See how the colors brighten
as fog lifts, as frost melts,
the first reveal the most brilliant
with momentary wetness adding contrast –
one form of beauty
resolving to another,
the mystic mist to radiant clarity,
just like the daily presentation
of all the gifts we’re given,
just like the wondrous path
from earth to heaven.
©Wendy Mulhern
October 23, 2020
And if I need a daily lesson
in the lifting of the fog,
in the endlessness of beauty,
in the nature of the Life
that powers each of us,
Look – it is here
And I don’t mind whatever work I need to do
to hold in thought the brilliance,
and also see how gently
the lesson is delivered –
the layers of light and layers of enlightenment,
just what I need,
just what I need today.
©Wendy Mulhern
October 21, 2020
The last light of the sky
wraps us in grace,
glows a reminder
that all of this –
all of this light and this color,
all of the cloud dancing grandeur,
is here for us,
here to fill us with
that which responds to the day’s gifts –
leaps up – no need for us trying –
proof of the stuff we are made of.
©Wendy Mulhern
October 19, 2020
When all the places I’ve called home
have failed me, when I find myself
at the clench before the fall
or even tumbling,
then I may also feel
the gyroscopic whirr,
the inner humming
of my balance
righting itself,
And I will start again
to find the home
that can’t be taken,
contained, as it is,
in my true essence,
centering and grounding
everything I see,
assuring me of landing
on my feet.
©Wendy Mulhern
October 18, 2020
Today I was waiting,
waiting to emerge,
feeling my light press dimly
through layers of perception,
not quite opaque,
feeling my light press urgent
like running out of breath under water
against a surface the color of ice
And I couldn’t imagine
or couldn’t remember
how I could ever break through,
but coming around
as if from the back,
I seem to have made it OK.
©Wendy Mulhern
October 17, 2020
“Ye shall have a song, as in the night when a holy solemnity is kept”
The song rings through me in the night,
it carries me, tunes me,
holds my harmonics pure
I will be holy,
I will chime through the darkness,
I will find the clarity of inner light,
my footsteps, though unseen, will still be sure
I will keep it, this great solemnity,
for it engenders gladness to the core.
©Wendy Mulhern
October 16, 2020
At the darkening edges,
far, as it may seem, from embers’ warmth,
we may start to forget
what holds us all together
We may need to take a journey
back to where we are transformed,
burned but not consumed,
held up as torches,
where the constant fire that pours from us
becomes our definition
And we cease to squabble
about the forms we take,
or who has more potential
or what brought us down to ash,
because we know that all of us,
whenever we step out,
are caught up in the flame,
becoming light.
©Wendy Mulhern
October 14, 2020
We ended up going home.
Though we tried for a place
with more creature comforts,
the creature of us, it seems,
was most comforted by home
So we went there. As we go there
again tonight, yawning, the back seat
full of clean laundry, as we go there
continually on our life course,
our thoughts homing, our hearts
always setting that course.
We end up going home
iteratively, till we arrive.
©Wendy Mulhern
October 12, 2020
Rain rips across the land,
freshening the air,
wind tousles fall colored trees,
the days are getting dark around the edges,
it’s time for hearth fires
The frenzy of our project
needs to take a pause,
though to be honest, it was mostly
expectations that were reined in –
we hadn’t been progressing all that quickly
But now the walls are under wraps
(and puddles) and I’m lighting fires
to keep our spirits cozy,
and our schedule, once again,
will need to rearrange itself,
and we’ll pick up our feet and follow after.
©Wendy Mulhern
October 11, 2020
I keep going down
looking for a truth
that’s bigger than your fear,
looking for the edge of the rock,
a place to pry it up,
for once I have the size of it,
I will find the all encompassing
blanket to wrap you up in –
you in, and the fear out,
the hole it came from gaping
like where a tooth was lost,
the ground around it soft …
I might do well to notice
that what can comfort you
has been here all along –
I can never know the size of it
but I can know for sure
it is enough.
©Wendy Mulhern
October 10, 2020