Tag Archives: comfort

Truly fall

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Day moon dives into clouds
after a long night of brightness  –
cuddly blanket after dawn

Warmth sleeps in, but rises before noon,
and the day slowly becomes
balmy enough for bees

Frost has taken out the basil and tomatoes,
and most of the marigolds,
but there still are flowers to be found

And we are glad for indoor fire and music,
and comforts greeting us at end of day,
and we’re glad for everything we’re learning,
each with its brightness, all along the way.

©Wendy Mulhern
October 31, 2023

The central peace

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The central peace doesn’t care
if plans are wild threads flung quickly
across the hours, snagging where they will,
or if the day unfolds as grass grows,
steady, but too slow to see

The central peace finds ways to touch down
in consciousness, with a task, with a smile,
with some small outreach of help
that stitches a moment in place

We are all embraced
in the central peace, which means
even if we think we don’t have time
to pause, and let it come,
it still will find us.

©Wendy Mulhern
February 10, 2023

Hush

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Stop talking long enough
to let the silence guide you down
all the way to the deep core
of who you are

Stop crying long enough
to let the gentle hand take yours,
and let the all powerful embrace
hold you completely still

The stillness goes ever inward  –
it plumbs the internal infinity,
it finds the radiation
that burns through every fear,
releasing all the brightness
of you.

©Wendy Mulhern
March 18, 2022

Ground

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And if I thought I might fall
through the cracks of the day,
tumble between the tasks,
blown by an ill wind of complaint,
if I thought I might be discouraged
by its unrelenting howl,
there is always the ground

There is always the intense
springing of life, through the soil,
through the grass, through my feet.
There is always the recognition
of how great the “we”
of all life, how layered and irrepressible
it is, how it sings in the deer’s taste of grass,
in the flash of a bluebird’s wing,
how it rests in my breath
while the day’s lullabies
prepare a place for me.

©Wendy Mulhern
November 11, 2021

OK

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It’s OK to cry,
though it may just be
circles around myself,
stories that invoke the longing
for some deeper comfort

It’s OK to cry, for all that wetness
can melt the lines, can help dissolve
what is harsh, intractable,
what is self-important,
what didn’t realize
we are all in this soup together  –
all small, all huge, all holy,
all loved and infinite,
all needed,
all able
to tune the unifying chord.

©Wendy Mulhern
October 29, 2021

When sadness comes

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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

In the place of dragons

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In the early perfection of the morning,
deep breathing while still half bound in sleep,
I felt the wakening hand
of what moves everything,
the easy all encompassing of harmony,
the power of waterfalls
and teeming life

And I felt that, if I had to face
the dragon’s breath again,
I would know what to say,
or not say, I would have the softening
that we brought back from the ocean  –
soothing of clouds and waves,
comfort of heads resting on shoulders  –
enough to dissipate what had threatened
to swallow us before.

©Wendy Mulhern
June 29, 2021

Variations on a Theme

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In the place where it was said,
you are not my people,
there you shall be called
children of the living God

In the place where it was said,
who do you think you are?
In the place of
you do not belong,
there shall you be called

Called up from what you were doing,
how you were holding to a set of actions
with their related words
that hid you safely (ish)
between the bars of the grates

Called up from what you were thinking  –
schemes – some of them,
justifications  – oh so many,
stories, however convoluted,
that carved a space for you,
however small

In the place where it was said
(not by anyone who knew,
not by anyone who said it for the first time)
there you shall be called children

Therefore expected to need care,
therefore droll and dearly loved,
you will be called children
of the living God

The living God,
the power of the essence
of all that is alive,
all that precisely gives what blesses
in this and every moment

You will be called to feast –
children, you will multiply
the ever growing light of life.
You will be called home –
in the source and cause of all life,
beloved living jewels.

©Wendy Mulhern
June 6, 2021