Well, now that I know
that you have to give everything,
hold on to nothing, hold nothing back,
now that I know what I want more than anything,
What am I doing right now?
Taking this moment for emptying, emptying,
till I resemble a waterfall –
emptying everything coming through me
till I can’t be defined by my lack –
starting the flow here
for everything, everything
here in each moment,
to give and give up.
©Wendy Mulhern
January 15, 2021
I’m keeping it with me,
a calm like a coal,
a small, centered glowing,
a soft source of warmth
The size doesn’t matter –
its potency dwells here
where it can expand
to fill all of the house
Though it may seem tiny,
it still bursts forth merrily,
brightens and cheers me
and fills me with hope
It dwells at the still point
of all that I am
and centers me
back to my home.
©Wendy Mulhern
January 14, 2021
I can help you, I said,
and I knew this was true
though I had no thoughts prepared
(or maybe for that reason)
I can help you because,
obviously, I’m here,
and nothing’s ever put here to be helpless
Therefore I’ll find the way
my hope can reach you,
and what I’ve proved for me
will have a place for you
And the fact of reaching you
will bring elation,
enough to nourish me
just as it always does.
©Wendy Mulhern
January 12, 2021
We’ve learned to be patient
with things that take time –
so many things take so much more time
than we imagined
Imagining can be a first step.
So can starting up early,
getting things going so they can be ready –
a fire of coals, a boiling kettle,
the readiness to listen and receive
Up here in the city we still wait –
for our ancient laptops
and our sluggish internet.
Patience remains useful,
as does foresight, and preparation,
not overwhelming what our hands can hold,
just willingness to let each thing unfold.
©Wendy Mulhern
January 10, 2021
This coming home feels like
birds returning from afar,
while bits of tattered fabric
flying in the rush that gathers everything,
are finally abandoned
as the pull proves more substantial
than what’s being drawn there
This coming home is where
the gathering force
gives place to stillness,
quiet pools of light
in which mirth bubbles up
because we are all here now
right where we belong.
©Wendy Mulhern
January 9, 2021
We come into the true place
and it doesn’t matter
what brought us here –
if it was time, if it was tragedy
There may be a sea of lies,
shifting calculations unanchored
in anything, grabbing at
what is so in flux
you can’t get your hands on it,
while others contrive to be masters of currents,
controlling events from afar
But seas will pass away,
and none of that know how
turns out to be wisdom.
We keep putting our anchor down,
keep grappling for what’s true
Until finally, by the law of stillness,
we will find
that we are deeply settled,
that we have been here all along.
©Wendy Mulhern
January 8, 2021
From our solitary journeys
we may look out and see each other
suddenly illumined,
our pods rendered transparent
in their singular traverse
across the universe of sound and space
So we are sounded,
so we are known,
and the concepts of together, alone,
are subsumed in the vaster context,
center and circumference
(if only for a moment)
grasped as one.
©Wendy Mulhern
January 7, 2021
Having stood now more than once
being the flame,
feeling the light and heat that radiates,
and surer than at any time before
that this is me,
that this is real,
that in this incandescence
is the core of everything
I’ve ever wished to be
I step more quickly forward
to the heat, I offer my full surface
to the transformation –
whatever is at hand within my day
I give as fuel
so I can see and be
the radiance again.
©Wendy Mulhern
January 6, 2021
Coals lie along each other in the fire
like we do at night,
glowing in each other’s heat
In counterpoint, the stratus clouds
now showing faint above the fog
lie along each other in rolling cold,
pink-tinged, here and there,
but no warmer for it
My fingers sting in morning outdoor chores –
they can’t get warm, lying along each other,
and must return to where the fire
is cooking breakfast,
and warming up the room.
©Wendy Mulhern
January 5, 2021
Evening has me considering
today’s flavor of nothing to say,
rain settled in around the cabin,
a skunk, by the smell outside, underneath
The fire, having warmed our space
and cooked our meal, and made hot water
for cleaning up, is out to pasture –
a little flame retained so it will not go out
but small enough to not be overbearing
We have worked,
we have wrestled demons,
we will essay the same tomorrow,
this being the stuff of our days,
the course we are here to complete.
©Wendy Mulhern
January 3, 2021