In my time
I’ve come to find
in every darkness
a light within,
stars shining up out of a well,
bright sheen across the body of a crow,
the steady dawn of truth amidst a maelstrom of confusion,
the fact of worth that breaks the numbness of despair
Even the black silence of coercion
is ultimately proved nothing,
powerless against the light of Spirit,
showing each of us our access to infinity,
sovereignty ours for all eternity.
©Wendy Mulhern
December 20, 2022
Last light, more rain,
the days pull in close,
tight cloaked around the small glow of sun
We stretch ourselves to summon more resilience,
enough imagination
to reserve some space around ourselves,
to keep the darkness at arm’s length.
©Wendy Mulhern
December 11, 2022
According to my journals,
I’ve made no progress at all.
I’m wrestling with the same stuff,
I’m flying on the same hope –
I see the bracing path rise up before me,
feel stronger with each vista I attain
I had imagined I’d be coming back by now,
bearing treasure, telling tales of all my victories,
but the trail demands I keep attention forward
and leave my dreams of accolades behind
According to my journals,
back last year I also battled darkness,
and last year I also walked in light,
and maybe there’s no final victors’ banquet,
just the daily work of taking steps aright.
©Wendy Mulhern
December 22, 2021
It seems the right time of year
for us to fall into darkness,
for the day to sock in,
for the lights to go out,
for the water heater
to have no juice
And in the view of flames
for us to contemplate
the light that gives us meaning,
how it rushes in with a similar sound,
how it wakes up limbs and toes,
how it illumines our desire and purpose
and will sustain us
even when the solar light is gone.
©Wendy Mulhern
December 20, 2021
A mother’s comfort
may be befogged
in a mother’s fear,
may seem a tiny light
against oppressive dark
But look how fierce it shines,
defying all the vastness of the void,
look how she holds it without wavering
even when she thinks she has no chance
Look even deeper,
fold yourself into this light –
it won’t give up,
however underpowered she may feel.
She won’t let go
so it will bear her up
and thus outshine the darkest night.
©Wendy Mulhern
December 22, 2020
You can’t fall
into the darkness
because your being
is made of light
No gravity affects it,
and even if it could fall
it would bring its essence with it,
lighting up the way and pushing darkness
ever farther off
You can’t fall into darkness
but we can release
any dark presumptions that have tried
with jagged scribbled lines
to draw a ragged image
on your form
We can let them go
and they’ll fall down,
way, way down
where they don’t even have a story,
far away
where they can trouble you no more.
©Wendy Mulhern
November 29, 2019
Be not tormented —
you weren’t, after all,
any darker than the whole canvas,
any darker than the dark on dark
of stories about darkness
and rumors of a thing called light
sometimes dreamed, more felt than seen
And in that darkness,
no one prescription
is any better than any other,
however much prevailing topics
are wrongs of others, wrong on wrong
At dawn, it is revealed
none of these paths
are inaccessible to light,
none of those torments
have any staying power
They will lift
effortlessly as shadows,
we all will bask together in the sun.
©Wendy Mulhern
August 29, 2018