We walk in the smile of the day,
feet touching down along its curve.
Songbirds and crickets,
turkey and deer –
all the usual inhabitants –
move in the same grace
We revel in crescents –
the arc of temperature,
the waxing moon,
the hammock of tenderness
we offer each other
during and after
the easy swing of the day’s work.
©Wendy Mulhern
September 11, 2021
Every week it’s suddenly Thursday,
and then Thursday’s gone
But all.of this tumble has nothing to do
with the progress at hand,
which rolls out like sine waves
from the turning of the wheel
and goes forth like thistle seeds released
I keep learning the same thing.
Every day it’s new.
Every day I am amazed to discover it
I’m like a spaceship setting off
across light years,
the universe unfolding and enfolding,
stars in every direction,
heartbeat present and insistent.
©Wendy Mulhern
September 9, 2021
The dream state of the world
convulses, rolls in chains,
roars in pain at their constraining,
rumbles and crashes, trying to rise
Its ripples murmur
through every earthbound life,
and each one feels it –
a nagging from afar,
a rage within
The beast in each
has been, thus far, contained
by shunting off to frame another’s blame,
where, in our ignorance,
or by some monstrous plan,
it will explode to burn
in someone else’s land
So it will be, until we learn the name
of that which sparks us all, so we can claim
the gentle power
that gives us each release,
resets the primal hour
and soothes the beast.
©Wendy Mulhern
September 8, 2021
Tears can cleanse
and tears can mend –
waterfalls cascading down,
smoothing rocks beneath,
filling in the crevices,
rendering me meek
Lord knows I need something –
I am willing to cry and cry
and cry and cry,
but will it be enough?
Not in the depths of my own chasm,
not in the shallows of my conclusions.
Let me press myself
up against the infinite
so that its light shines through.
©Wendy Mulhern
September 7, 2021
The father doesn’t give the son
a stone for bread, so why
all these stones, these chipped teeth?
Why this gnawing hunger?
The father doesn’t give the son a stone,
so why, father to son,
down all these generations –
all these walls, all this rubble?
Picking up the pieces, looking,
distractedly, for something
that would lock this life together,
a lodestone, a keystone,
an ancient way
The father loves the son,
but how is this made known?
How do the living rays of Truth
that shine through consciousness
reveal this longed-for bond?
They are the knowing.
Sit in the shade of this great Rock
and share the feast.
©Wendy Mulhern
September 6, 2021
There is no imbalance in this:
The gift comes forth, it is received,
the need is felt, then met,
no debts pile up on one side of the scale,
no offerings untouched against the door
The blessing finds its level just like water:
What you bring is just what is most needed,
what you receive fulfils another’s joy,
what you have honed for barren years
will prove the perfect tool,
the fruits will multiply to match your labor
This is the law – you’ll find there is no other
(though many lies have tried to hide the truth)
anythong you thought was lost
you will recover,
with all your moments put to perfect use.
©Wendy Mulhern
September 3, 2021
You talk to the trees.
They won’t preside
over your rush of memories –
if they hear them, they don’t judge
Some of them have been here
a long time. If not as long on the earth
as you, still long enough
to keep on reaching up,
to have lost branches
but not the branching impulse,
not the surging
expression of their being,
not their place among the living
or in the land
They may have things to tell you
about roots, about service,
about the inevitability
of being true to the seed you grew from
and true to the seeds you bear.
©Wendy Mulhern
September 2, 2021
The lessons of the land
seep in wordlessly
with no taint of instruction,
no directive to change
They seep into my hands, my gait,
my consciousness, they become
the way it has always been,
the way I’ve always seen
When I try to think of what has changed,
how I used to think, in contrast
to how I now perceive,
the whole thing goes out of focus
But I can find it again,
just like I found the cat
who rolled in the dirt and then
almost disappeared in the grass
I can find it again
by setting myself to receive,
to take in and hold in reverence
each life in its singular sphere.
©Wendy Mulhern
September 1, 2021
So many moments
bring opportunity
to enthuse on what the light is doing –
rooms, inside and out,
beckon entrance,
encourage passage
to some new entrancement
I go there with my mind
like flying with the wings of birds,
feeling their uplift,
gliding with their arc,
held and reflected,
numinous as day.
©Wendy Mulhern
August 31, 2021
Though I had imagined an epic story,
it turned out to be a very quiet thing,
though I had pictured myself
coming home in hero’s robes,
there was nothing, really, to show –
nothing I could say about it
So hard it is to describe
the inner transformation,
the little shift in thought
that changed everything
That showed my adversaries
innocent, after all,
that showed my premises mistaken,
but let in so much light
that I was glad to be shown wrong,
glad to be illumined from now on.
©Wendy Mulhern
August 30, 2021