Author Archives: Wendy

Present time

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(from the virtual biking philosophers’ notebook)

What you remember
belongs to you. You can have
the saturation of a bright red crayon
and the sound it makes
when it leaves its waxy mark on the paper
on a hot day in Pasadena

You can have the bright cold
of blue green water,
salty and enlivening
at Menemsha

You are free to weave dreams
of all of these, or you can layer them
with the view out the window,
you can use them to craft possibilities
for future moments

You can transmute them as needed,
you can harvest and employ
their secret power,
you can enjoy them
as light-mixed colors
adding riches to your present time.

©Wendy Mulhern
October 27, 2022

Climbing

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There is no magic elevator
to lift you from the pit –
you must climb out,
handhold by foothold

It’s not enough that you have tried,
proven that you know
how to grasp the rocks –
every elevation must be gained

But there’s a secret sustenance  –
you’ll feel it as you climb –
your hands, your feet, your breath
will send the message

The life power of your movement
will fill you
with more of the same,
increasing steadily,
up the rough terrain.

©Wendy Mulhern
October 26, 2022

Secret

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We forge this knowing
in the texture of a moment,
as winds and rains blow through
and pause

Everything we see contains the secret,
shouts it, really,
in its unspoken way

And we may ask and ask and ask,
and that is good,
for in the waiting
we find the silence,
and in the silence,
we hear the truth.

©Wendy Mulhern
October 25, 2022

Deeper

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I seek solace in tears
but they are way below the surface,
an aquifer that needs to be replenished

I have stood against the opaque rock,
prayed that it become crystal,
yearned to see the light refracting through

And I don’t know what messenger to send
down the coves, down the caves,
to reach the still point, bring things out right

So I’m called to a deeper surrender,
an ocean, perhaps, or something vaster,
a power so far stronger than words or reason
that can enclose us all and bring us home.

©Wendy Mulhern
October 24, 2022

Where is your sting?

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You may count down the numbers,
take us out one by one,
you may flood or burn us
thousands at a time,
you may boast your power,
you may crow your victory,
but no way can you actually win

You say we’re decimated,
but we have something you don’t have,
and never can, something you can never take from us

You boast of deadness,
but that means nothing,
for you are dead, and what we have is life –
it’s just a card trick
to seem to take our numbers,
for life is something you have never taken.
You may seem fearsome,
you may rage on and on,
but we will still be standing when you’re gone.

©Wendy Mulhern
October 23, 2022

“And they shall no more teach”

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Here in this opening place,
we serve music
and we serve truth,
and all that we have to say to each other
is the affirmation of presence,
of breath, of movement,
of rolling and unfolding,
of spirit and flight

For we won’t teach each other, anymore,
saying “know what’s true,”
for truth will spring out from our being,
each of us a revelation,
cause for all of us
to rejoice.

©Wendy Mulhern
October 22, 2022

Watershed

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My thoughts spread
like the perception of watersheds,
they sink, gather, coalesce, and run,
and I know that too fast a flow
will pull away soil, though also
expose some ancient rocks,
carve an abiding way,
and I see
that any engineering
needs a light touch  –
humility, and much listening,
and honoring geology at hand
so all the plants
can give as they’re designed to –
holding soil, or decompacting,
pioneering, and allowing
the slow sprout of trees
that may take centuries to mature ,
for which we now create
conditions to begin.

©Wendy Mulhern
October 21, 2022

A day with good work

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The sunset clouds looked like angel wings to me,
though my camera couldn’t see it –
I wouldn’t mind if they delivered rain
(more than the two drops that fell on me in the garden)

They could be angelic bearers
of needed cleansing for the air,
and moisture for the soils,
and quenching for the fires –
I would be happy for that …

Right now I’m happy for
a day with good work in it –
beginnings and direction,
enough labor to guess what it will take,
enough progress to make it seem possible.

©Wendy Mulhern
October 20, 2022

Haunts

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I try not to go back too often
to haunt the niches where I used to dwell,
the places of my former circuits,
roles I held to give me meaning

They have a stickiness that grabs at my attention,
but there’s nothing to them, really –
the Spirit that propels me
never needed names or titles,
nor could my essence stand without the Spirit

Leaving all those things behind
lets me get closer
to moving truly to my Spirit’s mode.

©Wendy Mulhern
October 19, 2022

Redemption

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I turn to You
because Your light
is broad and deep and strong enough
to catch me up completely out of reach
of all the shaming jeers and lofty judgment
which dogged me both from outside
and from multiplying echoes here within

Those voices called me either hopeless
or in need of so much work,
my restoration
would be miraculous

But You – You see me
the way I’d forgotten
to see myself
until you showed me
and it rang so true
that nothing else could trouble me at all

So I remain here, free and whole,
astonishingly safe from condemnation,
and in this refuge, my accusers fade away –
I’m here with You
in fog-disolving day.

©Wendy Mulhern
October 18, 2022