We were going down the mountain
you had taken your shoes off
walking through streams
I was running to catch up with you
the light was soft
the landscape fuzzy
as it often is in dreams
the path was longer
than we’d anticipated
it was an hour before dark
but we weren’t worried –
Dad could come with the car
and rescue us
or we could wake up –
it would come out
to the same thing.
©Wendy Mulhern
February 10, 2021
In our little hovel cabin
the only things of beauty
are the fire, and the warmth it gives,
and the corresponding glow
in our faces, from the fire’s heat
and the day’s work, and the comfort
that we have with each other
And a few good books,
and some words of hope,
and the darkness,
once we’ve gone to bed,
and the quiet, deep enough
to hear a heartbeat.
©Wendy Mulhern
February 9, 2021
This time I wasn’t even surprised
to see my brand new beautiful hope
get taken out for a thrashing –
no easy, luxurious dawn
for the truth I glimpsed – instead,
a winter wind, anger and tears
I suppose it makes sense
for hopes to prove their mettle,
to catch the storm in their sails,
to drive me forward
And it did right itself, before day’s end,
did bring in some kind of fruit,
did prove itself able to stand,
showing its strength through its trial,
showing what hope is for.
©Wendy Mulhern
February 8, 2021
You talk to the trees at night
and their silence – maybe it speaks to you –
maybe their response –
of presence without words –
is in the language you are searching for –
something that won’t get caught
in the filters of the mind,
that will go right through
to where you’ve been waiting
all this time –
waiting to hear the deep tall message
that recognizes your soul.
©Wendy Mulhern
February 6, 2021
In the morning
I seek out my Spirit home –
sometimes it’s right there,
sometimes, as today,
it seems a long journey –
it seems dark, it seems drizzly,
puddles settling in again to places
the sun routed them from yesterday,
platitudes trying to referee my thoughts
But Spirit is all present
(thank heaven for that!)
and there are many places
kindly held open
for that awareness to seep through
I may exert great effort
(not letting go until I’m blessed)
but my effort doesn’t win it –
Omnipresence, finally,
is what finds me home.
©Wendy Mulhern
February 5, 2021
And yes – could be my tears
are self indulgent –
they haven’t risen, anyway,
but hover somewhat below the surface,
a slightly troubled pool
like the puddles were this morning,
with just a little rain
Rain and sun have beat
through the day,
rainbows have refereed,
raindrops have glittered,
falling against the blue sky,
winds have whipped around
And also there’s been stillness,
those moments met with something
a little less than spirited within me,
to pass without analysis or comment
like twilight into night.
©Wendy Mulhern
February 3, 2021
So surprising to discover
the world won’t do whatever it does
with or without me. It doesn’t trundle
down its processes by itself.
I can’t choose whether or not
my presence here
will be felt
So quieting to consider
the world is a problem
for me to solve alone.
I must work it out
(as must everyone)
I must come to the conclusion
of the whole matter
(as must everyone)
whether I do it now or later –
I have, it turns out,
all the time in the world.
©Wendy Mulhern
February 2, 2021
This dream has no power
to make decisions,
This dream
holds no tricks
up its sleeve,
This dream has no mind
to chain a link of cause, effect –
This dream holds no destiny
All.the dips and turns I see
which in another frame
I could call fate
are just the subtle tippings
of myriad beliefs –
there is no law on which they operate
What holds us steady,
what guides us on our course,
what gives us every meaning,
every sense of purpose,
shines through from realms
we only sometimes glimpse –
the riddle of the infinite unseen.
©Wendy Mulhern
February 1, 2021
Teach me to wish for good things,
for there is plenty of power
in the framing of what is good,
in noticing
how eloquently each good thing
speaks for itself,
not needing to be defined
by absence, or by otherness,
not needing to be specified
as change from what has been
or what has been imagined
Each note of blackbird song,
each creaky goose call,
each evening frog chorus
shows the nature of good things –
finding their perfect tone
in the breath-held air.
©Wendy Mulhern
January 31, 2021
Who am I
if I am not my words,
nor yet my attitude,
if I am not my context
or the things I’ve thought and done,
what’s happened to me …?
Who are you
if you are not
behaviors I observe,
or ways you interact
or things you do?
I take the thought of you,
of me, of all of us –
I try to move it deeper –
to that which sparks us awake,
alive,
what ties us with a lifeline
to the infinite.
©Wendy Mulhern
January 30, 2021