Oh, the world is vast
and sometimes we can glimpse
how we have chosen
one small part in which to run our circles
One small set of intersections
with one small set of others,
of whose lives we see
only a fraction
And we assume others are foreign
or we assume they’re the same
and never see the whole of them
and scarcely see
the grand rolling
that moves us all, in which
all our orbits are one.
©Wendy Mulhern
July 31, 2015
Well, I asked for an angel
and it came streaming in,
bright and searing as molten glass
but cool, like crystal water.
I felt it fill me from the inside
(slowly, for my need was great)
It said, This is what you are,
this is what feeds you, this is
your comfort — this is how you know
you will always choose life,
always choose the vital, vibrant surge
that puts feet on mountaintops
and gives them balance
in the brave curve of waves,
gives form and purpose
to wings riding updrafts
Nothing can take this away from you
or anyone else. Nothing can obscure
its presence. And the right angel
will come to everyone who has a need,
shining, from inside of them,
each one’s truth.
©Wendy Mulhern
July 28, 2015
We abandon the paper cut-outs
and start to work with the real thing:
The dimensions are astonishing —
we could take years just reveling
in these curves, these planes, these hollows
to say nothing of movement
and that amazing contiguity
that remains itself while changing form
minutely and infinitely, the very breathing of it,
let alone the leaps and curls
and then there is the blessed heat,
the contact
and the wind-engendering spins
This has nothing to do
with where we were playing before.
Our hearts race to be here,
we keep waking up, more and more.
©Wendy Mulhern
June 25, 2015
Confronted suddenly
with such fullness
I am left without words —
the place where they were
has gone liquid
and it flows around and permeates
all the pores of my perception
I don’t respond
for I am transfixed
almost clumsily
I lean into the contact
My tongue has assumed the aspect
of infants drinking
I feel the suction
against my soft palate
It’s time to fly
time to cry or cry out
time to throw my whole being
against or into the vortex
(I don’t know which)
Time for gratitude
for overwhelm, for wonder
for this Life.
©Wendy Mulhern
April 23, 2015
Love is the elemental
impulse of everything,
the kernel of desire
that seeds all life
and brings it forth,
the essence of
the negentropic drive
propelling the development
of all life forms
and the grand dance
of all of them together
Love is all-encompassing permission
for things to be
what they are,
constantly, just where they are
in every now.
Love is the joy
that celebrates each being,
the profound attention
to all the fractal unfoldings
of each entity, the delight
in the harmony of all
Love is the listening,
Love is the witnessing,
Love is the blessing
Love is cause,
Love is motive,
Love is why.
©Wendy Mulhern
April 14, 2015
I think of sinking
to the silent place of upwelling
where the life force springs forth
inside of me
I see the soft, brown depression,
a sign of water past
but nothing there
I pause before attempting
to dig deeper —
It is not in me:
The life force comes from everywhere,
quicker than instant —
It fills me full
Clear, clear water
cold and warbling
refreshing as
presence discovered to be infinite,
Flowing me,
showing itself to be me —
liquid elation,
treble peace.
©Wendy Mulhern
March 25, 2015
Funny the place where we find ourselves landed,
So many cycles our life has spun,
So many ways we have felt ourselves different,
wandering down our life paths alone
Funny to come to this open space
where it suddenly doesn’t matter at all
what people’s course has been,
what life has given them,
how they have happened
to find themselves here
We are here —
that’s the simple fact:
Here’s where we are,
all of our journeys now equal
We are here
at this place of sacred beginnings
where all of our searchings converge
and all of our arcs bring us home.
©Wendy Mulhern
March 14, 2015
We keep shedding ourselves —
layers and layers
of what we thought was so important
fall like sheathes,
like petals,
like pollen,
and we keep rising from within —
the same impulse
keeps creating us,
new as this morning’s contact
with the silvered sun,
timeless as recognition.
©Wendy Mulhern
March 1, 2015
It may seem chaotic
but there is one force pulling us all
And the intelligence
with which we’re all connected
can accommodate
every single need
This grand dance goes on
in every scale of size —
within the galaxies of molecules
and in the tensile tug of stars
And we can feel it
in the way we slide together
and the kinetic transfer
of exhilaration
We can feel it in the stillness
where the interlocking circles
find perfect balance
all along the endless chain of life.
©Wendy Mulhern
February 17, 2015
Now no longer enthralled
by the currency of death
we turn to the currents of Life,
the ones that surge in quick joy
and course in steady peace
How could we not know
that this has always been our strength,
always held us up
And there was no substance in the fear
or in the threat of loss the fear was using
to hold what we most love hostage
Life is not bounded
by death, not bound
by limits, not circumscribed
by ultimatums
Life rules its own realm
and we are of it —
contiguous as ocean,
encircling as sky.
©Wendy Mulhern
December 26, 2014