The temperature shifts quickly with the wind
which now blows dry leaves,
in soft, autumn-scented rustling,
down the street
The leaves that haven’t fallen
soak sun, silent and supple,
butter-smooth against
the china sky
And in between the times
when the industrious homeowner
wields his leaf blower,
It’s quiet, and I hear crickets
When the sun goes down
behind the Flatirons
I’ll seek warmth inside,
Settle, like nestled leaves,
into the evening.
©Wendy Mulhern
October 29, 2014
In the dream
the dance was close to flying —
hand in hand catapulting each other up
all the way to the ceiling
In the night I was held
in the deep space of
All is Well
and nothing could impinge
upon my peace
And in the morning
it was still true:
No inky image wants
to remain at dawn —
No one wants to wake up
as the bad guy.
Even the big scary hulks
whose job it is to shout and shout
and make me feel beleaguered
Even they just want to curl up
and be cuddled. There’s no reason anyone
needs to accept a role that doesn’t suit them.
They will all, with great relief
take off their masks
and smile.
©Wendy Mulhern
October 28, 2014
My mind slumps into silence
numbed by my body’s buzz,
the sluggish rumble following
a day’s hard labor. Thoughts
with lives like sparks
rise and dissipate, their continuity
too fleeting to record. My body
reiterates its day’s movements
much as a dog’s feet twitch in sleep
It’s time for quiet. Time for all that
chatter of the flesh
to cease. Time for sensation
to stretch and decompress
and drift towards dream.
©Wendy Mulhern
October 26, 2014
If I believe in death
I will see it throughout my life —
Death of friendship, death of love,
death of opportunity, of hope —
It will hang like shrouds across my eyes,
weigh down my face, lodge in my throat
and eat away at each of my endeavors,
sucking out the juice from every promise
If I believe in death
dread will hedge about my days,
purpose will seem hollow, dreams ill-fated
But if I believe in life
I will follow it through all its cycles,
I will feel the living joy
of pressing into the earth, and rising up,
will relish the adventure of each reconfiguration,
revel in the presence of enough
I will know that love, like life,
can never die,
won’t fade with time and distance,
won’t become a lie
If I flow in the abundance of my being,
I’ll keep on loving
and I’ll keep on living.
©Wendy Mulhern
October 25, 2014
Pale sun streams in
creating its geometry
on walls and floors,
revealing the certainties
and latent possibilities
contained in windows, corners, doors
What may the day hold?
Bird shadow flits across
the window’s sun patch,
Outside, the white pine
rustles slightly
Quiet cycles intersect —
they move along their courses,
most unseen,
Caught in small glimpses
as the sky flirts with drizzle and sun
and I, likewise,
in efforts to work and in reverie,
shift between silver and gray.
©Wendy Mulhern
October 24, 2014
In small steps
my body starts to learn
The only thing that holds it back
is fear
Though fear would say
it holds the path of safety
on which, if I walked far enough,
I would arrive,
In fact, that path will never
get me anywhere but dead
and leaving it
I find myself alive
My only body
is me, embodied,
the bold and present evidence
of Spirit’s being —
It is not shackled,
It does not yearn towards death
but bounds forth fresh,
deep joy receiving.
©Wendy Mulhern
October 23, 2014
photo by Heather Mulhern
Hold me and swing
Let us engage
the elemental forces,
Let us harness
the power of gravity
to catapult ourselves
(slingshot around a planet
and on till morning)
Lean in to me
Let us notice
the power of support
to make us feel strong and included,
to make us feel valued and needed
It’s no great virtue
to walk alone —
It doesn’t tap the half of us,
our grand capacity
to wield the magic of connection,
to launch each other upwards into flight.
©Wendy Mulhern
October 22, 2014
The size of the arc,
the span of life,
makes no difference
Sparks flittingly ascending,
stars ponderously wheeling
ancient pools, water-carved in rock,
a mushroom chalice
All these things
live equally intensely
through the exclamation of their being
All these things
can take you with them
All they require
is your seeing
©Wendy Mulhern
October 21, 2014
Well, dying, after all, is no big deal —
People do it all the time
It is the logical conclusion
of the primal lie
that says you can’t have
that which you most want,
that says you have to suffer,
that says you have to settle,
that says you really don’t deserve
to be the essence of yourself,
which, when realized,
brings unremitting joy
It is the lie that holds us in captivity,
Captivity which always
assigns another tyrant.
keeps us struggling in servitude,
as long as we believe it,
with bouts of high stakes cat and mouse
played with despair
The slow or sudden pain of this
brings us towards death
(No living thing endures without its freedom)
We will choose to go there too
until the moment we become convinced
the lie has never owned us
And our own truth bears us witness
that life has boundless rounds of joy to give,
That it’s our true calling
to be our wild selves fully
and then we know
we shall not die, but live.
©Wendy Mulhern
October 20, 2014
Crows going home
rise like loosed leaves
between the trees,
lifted as if blown
taking a free ride on the elements,
moving together in clan familiarity
Jovial caws speaking of evening
interrupt the reverie
from time to time,
counteract the sense
of wind being the only force
now that the last sun kiss
has left the sky.
©Wendy Mulhern
October 19, 2014
