Light on the distant gate –
the afternoon sun signaling
beneficence,
a gleam I can feel
way up here on the hill,
a settling, a proof
that nothing we do stops the kindness
bestowed on every living being,
nothing they do stops the kindness –
it has the last word
in the bitterest disputes,
it melts them to calm
like an evening bath.
©Wendy Mulhern
October 30, 2021
It’s OK to cry,
though it may just be
circles around myself,
stories that invoke the longing
for some deeper comfort
It’s OK to cry, for all that wetness
can melt the lines, can help dissolve
what is harsh, intractable,
what is self-important,
what didn’t realize
we are all in this soup together –
all small, all huge, all holy,
all loved and infinite,
all needed,
all able
to tune the unifying chord.
©Wendy Mulhern
October 29, 2021
She came home –
the little quicksilver
snuggly cuddly one,
the one who knows how to move,
who takes the spark connection
and rubs it up electric
She came home – I asked her
where she had been
and she told me –
it had been a soft escape –
I had warmed the place enough
for her to return,
all furry and shiny
and bubbly and bright
She managed
to let herself drop like liquid,
coalesce from the tight places
where she had been wrung out,
squeezed beyond all recognition,
used as the engine for something
so unlike her essence
But she escaped
and came back softly,
and now I am intent
on keeping my space
kind enough
so she will stay.
©Wendy Mulhern
October 28, 2021
Let’s catch you up
in the love that has no outside,
the love that is all in,
the love that all are in
Let’s catch you up in the love
that has no cavity,
no void – we can dance
in the honeyed light of fearlessness
since all our here is cherished
Let’s catch you up in celebration,
sing your name in joy,
share this sweet belonging
till all our sorrow’s gone.
©Wendy Mulhern
October 27, 2021
The fullness of the air,
the day, the night, the rain –
no place for emptiness –
not here, not anywhere
The energy of caring
and the fact of everything
insistent in its being
are here, right here
Once you know it
you will never feel alone,
or if you do, you can be still,
and reach out with your longing
and your hope
It will fill in all around you
like a song,
it will light up
and make you holy
like a prayer.
©Wendy Mulhern
October 26, 2021
The sky lights up,
the trees light up,
the squall eases
The road leads,
we follow
with our daily awe
So many clues,
so many signs
of overarching love
We will believe,
for look – right now
we see the light.
©Wendy Mulhern
October 24, 2021
The tiredness you brought in
was ponderous,
but underneath, like phosphorescence
glinting in the wave of your exhaustion,
was elation – at your progress,
and the high of having somebody to work with –
the fast batting of ideas, the ready
use of tools, the way it feels
to harmonize a wavelength
Because of this, you went back out again –
late into the night,
though you had seemed completely spent,
– proof that energy is generated
from more sources than we knew.
©Wendy Mulhern
October 23, 2021
Today I have been confident.
I have been willing
to trust entirely
in the unceasing arc of goodness
I have refused to give credence
to catspaws of fate
sending darting scenarios
across my thought
I have stayed here in the calm
where none of these things move me.
It has come clearer
that this perception
is not effaced by contradictions.
This perception
can take them all out.
©Wendy Mulhern
October 21, 2021
In the pre-dawn hours,
tossed on a sleepless shoal
by the roil of dreams,
trying one more toss
in hope of finding peace
I was delivered
by a rolling cloud of light
that bore my innocence aloft
as on a pillow –
the reassuring rush
that who I am
is fully acceptable,
that whatever sordid stories were enacted
in my dream or in my waking,
they didn’t need to stick to me
I could be carried on this truth:
that I was made to be
exactly what I am,
and will be so maintained,
and guilt and worry could fall away
like fog from rooftops –
the sun would shine on me
and show me free.
©Wendy Mulhern
October 20, 2021
I could be the wind.
I could be the wind that blows
sometimes hard, sometimes soft,
from different directions
I could be the wind
that swirls around and picks things up
and lets them fall elsewhere
And you could be the tree,
your leaves first, and then your limbs
stretching out along the lines
of my blowing, your roots reaching,
grasping a deeper anchor,
lines of strength growing up
along your trunk
You could be the tree
growing more and more
into yourself, the essence of you
gaining power
It wouldn’t be that I shaped you,
or that my essence
determined yours,
but what you are would not be harmed
by my presence –
what you are would reach into itself
and bring up more.
©Wendy Mulhern
October 19, 2021