Seems like happiness is tucked
under snowy limbs of trees
and in curls of clouds –
it comes springing out –
lifts my breath,
fills me with spaciousness,
kisses me like rare thick snowflakes
having their silent say.
©Wendy Mulhern
December 26, 2021
I give myself permission
to find myself lighter –
composed of elements
that sparkle and stream,
and mingle with the stream of
what floats in the air,
what circles and kindles tingles,
life leaping in molecules,
sending joy in rolling curves
up along the skin
I give myself permission
to be weighty, propelled by breath into
solid pushback against the floor,
finding the mountain stance
where I will not be moved
It is the same breath
in both cases, the same Spirit –
I walk in kinship with the air and earth.
©Wendy Mulhern
December 25, 2021
Tonight we feel
we can settle down softly,
like snow, like radiant heat.
We can be soft with ourselves
for the work we haven’t done,
for the time we need
to gather resolution
for the final push
Tonight we feel
we have been filled with friendship,
and can use its model
to walk our way out
of the pit of isolation,
till what we see as distant stars
become our beacons
and our beacons
become our light.
©Wendy Mulhern
December 24, 2021
According to my journals,
I’ve made no progress at all.
I’m wrestling with the same stuff,
I’m flying on the same hope –
I see the bracing path rise up before me,
feel stronger with each vista I attain
I had imagined I’d be coming back by now,
bearing treasure, telling tales of all my victories,
but the trail demands I keep attention forward
and leave my dreams of accolades behind
According to my journals,
back last year I also battled darkness,
and last year I also walked in light,
and maybe there’s no final victors’ banquet,
just the daily work of taking steps aright.
©Wendy Mulhern
December 22, 2021
In this fractured dream world
there is no is,
no state of being right,
no state of being
a certain kind of person
There are no facts about the past,
there is no structure of
the current state of things
However long we grapple with
our and each other’s
version of the truth,
however justified our story seems,
we won’t get closer
to anything that represents us fairly
Through the fractures in this dream world,
sometimes
light can be seen –
Oh light, be my justice,
enlightening me,
Oh light, be my vision
and teach me to see.
©Wendy Mulhern
December 21, 2021
It seems the right time of year
for us to fall into darkness,
for the day to sock in,
for the lights to go out,
for the water heater
to have no juice
And in the view of flames
for us to contemplate
the light that gives us meaning,
how it rushes in with a similar sound,
how it wakes up limbs and toes,
how it illumines our desire and purpose
and will sustain us
even when the solar light is gone.
©Wendy Mulhern
December 20, 2021
Scanning the ground
where the soft curve of brown
that I’m looking for turns out,
every time, to be acorns,
or the soft lobes of oak leaves
settling down. It is their season now,
it seems – they rest together quietly,
intimate whispers in the dampness,
curling in for winter’s rest
I ask my belly then
to send an invitation to the mushrooms
to join the dance of things
that unlock molecules
so elements go free
to seek out other pairings
It is happy to oblige
and soon I find some mushrooms
in the amber tones of its delighted language
There is more to learn of this
than what I noticed here – the invitation
extends to me –
to come back often
to join this dance.
©Wendy Mulhern
December 18, 2021
(From the virtual biking philosophers’ notebook)
My feet step down each day on earth
but don’t define my story.
My story leaps in looping arcs,
bounces down the street
like children tethered to a parent’s hand,
their darting jumps forever anchored back,
encouraged by security
My story leaps for meaning
and will connect sometimes
to consequences that light it up,
closing all the circuits down the line,
illuminating bridges, tracks, and tunnels
Showing what was relevant
from all those steps throughout my time,
showing what was destiny,
or thus defining it,
the future giving meaning to the past,
the place I land creating my past path.
©Wendy Mulhern
December 17, 2021
And when the day’s tough times were over,
the dogging demons not so much defeated
as dispersed, not ever seeming
to be obedient, but simply passing
outside of my attention,
after the fire was long gone
but the stone was still warm,
the waxing gibbous moon
peered through the clouds,
bright enough to cast a shadow,
and dark blue patches showed
between the clouds,
and nothing that had bothered me
was worth taking to bed
where everything waits
to be recombined.
©Wendy Mulhern
December 16, 2021
Let me leave the lumps behind
(collateral of judgment)
let the things I say lift free
like flame, like grace,
like being moved by music
in a dance with no pretension
Let me abandon
all pontification, weights
that can fall haplessly
on someone else’s toes,
let my expression
welcome others to their own,
let it celebrate their light
such that we multiply –
our signal spanning light years,
our radiance close at hand,
bringing warmth and life
to all the land.
©Wendy Mulhern
December 15, 2021