richter, “Fragment”)

A Wee Bit O’ Green

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Almost spring
Almost Irish
Altogether blessed
By seeing for a moment
that all inclusive motion
River of the whole bright universe
Carrying us all 
in its ecstatic fall of joy
Everything suspended in its current

Flowing with it, we don’t sense its speed
Or how its ever-presence meets our need
Yet if our ears once notice its resounding rush
Or if our skin once feels its equipollent push
How can we help but feel transported, lifted
And in the miracle of life, supremely gifted

Almost spring
Almost Irish
In the rare, transcendent view
that senses nature’s ancient blessings
ever new.

©Wendy Mulhern
March 17, 2012


City of Illusion

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I realize it’s been a while
that I’ve been walking through a mist
thick with projected images
nothing I can touch
I walk right through them
What I reach to grasp
stays where it is, my hand closes
on empty space, my own fingers—
nothing more.  And yet my feet
find purchase, there is gravity
I can close my eyes and move my feet
and tell by touch and weight
what’s here that’s real
And I can sink into the solidness
of that which satisfies
and by persistent practice
retrain my eyes
and find a way to make my vision clear —
to focus on the things that really are.

©Wendy Mulhern
March 15, 2012


Waking up is hard to do

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Waking up is hard to do
Not only in the so-called morning
in the shuffle of avoiding
the pre-dawn alarm

Breaking an illusion takes
intensity of focus
and a steady concentration
and a willingness to shift
and notice:

What I thought was solid ground
is not
And where I thought I stood
I really wasn’t
And all that I was sure was real
All that I’d strung my hopes across
has never been what held me up at all

What I am, and what I’m standing on
is something else.  It has a different gravity
It follows different laws.
The brightness of awakeness overcomes the force
of every predetermined lockstep course
and every limitation we surmise
that drains the light and laughter from our eyes

Standing up for light
may be a struggle
Waking up is hard to do
but worth the trouble.

©Wendy Mulhern
March 14, 2012