I will drop
into this quiet place,
into this cozy nest
where I am cherished and protected
I didn’t make this nest,
and I can’t make one for you,
but it is here
and you can drop in, too
This could be
the belly of a fish,
this could be your last fall
into desolation,
but what you find here
is the forever love,
the law that claims you as its own.
©Wendy Mulhern
October 25, 2023
Now that I’ve quit
the business of judging,
how you comport yourself
makes little difference
We all deserve mercy,
and we all have the stature
to grant it. And maybe that
is the greater role
we all have longed for –
mercy over judgment,
universal ease.
©Wendy Mulhern
October 23, 2023
Our tentative offerings,
our hapless lurching –
towards what we wish,
away from what we fear
Our ill-fated attempts
to make some sense
of you, of me, of work, of friendship,
can hold together
no better than
marbles balanced on each other
They roll away so quickly
in haphazard rattling,
and what holds us together?
Yet here we are.
Call it miraculous,
or call it a simple fact of being,
one that helps us
more than we know.
©Wendy Mulhern
October 23, 2023
All of us are foolish,
and all of us are wise,
and most wise when we’re tender with each other,
and allow each other’s foolishness
to roll off like water,
evaporate and disperse
in the cooling awareness
of our sweet presence
and the warming radiance
of what loves us.
©Wendy Mulhern
October 21, 2023
There is a happy way to be,
a happy way to hold you –
hold you like water,
where you know
there are no holes for you to fall through
Hold you like a bowl
that lets you take its shape,
and lets you be yourself,
and lets you ripple,
but doesn’t lose you out the sides
This way of holding you
lets you be at peace,
and lets you find yourself
and quench your thirst.
©Wendy Mulhern
October 20, 2023
Beyond the simple counting –
what is desired, what is required –
beyond the march of days,
a quiet call that can’t be masked by anything
wells up within
This is more than the touted reward
for getting all the slots aligned,
this is not something
that comes to you by chance –
what looks like scattered glimmers
is in fact the indication
of a brilliance overwhelming all the tokens
Release manipulations
and line yourself up with this –
the power to power your unspoken hope –
beyond the march of days,
this timeless truth
speaks the infinitude
of what you are.
©Wendy Mulhern
October 19, 2023
This is the patient work:
letting every frond unfold,
fronds within fronds, fractally onward,
Letting each discovery
be its own wonder,
newness blazing out,
connections coming back around
Being on the ground
and letting every step be grounded,
no perception skipped over, glossed over,
taken as a given
Thus will every moment feel its value,
all the beings know their solid worth,
each idea unfold in pure perfection,
heaven well established in the earth.
©Wendy Mulhern
October 18, 2023
The trees are faithful,
the trees and water,
the trees and water and the moving air,
and the embracing sky
So when I wander into fiction,
another’s or my own concoction,
their steadfastness in what they are
will guide me back to truth.
©Wendy Mulhern
October 17, 2023
Fog softens
the earliest and latest parts of day,
invites the fusing
of things cocooned
with those that live in dream
October threads warmth through coolness,
stitching up the moments
like a needle,
light leaks through the punctures
like time.
©Wendy Mulhern
October 14, 2023
You may be grateful for the many things
kind elders taught you,
you may wish you had wise elders
where you had none
But if you’ve ridden on strong shoulders
or floundered on your own,
you still will meet a challenge
that you face alone
And this is where you’ll learn
to tap the infinite,
this is your moment
to take off and fly.
Everyone must do it,
so we all can –
it is the one, the first and final,
empowerment of man.
©Wendy Mulhern
October 14, 2023