Folding: Three Figures

I
Some origami masters
fold in dim light
Perhaps this helps the forms
engage imagination’s flight
Perhaps it sensitizes
their fingers and their thumbs
Engendering precision
that only comes
with the closest of attention
with the time it takes 
to sense the folds
against the darkness
of the room.

II
You asked me for some feedback
I said, just that it was perfect
That appraisal can apply again today:
That everything you brought —
Your gifts, your insecurities —
Were just what was needed
As must be
(The law that governs this
being impeccably precise)
No thing you bring
is ever out of place
It flows in oneness
in the dance of grace.

III
I’m taking time
to let you grow
to let me heal
to smooth the flow
until the shift across the fold of time
will, in its time, reveal
the form once hidden
in the implicate—
unfold it splendid
in its primal state
where all potential stands, realized and steady
where all that is to be is there already.


©Wendy Mulhern
November 2, 2011



Autumn: Three Leaves

I
The smile of fall
a rare and fleeting gift
like that of one whose visage
is reflexively severe
from discipline built up through years
of self-constraint, of striving for the prize
the burnished glow of mastery
that shines through fruit and crimson leaf
against impassioned skies.


II
But no
for fall speaks of the grace of letting go
the end of effort and the floating backward
tumbled down, but glinting brilliant
not because of winning
but for all the steady time beneath the sun
falling as a blanket to the earth
now that the kiss of summer’s done.


III
in every Autumn day
three faces
one for looking forward
one for looking back
one for looking inward
toward what glows against the lack
When green retreats
the inner fire
will find its core
and flame up higher.


©Wendy Mulhern
November 1, 2011



Today’s treats

Beneath the passive surface
on which my days may glide
through duties and routines
between anticipated highs
hide a plethora of moments
which can fill me with surprise
when they open out to show me
what was hidden deep inside
Today, a smile I gave a man
as I was riding up a hill
and he was walking with his cane
invoked a light that multiplied:
His smile came back to me
and made me feel all bright
And later, when the trick-or-treaters came
and I resounded with delight, I understood:
Each gift is reciprocal; the little treats I gave
rewarded me an escalating good.


©Wendy Mulhern
October 31, 2011



Storms

When waves crash
Let me be a deeply rooted rock
Integral to the earth itself
Solid down to the heat
Where magma stirs my feet
With primal warmth
To which I can retreat
Far from the cold and violent froth
And water pooling
Running down and down
Removing from my face
With its persistence
Microcosmic grains to join the sand.
Let my deep heart rise unmoved
To meet the water
Patient, calmly waiting
For this barrage of waves to pass
For sun’s return
As all the moving, living things
Open their small mouths
Receiving what they need
In their right time
At wave’s crash
Or in quiet pooling
Or in pale star shine.


©Wendy Mulhern
October 30, 2011



Magic

A box unfolds
Each side becomes a box
These boxes each unfold
Each side a box again
Each box contains a story
that opens out its own world
its past
its cast of characters
an atmosphere
and changing seasons
days and nights, and different scents
Each story leads along a path
that changes everyone who walks it
taking them along while still contained inside its box
Each box in you
A gift
Each smile of yours a key
that you may give to one who sees
who then may open up a lock and know
a tiny thread of something in your soul
which, if they follow, leads them to your gold
The stories loop away but all return
—for one who has the patience to discover—
to that sweet core your essence hinted with your eyes
Whoever walks with you along this path
(in which you both will change)
will gain a prize.


©Wendy Mulhern
October 29, 2011


Mending

So I go back
to those early days of anguish
when I didn’t know
how to make it right for you
When the hurts to you
brought back stabs of childhood wounds
which my defenses couldn’t cover
as they couldn’t shelter you
But now
I bring a new perspective
Something that I hadn’t seen before:
The current running through you — a light-river,
The roots that held you firmly to your source
much deeper than a child’s tight clinging
to a helpless mom —
comprising a most formidable force
If I had known of this
I wouldn’t have been anguished
If I can know it now, we both will be
unburdened of imagining you damaged
so moving forward whole, beloved, free.


©Wendy Mulhern
October 27, 2011



Wistfully

Today I wanted
a community in trees
a gathering place strung up
with netted hammocks and cradles
lots of cuddles
a comforting slump of bodies together
kids climbing and swinging
babies passed around,
nestled in the crooks of arms
And though the image couldn’t stand
imposed upon the backyard scene
and present cold, and economic tedium
and the whole host of constant mundane needs
I still could feel the yearning of my frame
to cross through time and space 
and land in such a home.


©Wendy Mulhern
October 26, 2011



You might want to know

In the end
it doesn’t matter
who you thought you were
or why you thought you couldn’t —
Your light outshines the shapes you made 
for it to show through
You dazzle us
which meets your deep design
not engineered by recoil or by intellect
but by an essence
eons older than you think you are
So there
You’ve done it
and the echoes of our shared delight
reverberate in bliss
so now you know
you didn’t need to worry
This is who you’ve always been
This is who you are.


©Wendy Mulhern
October 25, 2011

(Background music: Isaac Shepard, “Lull Goodbye”)

And then . . .



    When the whole story falls away
sloughed off
like the great side of a glacier
tumbling down with crashing echoes,
the silence that arises afterwards
will hold a clear and crystal space
in which the warble of a bird
will thrill
and in the faint glacial dust
that keeps dispersing,
some very fresh taste to the air —
and our eyes
will soften
and we’ll see a new light
in all the faces
and in every dewdrop
and in every life.


©Wendy Mulhern
October 24, 2011

(Background Music: Isaac Shepard, “unattainable desire”)

Critical Mass

It seems to still take a certain mass
or else I am critical
of myself
and my efforts
and my contribution
and I hold back
stay in the shadows
don’t speak out, don’t dance
I’ve heard tell that the instinct
is ancient, animal tribal
a necessary coordination
safeguarding collective survival
the strength and shared warmth of a herd
within which one can feel secure
But I 
my voice so thoroughly revoked
by lack of others
feel more like I have failed myself
have lacked the courage of convictions
let my message fall to silence
before I would be seen to stand alone.


©Wendy Mulhern
October 23, 2011