Nothing that you have to earn,
this sense of home
courses like a stream that you are one with –
you feel the water
and you are the water,
and every bright imagining,
each leap you take,
your precious contribution
to the river’s song,
what hums in you
and what you sing out,
continues ever timeless,
ever new.
©Wendy Mulhern
November 3, 2023
I revel, I luxuriate
in never needing
to be good
anymore
No need to put it by in furtive storage,
strategic hoarding
for future credit
No need to ferret out
how my accumulation
compares with others’
No need to run my banners up a mast
at chosen times, no need
to cast for accolades,
or falling short,
put on a braver face,
console myself with plans of being better
So I can smile into
the offer of the moment,
perfection given, bountiful,
for everyone together,
this being how it feels to know
there’s none good but One,
and it is ours, and we belong within.
©Wendy Mulhern
April 27, 2023
May you wake up expansive,
touched to generosity
by luminous joy,
having found the place in you
too close for doubt to come between,
where you know that you are welcome,
child of light.
©Wendy Mulhern
June 8, 2022
Every beast of the forest is Yours,
which means,
there where they stand –
this one I’m imagining, for example,
a stag –
As Yours, he must possess
the radiant belonging, the sense of right,
the unassailable
delight of being.
He must know for certain
that what he is
is exactly perfect
for his place and time,
that his presence
is designed and desired
and celebrated. This must exult
throughout his form and breath,
must fill him with Your power,
must halo him in peace.
©Wendy Mulhern
February 13, 2022
The goodness of life
can’t be extracted from the moment,
can’t be packaged as a supplement
to take later, or to take
without having noticed
the textures and tremolos,
the subtle but definite
order of everything,
without comprehending
the depth and constancy
of your belonging
and what it means
The goodness of life
requires you.
©Wendy Mulhern
September 16, 2021
This coming home feels like
birds returning from afar,
while bits of tattered fabric
flying in the rush that gathers everything,
are finally abandoned
as the pull proves more substantial
than what’s being drawn there
This coming home is where
the gathering force
gives place to stillness,
quiet pools of light
in which mirth bubbles up
because we are all here now
right where we belong.
©Wendy Mulhern
January 9, 2021
Sit with me
in the quiet circle of home,
let the outside drizzle
accentuate the warmth within
Join me virtually
if not in person,
for we all need
to feel companioned
And we all need
to feel the final welcome
that profoundly celebrates
how we are treasured,
the endless scope of where we are essential,
the boundless coziness of where we all belong.
©Wendy Mulhern
August 26, 2018
Let me stay here
in the soft bubbles
of easy laughter
where everything is forgiven
because no harm was ever done
because how could it be?
—Given that we always
have been beloved,
given that we always have walked
in the garden of belonging,
always have owned
the grace to move
softly and deeply
through the landscapes of our lives.
©Wendy Mulhern
January 27, 2018
Sometimes in dream
you think you stumble into it,
sometimes you glimpse it
along the vectors
of possibility
And so you yearn for,
and strive to find,
a way you belong,
a thing you know you belong to
Not as a royal heir would have it
handed down with pomp and ceremony,
not as a thing hard earned
through study and examination
But as one who knows this place
deep in the heart,
who recognizes all its crevices
and remembers
all the life that has found shelter here,
one who can predict
the breath, the sigh,
the flutter of every feather,
one who can snuggle into this place
and be home.
©Wendy Mulhern
July 1, 2017