I come around again to silence,
not knowing –
is it too soon to speak
or are my words already spoken,
is there hope behind the smoke
when so much is broken?
Let my silence not come from my fear
but from my listening,
let my lack of words make space
for something larger –
what fills all space can’t be corralled with words –
return me to beginning with the Word.
©Wendy Mulhern
August 28, 2021
The sun and wind rest on my skin
like absolution,
the memory of fear of fire receding,
and in the place of what has burned away,
I’m walking in this newly minted freedom
Beyond all words for this, the sense
that passing through
is worth whatever’s lost, and all it cost me,
and here the holiness of being born anew
completely has outshone what I had called me
There is no going back,
for nothing past remains –
my feet step, awed,
on new terrain.
©Wendy Mulhern
August 27, 2021
We talk of big things –
life’s dreamlike nature,
society’s entrapments –
but do little things –
staining siding panels,
making dinner,
shutting down the power for the night,
looking at stars
We talk of big things,
but it’s the little things that matter –
whether we were patient,
whether we were kind
And in the end, our eye lights
will be like stars,
while our words
are more like clouds.
©Wendy Mulhern
August 26, 2021
In the way the world’s ways have been served to us,
(chopped and tiered, large swaths discounted)
it’s hard for us to fathom
how every single life is needed –
every perspective, even and especially
the ones that seem the most recalcitrant
They are holding out
for the most magnificent shining,
the one that will overcome
even their bleakest rages
They are holding out for a justice
so comprehensive
that no one here has yet imagined it –
the one that gives each one of us
our royal, rightful place.
©Wendy Mulhern
August 25, 2021
Sit down here beside me –
we have no time
to use the tools of the enemy –
the ruse of blame has played out
so many times, and each time,
we have found ourselves
back in its lap, sucking
its noxious fumes
Sit down with me, and we will talk
of gentle things, we’ll leave
ample spaces,
enough to listen,
enough to really hear,
enough to go down deeper
than the former narrative
would ever let us go
We won’t even think about
the enemy. Won’t give it even
a breath. That way we’ll make of it
an utter end, and have some ground
on which to start again.
©Wendy Mulhern
August 24, 2021
When sadness comes to the table
(though I had laid the feast for joy)
when sadness comes,
hungry, no doubt, and tired,
who am I to turn it away?
No, I will give it a place at the table,
I will let it have
whatever it desires –
the feast of joy may yet find grace
in letting sadness sit
as long as it needs to,
letting it eat and be filled,
and maybe comforted,
maybe satisfied,
maybe even changed.
©Wendy Mulhern
August 23, 2021
You don’t need to be
told again you’re wrong –
the world’s benightedness
is not your fault.
Once more you see yourself
with muddied hands,
you feel the agony come rushing forth
The rancid shadow falls on you again,
you feel the pain, the guilt, the sorrow –
you have tried hard,
but found you couldn’t shrug it –
it’s cast throughout your past,
it shrouds tomorrow
A taste of your deep innocence
empowers you,
incites your inner rebel
to make the change –
it stands up for a deeper, blameless truth,
ignites the fire from which you’ll rise again.
You’ll listen as you take each step, and then
the earth will rise with you and be your friend.
©Wendy Mulhern
August 21, 2021
The little minds may rush around,
leaving trails like worm tracks under bark,
trying to figure out
how to get the best
and how to keep away from what would harm
The one Mind never joins the frenzy.
That which fills all space
has no need to move.
That which loves infinitely
with no conditions
has no need to keep track
of wins or losses
The little minds may yearn and sigh for calm,
the calm they only find within the All-knowing
whose omnipresence circles them so fully
they let their worries and agendas go.
©Wendy Mulhern
August 20, 2021
And if we come to find ourselves
soiled beyond all recognition,
bound and twisted
by the world’s oppressive logic
If we feel betrayed, bamboozled,
bankrupt, if we feel the huge mistakes
we’ve made were baked in, embedded
in the vast array of lies that we grew up with –
that is good news. It shows us separating
from what we thought we were,
and, following the feelings down,
we’ll find ourselves,
ready and able to be clean
For starters, we can wash each other,
bathe each other in forgiveness,
use the vision of what we are
to see the same in them,
let their clear sight of us
help set us free.
©Wendy Mulhern
August 19, 2021
I’m learning the art
of not saying much,
of recognizing
that the solid fact of presence
can convey acceptance
more than words
and that acceptance
is almost always
more needed than instruction,
and that my greatest work
is learning to convey an infinite amount,
for only infinity is enough.
©Wendy Mulhern
August 18, 2021