This is my prayer –
to see you,
to always see you
and not be fooled
by any of the demons
which claim to have moved in,
which use your voice to shout
and say things
you would never say
This is my prayer –
to see you
whole and innocent and droll,
affluent and generous,
bright shine of Soul.
©Wendy Mulhern
August 4, 2021i
Come find me –
I’m stuck in this heat
like a fly in honey,
too sticky to move,
to trapped to sleep
Come find me,
move like melting ice,
like flowing water,
remind me why I’m here
and what I live for
Be my Mind, my Spirit,
be my breath, my cool,
soak me as with rain,
and give the land and trees
their needed drink, too.
©Wendy Mulhern
August 3, 2021
It can still seem like a long slow trek
through heat and drought
till the rains come,
but August also starts to offer
glimmers of civility –
dawn a little later,
sunset sooner,
the beat of heat
a little shorter,
and these weightless moments
where time floats in golden glow,
and crickets and grasses,
turkeys and deer,
bracken and fir
go about their lives,
where presence is sufficient,
holding and deserving all attention,
compelling us
with the eternal now.
©Wendy Mulhern
August 2, 2021
I hear of dark matter
and I think “doesn’t matter”
and I hear of anti-matter
and I want to use the term
for things I shouldn’t think about –
things that not only don’t matter
but do harm with their vacuity,
distracting my mind from noticing
what I really need to see
I won’t even mention them now,
for though you think you want to know,
I won’t be responsible
for magnifying things
I wouldn’t want to think about
when there is so much wonder
that can otherwise
occupy your thought.
©Wendy Mulhern
July 31, 2021
What my phone’s camera does with the sky
may be nice,
but it doesn’t capture
that subtle conversation
between the soft blue-gray clouds
and the distant green-gray firs,
and the tinge of pink
where the sky touches down
And it can’t capture
how still it is, all of a sudden,
as the distant crows pause their racket
and there’s no car trekking down
the long surrounding road
Still enough to invite thunder
and maybe even rain,
unlikely but welcome
to sketch its verticality
all down the scene.
©Wendy Mulhern
July 30, 2021
In my mind I fill you up with truth –
I see the rare surge of its pull,
great burst of aliveness
from catching hold of it,
letting it zing you to the core
You’ll be back
because you need this
more than anything,
you sense that it will take you
to all you’ve ever wanted
(which is true)
and it releases you
from all the pincers that would hold you trapped
in endless ugly mazes of conditions
In my mind I seek to recognize
that truth is everywhere
and so you must be filled with it –
no room for anything like rationalization,
no room for being forced, for being cowed,
for being frightened –
truth stands up in you,
and you will gladly serve it,
truth stands up in you
and you are free.
©Wendy Mulhern
July 29, 2021
To take a side
against systemic lies
has never seemed to be enough to end them –
it’s too easy
to flip the story,
to set aside or demonize
you and all your earnest rage for truth
To win against systemic lies,
a greater act is called for –
an offering of all I am
to find the portal
where I can see truth seep
into every consciousness,
where I can see truth win
because only truth endures,
to let the winning be not mine
but everyone’s,
as truth’s bright forge
sends the pure mettle
flowing into every heart.
©Wendy Mulhern
July 27, 2021
I had decided
it was too dark outside
and too hot inside
to put the date on the page,
to wait, to try to find a poem
while the deepening sky
kept showing more colors
long after the sun had set
and the crickets – well,
they sang as if
I hadn’t already written about them,
and the thrush in the distance
stopped after a while,
but the cricket cadences
with their polyrhythms
kept the song going
and the evening breeze came
in time for us to sleep.
©Wendy Mulhern
July 26, 2021
The reaping itself
is still hard work,
however victorious it may be,
however much in awe I find myself,
collecting this harvest
from the infinite beneficence
After the reaping,
if I do nothing for a day or two,
I am to be forgiven –
each gratitude-inducing wave
must be received, must be accorded
the full wonder of its splendor
Tomorrow I’ll begin again
to gather up the gifts,
take up the work again
and see how I will grow.
©Wendy Mulhern
July 25, 2021
I am here to redeem innocence.
Here to bring it out
from the infantile privilege
that has no notion of the cruelty exacted
on others to insure its rosy ease
Here to redeem it from the blind belief
that dutifully obeys, does what it’s told,
and thinks, thereby, to claim the promised joy
I am here to bring innocence through
the layers of separation
from the earth,
from honest work,
from the instinctive universal kinship
concealed by lies for far too long
To place innocence where it belongs,
where we are not guilty
of blindness or manipulation,
of willful ignorance or shallow bliss,
where we are neither duped nor dastardly,
where knowing all the truth has set us free.
©Wendy Mulhern
July 24, 2021