It’s not like you get to bargain
with death. If you give it one little wink,
it will have you. It will take you
on its own terms, not on yours
But it’s not that death can win.
The enduring multiplicity of life
will keep doing as it always does,
branching out the possibilities.
Put all attention there, and you, too,
will keep on growing.
©Wendy Mulhern
February 24, 2022
In this world of shifting shadows
things may be predicted
but nothing is promised. You can be gone
just like that
and what was the point
of everything you strove for?
Which doesn’t change my practice
of putting each foot down, doesn’t change
my proof-gathering sense
that what is done in love
will have results,
and love will always make sure
to take the steps needed
so the results come.
©Wendy Mulhern
February 23, 2022
This is how you are vindicated,
this is how you are washed clean,
this is how you are lifted
A truth bigger than your arguments,
a goodness with no argument at all,
a love that loved you
before any quid pro quo,
and loves you now
touches down, becoming
everything you ever thought about,
all you ever wanted.
©Wendy Mulhern
February 22, 2022
Though there is a way on paper
of drawing light with black lines,
let me not do so with my words
The page of thought is bright
and doesn’t need darkness
to delineate its inspiration
Look – I can have the Mind of Christ!
There is enough need in the world
for the lines of light to touch and heal
That healing truth, showing its presence,
defines light, defines everything.
©Wendy Mulhern
February 21, 2022
In the brilliance it’s hard to see
what’s rising up, what’s touching down –
and maybe both are occurring –
you might call it communion,
you might call it illumination –
how light needs its reflection
to be known.
©Wendy Mulhern
February 20, 2022
The smooth hardness of the maple wood,
its solidness as I split it,
the songs I played while wielding
the axe and hammer
The little towhee
who flew into the window,
who I set upright and warmed
for a moment with my hand
before it flew off
Enough laughter to fill a face
so full that tears ran out,
time to listen and tell stories,
time to feel at home.
©Wendy Mulhern
February 18, 2022
Almost full moon
rises to a chorus of frogs,
dewdrops on grass
lit up like so many
tiny nightlights,
secret silver
waiting for morning’s frost.
©Wendy Mulhern
February 17, 2022
Let me lay down these strokes of absolution
like paint, colors sinking deep
into the paper, spreading out
at the edges of the lines,
color changing what you thought
had been the story, what you thought
was the starting point,
color saturating you until
you are wholly changed –
no untouched spaces,
every part rendered brilliant,
none neglected,
none shut out
And whatever amends are called for,
you are now well equipped
to make them, cozied up,
as you are, in the inclusion
of every last corner of you
in the color that’s given you,
the love that is yours.
©Wendy Mulhern
February 15 2022
I guess there’s really no need
to be embarrassed by my former self,
to cringe at all my blindnesses,
to understand, as I didn’t at the time,
why people said no thank you,
why they slipped out of my life
Now I’ve conveniently forgotten
so many of them, lost touch
with almost all.
Not that they’d be eager
to hear me say
how I was thoughtless –
this was something they knew all along
But I should know –
all our lives
have machinations
that keep grinding us
through unexpected turns,
churning us through changes
we never would have asked for,
never would have thought that we could bear
When they spit us out, maybe we’re better,
reciprocal receptors better honed,
maybe we appear more as we felt ourselves inside,
more how we had hoped we would be seen.
©Wendy Mulhern
February 14, 2022
Every beast of the forest is Yours,
which means,
there where they stand –
this one I’m imagining, for example,
a stag –
As Yours, he must possess
the radiant belonging, the sense of right,
the unassailable
delight of being.
He must know for certain
that what he is
is exactly perfect
for his place and time,
that his presence
is designed and desired
and celebrated. This must exult
throughout his form and breath,
must fill him with Your power,
must halo him in peace.
©Wendy Mulhern
February 13, 2022