Twilight

It’s magical outside  – mist and moonrise
and the last blue before the final dark.
Snow has chased through the day
but it is gone now – the kiss of cold remains
but that is all

It’s magical inside – the windows
show the same last blue,
and the reflections from our lights and fire

It’s just a way of feeling about it,
a way that gathers warmth,
and gathers presence,
and peace that deepens
in the rounded shadows of the years.

©Wendy Mulhern
March 5, 2023

Evidence

I followed the trail of words
back through my days,
looking for the consolation
and the brave face
that marked the chasm that I never spoke of,
but it was gone

How can it be that a whole memory
is erased? Not exactly that,
for the facts are there,
but the pit of emotion is gone,
and the weight, the despair

In the place of dragons, where each lay,
will be grass with reeds and rushes

Even so. Hope springs from ash,
green and thriving.

©Wendy Mulhern
March 4, 2023

Focal distance

Where Spirit sees,
everything is seen,
and everything that’s seen
sees with Spirit’s sight

No object can obscure another,
no shadow can be cast –
to be reflection is to be the light,
and everything is pure reflection here

Nothing waits to see if it is seen –
we know we’re seen by virtue of our seeing –
we know how Spirit shines through us
by seeing how we shine,
see ourselves lit
by that which we light up.

©Wendy Mulhern
March 3, 2023

Living itself

Well, the day won’t live itself –
the wood will not be chopped and stacked
if we don’t do it. The garden plot
won’t prepare itself for planting.
But the clouds will roll on through,
sun glad-handing among them,
the deer will make their rounds,
and in the subterranean
channels of thought,
the unseen steps you take
may be the greatest thing that’s happening.

©Wendy Mulhern
March 1, 2023

Wings

The wings set down in slow motion,
the beat, the beat, the fold,
the shift from flight to stationary balance,
a daily sight, a wonder to behold

And may the wings of my great aspiration
stretch out from stillness in the morning air
to gather wind beneath them and pump higher,
and take my wonder with them everywhere.

©Wendy Mulhern
February 28, 2023

My ride

Although the tales seemed so important,
perhaps they weren’t  –
perhaps all of us let pass
so many potential rides
to where we thought we’d go

But we’re here anyway,
however much the same or different it is
from what we thought

And what I now know is,
I can’t default to death  –
it never was a train that I could board

However long it takes,
I’m bound for immortality
in my return to knowledge
of who I am.

©Wendy Mulhern
February 27, 2023

Motes

Long after dark, as night drifts on,
I wait for motes to settle,
but they don’t, they float –
what do they know of gravity?

I sink deeper into myself,
beneath the weighting of importance  –
everything is equal here,
everything is loved

And nothing that aspired to dominate
can touch any of this –
its motion and its stillness
are undisturbed

What holds them here
stays close around them,
cushions their essence
in perfect peace.

©Wendy Mulhern
February 26, 2023

Cold snap

We stretch out nodding off
before the fire’s dry lullaby,
our toes up close

The cold wind that blew all day
keeps trying to snatch the heat
from the house

And the smiling setting crescent moon
casts its pale light
through the window

We have ways to keep warm
and ways to keep busy,
one of them being
to tuck ourselves in till tomorrow.

©Wendy Mulhern
February 24, 2023

Reflections on a song

Who wouldn’t like to know
their song has been
like this one is for me –
profound experience of coming home

The well known journey language
of the music scale,
used simply, but with a reaching honesty
that finds the deep tones
supporting high, sweet shifting harmony
to tenderly induce in me
this longing, this relief,
this gratitude, this peace

We ply our art, we let it go
out in the world – we never know
if someone, somewhere,
has found that it transports them
to some inner chamber
or some wide, wild view

I will fill my world
with the lights of others,
I will use them to understand
the way we’re knit together,
the way each of our gifts
can multiply collective bliss.

©Wendy Mulhern
February 23, 2023

To speak truth

I don’t mind
being rendered silent,
my words, heretofore,
having, all too often,
served a regime I didn’t even know of,
and certainly would not support
now that I know

Let me serve instead
what speaks for itself
in the web-connected movement
of every atom reaching
into its purpose, into its bliss,
every being finding, in its living, exaltation
in its joyful contribution to the One.

©Wendy Mulhern
February 21, 2023