Author Archives: Wendy

Rock and Stone

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The father doesn’t give the son
a stone for bread, so why
all these stones, these chipped teeth?
Why this gnawing hunger?

The father doesn’t give the son a stone,
so why, father to son,
down all these generations  –
all these walls, all this rubble?

Picking up the pieces, looking,
distractedly, for something
that would lock this life together,
a lodestone, a keystone,
an ancient way

The father loves the son,
but how is this made known?
How do the living rays of Truth
that shine through consciousness
reveal this longed-for bond?

They are the knowing.
Sit in the shade of this great Rock
and share the feast.

©Wendy Mulhern
September 6,  2021

In Balance

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There is no imbalance in this:

The gift comes forth, it is received,
the need is felt, then met,
no debts pile up on one side of the scale,
no offerings untouched against the door

The blessing finds its level just like water:

What you bring is just what is most needed,
what you receive fulfils another’s joy,
what you have honed for barren years
will prove the perfect tool,
the fruits will multiply to match your labor

This is the law – you’ll find there is no other
(though many lies have tried to hide the truth)
anythong you thought was lost
you will recover,
with all your moments put to perfect use.

©Wendy Mulhern
September 3,  2021

Tree Talking

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You talk to the trees.
They won’t preside
over your rush of memories  –
if they hear them, they don’t judge

Some of them have been here
a long time. If not as long on the earth
as you, still long enough
to keep on reaching up,
to have lost branches
but not the branching impulse,
not the surging
expression of their being,
not their place among the living
or in the land

They may have things to tell you
about roots, about service,
about the inevitability
of being true to the seed you grew from
and true to the seeds you bear.

©Wendy Mulhern
September 2,  2021

Reverence

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The lessons of the land
seep in wordlessly
with no taint of instruction,
no directive to change

They seep into my hands, my gait,
my consciousness, they become
the way it has always been,
the way I’ve always seen

When I try to think of what has changed,
how I used to think, in contrast
to how I now perceive,
the whole thing goes out of focus

But I can find it again,
just like I found the cat
who rolled in the dirt and then
almost disappeared in the grass

I can find it again
by setting myself to receive,
to take in and hold in reverence
each life in its singular sphere.

©Wendy Mulhern
September 1,  2021

Shift

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Though I had imagined an epic story,
it turned out to be a very quiet thing,
though I had pictured myself
coming home in hero’s robes,
there was nothing, really, to show  –
nothing I could say about it

So hard it is to describe
the inner transformation,
the little shift in thought
that changed everything

That showed my adversaries
innocent, after all,
that showed my premises mistaken,
but let in so much light
that I was glad to be shown wrong,
glad to be illumined from now on.

©Wendy Mulhern
August 30,  2021

Silence

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I come around again to silence,
not knowing  –
is it too soon to speak
or are my words already spoken,
is there hope behind the smoke
when so much is broken?

Let my silence not come from my fear
but from my listening,
let my lack of words make space
for something larger  –
what fills all space can’t be corralled with words –
return me to beginning with the Word.

©Wendy Mulhern
August 28,  2021

Anew

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The sun and wind rest on my skin
like absolution,
the memory of fear of fire receding,
and in the place of what has burned away,
I’m walking in this newly minted freedom

Beyond all words for this, the sense
that passing through
is worth whatever’s lost, and all it cost me,
and here the holiness of  being born anew
completely has outshone what I had called me

There is no going back,
for nothing past remains –
my feet step, awed,
on new terrain.

©Wendy Mulhern
August 27,  2021

Stars and clouds

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We talk of big things  –
life’s dreamlike nature,
society’s entrapments  –
but do little things  –
staining siding panels,
making dinner,
shutting down the power for the night,
looking at stars

We talk of big things,
but it’s the little things that matter  –
whether we were patient,
whether we were kind

And in the end, our eye lights
will be like stars,
while our words
are more like clouds.

©Wendy Mulhern
August 26,  2021

Comprehensive

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In the way the world’s ways have been served to us,
(chopped and tiered, large swaths discounted)
it’s hard for us to fathom
how every single life is needed –
every perspective, even and especially
the ones that seem the most recalcitrant

They are holding out
for the most magnificent shining,
the one that will overcome
even their bleakest rages

They are holding out for a justice
so comprehensive
that no one here has yet imagined it –
the one that gives each one of us
our royal, rightful place.

©Wendy Mulhern
August 25,  2021