Author Archives: Wendy

The central peace

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The central peace doesn’t care
if plans are wild threads flung quickly
across the hours, snagging where they will,
or if the day unfolds as grass grows,
steady, but too slow to see

The central peace finds ways to touch down
in consciousness, with a task, with a smile,
with some small outreach of help
that stitches a moment in place

We are all embraced
in the central peace, which means
even if we think we don’t have time
to pause, and let it come,
it still will find us.

©Wendy Mulhern
February 10, 2023

Pre-dawn

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In the still, early morning,
when high fog masks
what the day might become,
in the span before colors
start to emerge from shadowed forms,
the internal song
and the heart of movement
rise up in the pre-dawn light

I must not direct this motion
lest I stifle it,
lest I frighten it away with expectations  –
I can only present myself, willing,
bare feet to the floor,
and feel what happens

And the song starts up,
or maybe the movement first –
they incite each other,
and that consciousness I know of as my body
rides in the perfect harmony,
expressing, not inventing,
exploring, not directing,
making the dance its own,
knowing as it is known.

©Wendy Mulhern
February 8, 2023

Break

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Nothing really broke except a taillight.
Though it seemed for a moment
that every path had shattered,
that there was no more sense
and nothing more to follow,
in fact, the way that we could navigate
was still there – we could still take
the needed next steps,
we could come home
with a load of trees
and a replacement part,
and our sensibilities
could break through like sun
after all that rain.

©Wendy Mulhern
February 7, 2023

What was that?

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And as for the things I was thinking about,
in the air that feels like spring
while frogs sing in the north pond,
and the list of things to do
is long enough
that whole categories routinely
drop into the void,
and we feel good if there’s one thing
we can check off the list
(though fifteen more creep onto it)

I forget what I was thinking about,
or what leaves me this odd contentment
while the fire has warmed the room
as evening slides towards night
and our moments, while prosaic,
show small signs of the gravitas
of eternity.

©Wendy Mulhern
February 6, 2023

Recognition

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Be astonished at what you find
in far-flung reaches of your mind –
more than difference,
what surprises
is recognition

What you were sure of
will surely topple,
and you will have
no will to stop it
as your eyes find
the hidden topic
and substance is revealed

So you’re inducted into the secret,
no mystery to those who seek it,
and when it’s time,
you, too, will speak it –
harmony of Mind.

©Wendy Mulhern
February 5, 2023

Constancy

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Memories flicker like lights
in the fire, in the windows’ reflections,
and their reflections of each other’s light,
dimmer, smaller, greener
in more distant iterations

The lights were real, and they still are,
however faintly I perceived them then,
however tenuous they may seem now

They may not light or warm me on their own,
but they do show me
the constancy of light through all my times,
which, when I turn to now,
lights up my present,
and also all the tunnels of my past.

©Wendy Mulhern
February 4, 2023

Trees from the nursery

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Young trees, we have great hopes for you –
we’ll set your gangly roots down in our earth,
we’ll try to keep you safe
from what would gnaw at you,
we wish you each a life of robust growth

We hope your limbs will soar and branch,
and birds will rest upon them,
we hope your roots will travel far,
communing with your neighbors

May your blossoms nourish bees,
and may your leaves be splendid,
may your shade be sweet and broad
and child befriended,
may we tend you well enough that you, in turn,
will flourish in your tending of the earth.

©Wendy Mulhern
February 3, 2023

Source

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I can almost touch
the sun-colored ripples,
when they come close, by my shoulder –
reminder of my essence and my source

So I remember:
my intimacy comes from there,
the present shimmer
gives me my constant light

No need to throw myself headlong,
down among the shadowed rocks
of circumstance, of social history,
of old and current wounds –
there is no comfort there, no guidance,
there’s no solution there, no truth

And since the truth is here,
I will not leave. When I am tempted to,
I will be still, and bask. I will be still
and draw, from my life source,
all that I need,
and all I ever want.

©Wendy Mulhern
February 2, 2023

These times

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To weather these times,
we ride on what we know will fly –
music, or touch, or high fantasy –
we find what takes us high
to keep our heads above the rising mire

Whether these times
encompass the swift end of all we knew,
or herald the bright dawn
of what we know must come,
we’ll need the touchstones
of everything we love
to bear us through them,
to bring us home.

©Wendy Mulhern
January 31, 2023

On reticence

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I.
We talk about the failure of words,
but maybe it’s not exactly that –
a thing of timing, more, or cadence,
and how the images,
though not strange,
rest in a different context,
whose description
would take a lot of words
and tax our listeners

We may have finer sensors than we know,
with which we measure
the time we have to speak –
space of attention
in which our words must fit,
or else the bubble will disperse,
letting our words fall
and our connection with it.

II.
And then again, there is an art
to listening, without intent
to offer any words, unless
they perfectly tuck in
to the place of need
that has been shared,
which they will do
if we have rightly heard
the space prepared.

©Wendy Mulhern
January 30, 2023