We pick ourselves up,
we bumble forward.
There is little to be gained
by second-guessing
But much is gained
by reassessing
what we are here for,
what powers our days
Let’s have no more irreverence
where reverence is due,
no more complaining,
no dogged powering through,
more cheerful patience,
more open gratitude,
and all in all,
more closeness to our source.
©Wendy Mulhern
May 24, 2021
I was wrong for so long,
wedged tightly in the certainty
that I was right,
convinced by all the evidence
and all the arguments I made
inside my head
I was wrong for so long,
it takes some decompression
ro come out, it takes some silence,
it takes some tears,
it takes some awe, for this is not
the flipping of a coin,
this is abandoning the coin
and all its systems
This is seeing that I do not pay
by being punished,
but by giving myself fully
to the effort to see truly
and to let no condemnation
contaminate my thought
This is seeing that I pay
with my whole being,
endlessly, and purely, and with gratitude.
©Wendy Mulhern
May 23, 2021
No, you can’t go back
into that egg, little bird.
Consider the rush of wind,
the beat of wings, the power
of the updraft. Consider
the glide, the taut curve
that held you and the air
in that exquisite relation,
the slight turn of feathers
that let you carve the sky
You really don’t want to go back
to being passive, helpless, dark –
you really don’t wish to not know anything
but some obscure external warmth
and some small flutter
of potentiality
Though it may seem
that the migration that awaits is long,
and that the wind grows cold
and you are all alone,
great arcs of grace await you
all along the way –
you’ll be escorted by the knowledge
of many generations. More importantly,
you are discovering,
each flight filled day
just what you are.
©Wendy Mulhern
May 21, 2021
I stand in the sting of my misstep
as it rings through me,
an orienting of straight lines
like rain I could stand in,
like rays of light at my periphery
My dream warned me of this,
and I knew what it meant,
but I didn’t summon the strength
to stand up with it,
didn’t make the effort
to change my course
So now, what is left
is my contrition
and my willingness
to transcend all these frames
and seek a surer guidance
for my feet.
©Wendy Mulhern
May 20, 2021
In the yearning to do more for you
than cry and cry,
I asked my angel daughter
to go to you,
to deliver you to the large place
she showed me,
where you can meet your daughter,
and she can laugh with you,
and your tears will change,
in the alchemy that changes everything,
in the equation that cancels out pain and death,
and they will be like sweet morning dew
at the dawn of eternal day.
©Wendy Mulhern
May 19, 2021
If what I am
is really so much larger
than what I have been trained
to think myself to be
If, rather than corporeal,
my essence finds its home
where it can handily traverse infinity
Then what I do must also be defined,
not in the bumbling mortal mode
in which I’ve moved,
but in the way that holds the reins of winds
and witnesses the quality of days,
the way that holds the space for liberty to bloom,
and every entity to find its radiant room.
©Wendy Mulhern
May 18, 2021
I sample tips of douglass fir,
taste the subtle variation –
sweeter, sharper, more of lemon
or of resin – I taste, I taste,
but do not choose
It is like colors – I taste,
in my mind, a bright dark crimson,
then imagine taking it a shade towards peach,
I see the sheen the two set up,
interleaved, like early spring’s red maples,
I draw a line of deep slate indigo
to set the red off boldly, to vibrate
along the border
But, also, I can love the summer
of crimson into amber,
the warm delicious tones stirred up
through the transition
And green – I can’t even begin
to speak of green’s delights –
the luminescence of back-lit leaves,
the soothing shading of the summer firs
I’ll taste, I’ll taste,
but no, I will not choose –
each color needs all of the others,
and I need color in my sight and mind
to paint the glory of each light-blessed day.
©Wendy Mulhern
May 17, 2021
I sit quiet, waiting
for something to say –
all I hear are the now-subdued sounds
that continue into evening –
the high bleat of the towhees,
blackbirds with their jewel-toned songs
A while ago, I saw a turkey hen
walking home, sampling evening bugs
among the ferns. Now I hear one fly
from tree to tree
The wind has quieted, the sun has gone,
coolness starts to reassert itself.
Some cars, or maybe motorcycles,
are rumbling up a distant street,
but that’s part of another world.
©Wendy Mulhern
May 16, 2021
Go ahead and take it down –
however proud of it you may have been,
however much you thought you needed it
Go ahead and take it down,
though you have counted it as your own,
like a tattoo, or something deeply etched
It may have markings of your status,
high or low, or what you’ve earned,
it may be tied up in how others see you,
but go ahead and take it down
Old tatters or a rich brocade,
the colors and the tallies of the teams you played,
the records of your triumphs and mistakes you’ve made –
you’ll be much freer when you take it down
The shroud removed, the light comes streaming in,
you feel the air anew, and you can breathe again,
as life unlimited fills up the waiting plain
at every place the shroud is taken down.
©Wendy Mulhern
May 15, 2021
The newly leafed out aspens
shimmer their leaves in the wind,
the newly planted lindens do the same,
May sweeps across the dial like a sun,
opening everything
Bracken ferns leap up,
suddenly taller than six year old trees,
irises unfurl, and glow, and curl,
berry blossoms peak among the leaves
It is a time to realign
our sense of what’s important –
thoughts like old stalks overcome
by the rising green,
old habits crumbling
like last year’s bracken,
new strength maturing
like the wakened trees.
©Wendy Mulhern
May 14, 2021