Today I think of presence
not as something with me,
but as the very fact of my existence
Wonder it is that I see,
that I breathe, and that I have,
before all that, the great desire of being,
the hope, the love, all that waits
before the me I call myself arises
to greet the morning – all that cares so deeply
about something before what I define
as daily life –
I call it presence.
I step back into it
and go out with peace.
©Wendy Mulhern
April 27, 2020
Grand plans notwithstanding,
life comes to us,
unfolding in small ways,
whether or not our presence
has anything to do with it
Far from our former need
to know everything yesterday,
we are content to notice what we do
Slowly the net comes together
to hold us graciously
in the web we hoped to make
Visions of how it may look later
entice us, appearing, as they do,
from wisps already here.
©Wendy Mulhern
April 26, 2020
We all have been under the pall,
all been asked
to choose a side and stick with it,
all felt sickened in the fear of losing,
or being found left out,
stranded in a faulty choice
There are rules of valiance –
rules of how to choose,
how to stand with courage,
how to fall with grace,
but one still faces
the daunting consequence,
dark underside of loss, of shame, of grief
And so consider:
Nothing else alive is ever asked
to make a choice like that.
It is plenty
for every living thing to answer
to it’s own calling – to grow
in its own place and time,
to be directed by its own essence
in every moment of its being
If that’s enough
for this wild strawberry,
holding raindrops as it blooms,
then it’s enough for us –
to make no choice, to take no sides,
let no division compromise our love.
©Wendy Mulhern
April 25, 2020
I come out of the dream
of a small, dark, cluttered place,
and it takes me a while,
it takes me a while
to find my way back to myself
Oh, for sure, I was there all along,
the fabric of cause and effect I call me
never absent from thought –
Still, it takes a tuning –
tuning fork sound clear as water drops –
it takes being still, first,
then walking myself back,
back to my cause
So the sleepy gauze haze
can retreat from my eyes
and the clarion presence
that gives them shine
can reverberate through me anew.
©Wendy Mulhern
April 24, 2020
The rain moves through in waves –
crescendos and diminuendos
with or without wind
from a random direction
That we are loved is as apparent
as that the grass is, and the springing trees
that drink the rain,
less because of this dry place to watch from
than because gratitude
moves through us
just like that.
©Wendy Mulhern
April 22, 2020
The life you feel between your toes,
the squish of mud, the flowing stream,
can curl into your feet, can swirl
in all its earth affirming splendor
through your form. The calls of birds
which grace the air, affirm
the same current. We are not alone here.
We are riding life, trilled in the atmosphere,
caught up in song.
©Wendy Mulhern
April 21, 2020
Standing at the point of who I am,
I will not be cowed
by the arenas stretching out before me,
each one claiming
that I must take their challenge,
must imbibe the bitter fear they offer,
and the almost certain disappointment –
must be tested
and probably found wanting,
at least helpless
to see good prevail
I need not go out
from who I am –
I can bring that with me,
and as it is written,
the trees of the field
will clap their hands.
©Wendy Mulhern
April 19, 2020
The little birds, one by one,
show us the form behind their songs –
red winged blackbird, mourning dove,
song sparrow, robin, towhee
Big birds, too – the ravens
with their laughs and clicks
and loud, labored flap across the sky,
geese with their commotion,
and turkeys with their funny ways
They like things about us –
our fence, our flowers,
the puddles and the dust baths
our presence has provided
We like things about them, too –
their sounds, their swoops
and how they fill the land with life –
swift catch of joy,
warble of the heart.
©Wendy Mulhern
April 18, 2020
Gratitude for joy at end of day
glows like coals in the cabin stove.
Remembrance of green shade
and steps made,
and some kind of entrance
into conscious freedom
rests easy in the evening hours –
strength and peace for now
and for the day to come.
©Wendy Mulhern
April 17, 2020
No need to covet repentance –
There’s plenty of room for my knees
here on the ground,
here where the clods and grains of dirt
are moister than I thought,
here in the realm of things
that creep and thrive
in the structure of the soil
No need to covet repentance –
There are more than enough
ways for me to crumble,
leave my former ways of reckoning behind
I, too, can swell and grow,
in awe of what makes me,
in gratitude for every way I’m held
And for the daily
reassessing and revealing
of what interlocks us perfectly,
gives us our purpose
and makes us new.
©Wendy Mulhern
April 16, 2020