Tag Archives: love

Sounded Through

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A flute, after the song is done
Still holds the silver echo in its shaft
The soft sweet stirrings of vibrations
In all the places where it crooned and laughed

It’s said that flutes, with age,
grow richer —
the frequencies of former songs
all etched along their smooth interiors
which, with each touch,
arise more keenly, newly strong

Love is the same — it plays you like a flute:
Each song in which you let yourself be played
will make your singing richer, deep
The joy with which you then reverberate
will be a quality you’ll always keep
that sings you ever closer to your truth.

©Wendy Mulhern
April 22, 2012



Legacy

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for me and you, and for our parents

You don’t need to be sorry
about your legacy
You needn’t doubt
the impartation of your gifts
These things have never stood
on your performance, your success or failure

Sure as the stars
The light of your being
has sent its beams
and the continuity
of your essence
still streams
steadfast across light years
timeless and unchanged

Whatever gifts you tried to package
Tried, with fumbling hands
to deliver to your children
Whatever they have said
or misconstrued
or failed to see
Your light has always shone on, true

And always shone, as pure
in their bright being
Nothing you have done
could dim it
Nothing you didn’t do
could ever let it fail

It’s what you are
that blesses them
that always has —
Not something you determined —
Something that was given you
before the world began
as it was given them
Rest easy 
for your love
has ever been enough.

©Wendy Mulhern
April 19, 2012



Soul holding

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And when he leaves his home each day

Embarks upon his sea of consciousness
Alone along the arc he travels
through crowds and conversations, correspondences
Who holds him, stands beside him, with him, guards him?

And when she hugs her cat
and leaves for work
in shoes she chose to play the part
along the corridor down which she walks
so far from any touch or recognition
Who holds her? In whose heart resides her image?
Who keeps a constant cord of close connection
belays her, holds the strong affection
to draw her home, remind her who she is?

How is it that we spend
the vast part of our day alone
tossed in the waves of our perceptions?
So dear it is to hold in thought the anchor
of someone who is holding us within

Then, friends, let us each lift up a soul
For something so intense
it is astonishing
how light they are
And that’s because they’re held already
Glistening as strings on Spirit’s harp
Suspended intricate and steady
Still grateful for our touch
that wakes them up.

©Wendy Mulhern
April 18, 2012

Picture: Jennifer McCurdy, Gilded Wind Nest. Photo by Gary Mirando.  Background music: Max Richter “Andras”

Lullaby for Edward

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Spirit current, take this man
Move as him in light and sound
Bear him on a journey of remembering

Fill the hollow of his soul
Let him know himself as whole
Coursing joy and steady strength engendering

All that he has been since long before the dawn of time
Let it flow through him in a reverberating chime
Bring him through the shadow of these weary days
Fill his heart with laughter and his lips with praise
Let him fly in surety that everywhere he’s roamed
He’s always been in your embrace
And so forever home.

©Wendy Mulhern
April 17, 2012



The calculus of need

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In the old assessment
To speak of need is to confess a lack
Admitting need is weakness
And to ask for what you need
entails a sacrifice
of dignity, of power, of position —
a painful act of desperate submission

In another way of seeing
Needing is the interlock of love —
The contact that inspires our hearts
to gratitude
I need you as I need the air I breathe
Not contemplating lack
but just acknowledging
how sweetly and how deeply we’re connected
Not bound, but bonded —
in our unity perfected

Performing once again
the calculus of need
where we consider what to claim
what to concede
To leave the old assessment for the new will be
the algorithm that will set us free.

©Wendy Mulhern
April 15, 2012



Whether or not you already know:

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I love you.
These are powerful words
Not to be said lightly
They have consequences

The man I spoke with yesterday said
People have no idea what love is
They have no point of reference
They say “I love you, I love you,”
But they just want
To be nurtured, to be supported, to be accepted
They will leave when their need changes.

I know what love is
And I love you
I’m not saying it lightly
These words have consequences
And I know what they are

I hold you in my heart
Yes, I nurture you
Yes, I support you
Yes, I accept you
And I welcome your infinity.

I love you, and so
I willingly enter
The space where our boundaries dissolve
And we float, weightless and unformed
So at the impulse from the infinite
We can respond as one.

©Wendy Mulhern
April 11, 2012



Holding light, holding tight

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My halo clasp

tender circle ‘round your aura
invokes my care
my longing to protect you
hold you dear
make you know how deeply
you are loved

My tight grasp
invokes my infant instinct
to hold on, hold on tight
to feel your care
to be loved
to trust that you are there
I hold on never wanting to let go
as if I’ll never get enough
I need it so

Your tight grasp
invokes my mother-love
makes me want to hold you up forever
Your light clasp
gives me buoyancy and wings
and sweet permission
to fill myself with light
and let my heart pursue its mission.
Light and tight, each in its proper hour
Each hold has its purpose and its power.

©Wendy Mulhern
April 8, 2012





Wedding Poem II

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This was my first attempt at a wedding poem for Casey and David.  She felt it was a bit too complicated for people to get in one oral reading, which was why I wrote the one that I posted on March 23rd (and read at their wedding.)  Sharing the first one just as a point of interest . . .

For Casey and David

In this land of your shared story
You live
like two trees
Your roots have found each other underground
And through their paths of growth
have intertwined
and clasped each other tightly in support
and travel now together, where they find
the sustenance of secret aquifers

The rising surge of life propels you upwards
To stretch your branches splendid in the sun
And there you dance —
The lyrics of your blended song
reflect the ancient rhythms
You each learned when you were seeds
and the shared harmonics
of the present breeze

So will you meet each sun-filled hour
each wind-sent storm, each drenching shower
in graceful strength, in steady power
And grounded there, your souls will soar
as you embrace your precious destiny:
enduring growth in sacred unity.

©Wendy Mulhern
March 17, 2012





Love and Magic: Three Enchantments

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 I.
When people love
they make magic
Everything living responds to it
Land rises up at its touch
Joyfully bends as it bends them
Brings forth a beauty
that calls forth their love again
making both ever more rich.
II.
In the dance of love
The will does not reside in either entity
It hovers in that charged and potent
mystic space between them
When they move to follow it
it’s nothing like
the simple, hollow closure
that comes from exercising one’s own will
It’s an exhilaration
and it brings a jubilation
and a satisfaction nothing else can fill.
III.
Magic is real
It is the dance of love
Everyone who loves creates it
sparkling in everything they touch
Others, when they see it, know it
Even if it’s nothing they can name
That which has been loved
will lift them
Bless them so they’ll never be the same. 

©Wendy Mulhern
March 27, 2012


(background music: Isaac Shepard, “Into Spring”)



Languages

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Perhaps the language of words
is overrated
There’s really only so much words can do
You can use words all day
and not be satiated
Words can leave you worse than empty, too
There are some other languages that can’t lie:
What’s said with touch,
with movements synchronized
with laughter, gesture, easy time together
and signals sent across from eye to eye
consider what we can communicate:
the hum of home, the grace of shared space
the heart’s current, and its precious weight
the way our love so naturally reciprocates
Words may frame thoughts
but still be thin
It takes the other languages
to fill them in.
©Wendy Mulhern
March 25, 2012