Dust can’t array itself
against a river
No amount of intricate
setting of snares
to catch and defraud,
to frame and denature
and marginalize
have any power
to halt or turn or block
in any way
the quick and vital current
of your being
Dust finally
has nothing to say at all.
The river of you runs clear
and wild and full,
loving every bank and turn and fall,
singing of its cause, its source,
its all.
©Wendy Mulhern
October 4, 2021
Alchemy has become
a popular word,
and I, for one, have experienced
that perfect balancing
where suddenly
all that came from me was gold –
truth from my mouth,
light from my being
But I need a deeper practice,
for my goal is not the sense
of being lit up from within,
but the illumination
that renders all the rumors of the shadow
irrelevant, forgotten, as they are,
in the bold line and color
of the day.
©Wendy Mulhern
October 3, 2021
Well, I have to remind myself each morning,
have to go back to it again
however many times in the day
I feel myself slipping
Follow the cause lines back
through the tendrils of my longing
and the flitting lights of my desire,
under and over the fears and blocked places
back to where the light comes clear
and the desire flames without guttering,
and everything in my being
that needs to be nourished
finds its connection to what feeds it
I have to go back
so I can start from there,
so what I am can flow freely
all the way down to where I find myself,
all the way through to what fills my days
with the giving of my gift
and the holy song of praise.
©Wendy Mulhern
October 2, 2021
The land holds happiness within,
deeper than the roots of trees
that pull it up
I can tell because of the laughing clown dance
I did with my shadow,
for no particular reason
while running down to the cabin, twice
And the way the nip in October’s wind
brought forth a sense of excitement,
and the way we settled into cozy
so easily, once we decided to stay home.
©Wendy Mulhern
October 1, 2021
September ends. Early the morning
I saw the smile
of the waning crescent moon
above the hills, between the clouds,
promising a good day later
I went back to sleep.
The sun came up, and later
the clouds crowded in,
the wind came up, and then
the light rain
September ends,
drawing a shade of melancholy
across the evening.
October will have its own tale.
©Wendy Mulhern
September 30, 2021
I tried to pull myself away
from images from someone else’s life,
considered if another night
of dreams not quite my own
was in store for me
In the end, the tendency
to hang my life like laundry,
to scrutinize it in the light of others’ stories
is nothing that can help me
We will all meet up together
on the deeper plane
far more important
than the holes and stains
in my shirts or in my narrative –
this source we share
that lets us recognize each other,
this source that lets us recognize ourselves.
©Wendy Mulhern
September 28, 2021
I’m called now to notice
the kindness with which
the line of my life has been laid down,
the patience with me in the places
where I let fear and arrogance
cast me indelible
to colors and lines I was offered
How I’ve been given, each time,
another opportunity
to receive the opening
that will render me more alive, more true,
to my intended being. Look,
this isn’t a finite page, a finite play,
this isn’t a chance I could miss
This is the infinite,
this is its song of me,
these are the colors, the lines and the light,
this is the life that is steadily given me,
this is the song that I am.
©Wendy Mulhern
September 27, 2021
This time of year the fir needles
provide a tranquil carpet –
if it is disturbed,
they quickly restore it,
as if nothing ever walked through here,
nothing ever scuffed its way
along some unthinking course –
Give it a day
and the vision of peace rests,
unforgettable, on the afternoon,
showing that everything has its own place,
everything falls according to plan.
©Wendy Mulhern
September 26, 2021
Thirty-nine years, and I’m only just
coming to know you.
Fair enough to say I’m only just
coming to know myself
Before that, we were playing house,
impressing ourselves
with all that we knew,
many times confident,
many times feeling adrift
And then the storms came,
and for years, we were soldiering through,
pulling together but feeling alone,
traversing aloneness together
Now there is now, and I hesitate
to say too much. There is wonder
in what we are living out,
day after day, and there’s promise,
and the impulse to keep the page
open, and empty,
until it is written each day.
©Wendy Mulhern
September 25, 2021
The little yellow flowers
that filled the field this morning
have almost all closed up by afternoon,
the clicking orange-winged grasshoppers
continue with their short and busy flights,
the tousled seed heads, dandelion-like,
shake in the wind and sometimes let seeds go
Here at the top of the heat arc of the day,
it could almost be summer,
except the breeze is cooler, kinder,
and there is moisture in the ground,
and there’s a poignancy
to the sharpness of the curve,
lending urgency to insects,
brightening colors by bending them down.
©Wendy Mulhern
September 24, 2021