Author Archives: Wendy

Liberation

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Nothing stops you.
But what wrestling will it take
To break free of every hook in thought
that snags against your fabric
so you’re caught
And makes you think you have no choice at all?

Nothing stops you.
But what words can overcome
the song of chains
you’ve heard so long you find its rattle soothing
Because (you think) it shows you where you are?

Nothing stops you.
In this moment you can rise to grasp
the vastness of your being
and the endless sky,
The power coiled within
that now can launch you free
to spin your dance across the deep expanse of space
Always supported in your native grace.


©Wendy Mulhern
January 17, 2012



Soul play

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to Edward:

I’ll be the kite
You be the anchor
I’ll take flight
You hold us steady
So we feel the wind.

You be the kite
I’ll be the surfer
Leaping along the waves
Delighting in your lift
Gratefully we spin.

We’ll be the kite
Truth can be our anchor
Holding us steady
As we reach new height
Soaring again.

Love can be the kite
We’ll be the surfer
Dancing as one
Waves splashing bright
The ride never ends.


©Wendy Mulhern
January 16, 2012


Shining

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To Becca:


At this time, it doesn’t matter

what has been your lot
your course so far
These things turn out to have no weight,
no say in who you are.
And if you have been sick
And if you’ve been deprived
And if each turn of life
seems to have conspired
against your dreams, and everything
to which you have aspired,
it doesn’t matter:
Today you are awake
Today you have decided to be mindful
And you will tell yourself
as often as it takes
that in this now
your present shining is enough
And the pink sky
can guide you
to the vastness of your being 
and the power of your turning
and the dawning that starts now
regardless of the day’s constraints—
This fuels your hope
and is fed by it
and renders you a beacon
for us all.


©Wendy Mulhern
January 15, 2012



The language of touch

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The language of touch
Is as broad, and as nuanced
As any language
And it can be learned
And passed from one to another
Like any language
And like many native languages
It has been forbidden
It has been almost lost
But it can be reclaimed
Pieced together and reconstructed
From the snatches of what we remember
What some gifted few
Embody
It can spread like oil
It can multiply
Till every body knows
How to speak it
And it can sing
In rich and glorious harmony
Shared, rising, rebellious
Overthrowing the long-enforced silence
That kept us boxed off from each other
We will sing this language
Of touch
Until everyone hears it
And finds their way home.


©Wendy Mulhern
January 14, 2012



Revolution

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The revolution will not happen by itself.
I can’t turn over for another hour’s sleep,
Then see it like late morning’s sun,
so many hours risen . . .

The revolution will not happen 
from my smugness
where I pretend I’ve worked out
all my issues
and can simply wait . . .

The revolution needs
my deep insistence, daily
on the laws which cause my brightness
and every dawn
and refusing to again be duped
by any story casting life as barren.

The revolution takes knowing
You are needed
I am needed
Each one needed, uniquely
Swelling in the firm, insistent way of seeds
Whose self-unfoldment cracks the rocks
Each tiny one performing
Its own miracle of growing
So the revolution comes.


©Wendy Mulhern
January 13, 2012



Repenting

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Today I’m coming home
to Spirit
Eyes wide open
to what this light reveals
Trying to take in
everything, everything at once
Learning it again
Learning it with my eyes
My virtual touch

Coming home
Remembering the things I loved
whose memories had faded
And how I loved them
And what that love was like
Refocusing, rethinking
Repenting
Preparing to start again
This long blue path winds forth before me
And the January sun
Low-rayed, brilliant, fierce
Bears witness.


©Wendy Mulhern
January 11, 2012


Understanding

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Turn the tumblers, one and then another
For you to enter, all must be aligned
It opens to the easy spinning 
of your secret
Or to the deep discernment
of a listening mind.

Don’t settle for the superficial level
The one that opens up without a key
Where all may stroll 
but none may know the meaning
For to be true, the entrance must be deep

Beneath the layer of rationalization
Beneath the tallies of the service due
Beneath self-image and self-fabrication
A more fulfilling essence waits for you

Go deep, for underneath 
the thoughts that you can voice as words
You’ll feel the breath and pause
whose choice is to be heard
in silence, and in limpid images
that let you understand what really is.


©Wendy Mulhern
January 10, 2012


(music in background of recording: Isaac Shepard, “Dimming the Lights”)

Sadness

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Sadness is the need to close a loop
Something wanting to be given
Something not received
An uncompleted sequence
Brought up short

Your yearning runs
Along the broken circle
Time and again arrested by the gap
It throws its spark in stark desire
Attempts to arc across the emptiness

It tries, it waits, it paces, tries again
It falls back in exhaustion, gathers strength
You send it till it leaps
And reaches the exalting joy
Or till you give up on the trial
And turn away.


©Wendy Mulhern
January 9, 2011


Mother of tears

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In this nacre place
Mother of tears
I wait to make a pearl

From this rough grain
of failed communication, pain
Something smooth and shiny

Mother of tears
Form from this nameless sadness
Something —
Something my soft pulp
can roll against
No longer be caught up
No longer need
to coat with layers of thought

Form this foreign thing
into our essence
Iridescent, luminous
A worthy gift to bring up from the night
A pearl to lift up meekly to the light.


©Wendy Mulhern
January 5, 2011



Baubles

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In the game are many pretty baubles
They look to be the prizes we can win
The things to strive for, yearn for, long for
Tantalizing traps to keep us in

The baubles glint just out of reach —
We chase them
We fling desire at what we may attain
Success, romance, acclaim —
Then happenings erase them
And leave us sad and empty once again

Their light, however, has a different source
(No light is generated in the game)
The tempting glow each thing emits
Hides brilliance that the game could never claim

Beyond the game, Love’s truth shines ever bright
Always enough to quench our thirst for light.


©Wendy Mulhern
January 4, 2011