Author Archives: Wendy

Time for Healing

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This is not about something having been wrong.
That topic would have me groping along the bars
assessing their materials and strength,
considering if they have a weak point

This is about the rightness
that has always been here, this is about
the light that can neither be obscured
nor confined. This is about
you here now. As you have always been

Lit up by grace, sliding through the illusions
untouched by them, free as a sunbeam,
establishing your own rhythm,
unfurling your own bright blooms.

©Wendy Mulhern
July 13, 2020


Old and New

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The day grows late,
the shadows longer,
much I attended to
has passed away,
old goals abandoned,
and former hunger
is just an echo,
a line erased

Yet new fires burn,
new lights are kindled –
I look out from my eyes
and feel brand new,
for as I turn
from earth to Spirit,
a veil is lifted
from my view

There’s still a long road
stretched out before me,
unending need
for me to pray –
the thought that I may
do good to someone
sustains my hope
and points my way.

©Wendy Mulhern
July 12, 2020

Fluidity

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A thought flows through itself,
turns inside out,
becomes something else,
like the swoop of a swallow
banking on the wind,
delivering the long sought,
dearly tasted
(in pre-birth memory)
freedom
that can only be defined
in this fluidity –
not in options for future actions
but in the essence which,
like water,
is innately unconfined.

©Wendy Mulhern
July 10, 2020

A Large Place

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When I turned back to look,
the argument was still going on
inside my head. I let the curtains fall
and walked away – no point
in going in there

Outside, summer hums –
deer with fawns, swallows,
kestrels, bees. There is room
to stretch out, find fresh perspective

There’s room inside for healing .
It is in the space more vast than summer,
than the great outdoors.
To understand the Principle
that makes me, day by day
sets me in my own large place, at peace.

©Wendy Mulhern
July 9, 2020


Here Among the Daisies

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I find myself holding
a hopeful, awkward affection
for people I have never met
whom I may meet someday

Imagination can’t provide me words,
but I imagine listening,
hoping I will catch the cues,
and hoping, too, for lenience –
forgiveness for the things I fail to see

We get a moment’s intersection
where it’s possible
that we could find
a treasured understanding.
This I hope for, but I note
that we could also miss

For my part, I will hold my doors open,
my thoughts focused towards you
and not towards me,
I’ll trust that I’ll be guided
to the right words and perceptions
to see you as you most hope to be seen.

©Wendy Mulhern
July 8, 2020

To Heather

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My song sparrow, my thrush, my swallow,
May your sweet voice carry on the wind,
May you swoop in sheer delight
in concert with your kin

Since you took off, I’ve been trudging up this path,
Sometimes caught up in overwhelming beauty,
Often looking down and thinking it should be so easy
to just leap off and fly among these vistas

But I walk – there’s plenty here,
and nothing else to do but keep on climbing –
One of these days I’ll catch the peak
and then we’ll see you maybe –
in that transfigured place where you have flown.

©Wendy Mulhern
July 7, 2020

Fledging

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The swallows may fledge
today or tomorrow,
their parents are showing them
how it is done

I relate to these little birds
doing this thing, with no prior certainty
how it will go –
to fly off a beam and the rest of the day
try to work out
how to regain your altitude

Parents and, so it seems, other flock members
swooping in close, pecking, cajoling,
big clunky humans watching and guarding,
planning to help you up if you should fail

But you made it! The tight spiral up,
one almost miss,
and there you were back on the beam,
eager to snuggle back into the nest,
everyone cheering, especially us.

©Wendy Mulhern
July 5, 2020

The Clear-eyed Stillness

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From the clear-eyed stillness
you can watch
while the whole mechanism
grinds out its tales,
ever more colossal in its efforts
to manipulate

You can see what they want.
And you can see how lost
they must be, to think they want that

You can watch them set their snare
and know you won’t step in,
and you can see that finally
all it can bring down
is its own lopsided structure

Down with a crash
that will only result
in showing forth the light,
as, ultimately, everything does.

©Wendy Mulhern
July 3, 2020

Sweet

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It is a tender time,
and the need for sweetness
may be mistaken for a craving
but it is really kindness we desire,
and the opportunity
to hold someone till all their fears dissolve,
to hold the stillness that can’t be moved
because it is everywhere,
to say good night with the assurance
of sweet dreams, deep rest,
and the splendid wonder
of an untrammeled morning.

©Wendy Mulhern
July 1, 2020