It is a soft space
this place where we have
folded and fallen,
where shadows soften
all around us
and our edges
blur in darkness
There are things here
I can’t talk about to anyone
though I keep trying to imagine who
There is a place where
we have breathed together
and this will have to do,
I will need to be sustained
through the long silence
by some kind of a trust moment —
at its necessary time
everything will come clear.
©Wendy Mulhern
September 3, 2017
Let me remember once again
how to come into the sharing space,
to level the balance,
to leave outside
all impulse to steer
or to get you to change
I come into the sharing space
not with speech but with listening,
I enter the sacred
as seeker, as witness,
prepared to be overwhelmed,
lifted, transported,
prepared to be shined through,
prepared to be changed.
©Wendy Mulhern
April 2, 2017
Some time afterwards,
the niggling suspicion knocks,
flounces its way in,
sets its baggage down,
and I start to conclude
I have been tone deaf
Certainly not for the first time,
though I had hoped these incidents
had mostly tapered off,
as has my former swift self castigation
I am a little sorry, yes,
but also curious —
what internal constructs
led to the little gaffe, which rolled out
with such ease and comfort?
Where could my mind be, next time,
to reduce the risk of doing this again?
Ah, let me be included
in the grand forgiveness
that Life gives each of us
as we come home,
where we serenely know
we never fail each other
when in the consciousness of being one.
©Wendy Mulhern
March 14, 2017
I’m learning the language of light.
Like all languages, it takes practice,
it takes immersion,
and there’s a great sense of victory
when I dream in it
I’m learning the language of light,
just a few words at a time —
the names, for example,
that people have for themselves,
a name, perhaps, that they
forbid themselves to use
but wait in deep longing
for someone else to speak it to them
The verbs, also,
like soar and lilt
and rise, and meet,
and own your truest name
I’m learning the language of light
from countless tutors, large and small,
the flash of a moment, the steady care of years.
Though my words are halting
I say them anyway,
for that’s the only way to really learn.
©Wendy Mulhern
March 13, 2017
Pardon me if I’m not fired up
by words of contempt,
however justified its dealers
may feel it is
Makes me want to walk barefoot
in water-sheened sand
and feel my footsteps melt,
and let the words that come to me
in my perplexed objection
be smoothed out as well
There’s no room for love in contempt
and there’s no room for contempt in love
and in the revolution
we’ll need traction,
not the gear grinding slippage
of mutual accusation
But there’s no traction either
for these words of mine —
makes me want to give them up,
and myself as well,
to the leadings of a higher Mind.
©Wendy Mulhern
February 19, 2017
Thank you to all bridge builders,
for my world was small,
I was cut off by where
the land had melted
or fallen off — however it was
that left me separate,
on my little floe,
the arcs of my thought
cut off from sharing
because so many no go zones
surrounded me
Thanks to the bridge builders,
now I can, if tentatively,
find the way to share my truth
without igniting someone else’s shame,
without triggering their anger
or their censure
And so my world gets larger
and my joys do too —
I feel the lift of this enhanced communion,
this openness of mind
that comes from how we now can see each other
clearer, more fully,
and we can range more freely
on what now is common ground.
©Wendy Mulhern
January 15, 2017
These things are revealed to me
day by day:
the freedom that is possible,
and, too, the webs that trap us
and trick us into actions we don’t want
None of us desire to oppress each other,
none of us desire to offend,
none of us desire to be stupid or obtuse,
each of us would rather be a friend
We feel the need to clamor to be heard,
we feel the need to strike back when we’re slighted,
we feel the need to see the balance tip toward justice,
we wonder how the others
can be so benighted
Such thoughts don’t free me, though.
Nor will any resolution I can make.
Let me attune to everyone’s desire
to be free to love. Let my life
show them that they are.
©Wendy Mulhern
December 9, 2016
And how do we do reset?
When the threads of our efforts
are tangled beyond redemption,
when there’s no path in
for anything we might say?
Shall we do reset like fall, like winter,
everything thrown into rain and wind,
coherence abandoned,
distracted into the silence
of going down and down, in and in?
Or shall we do reset
like chocolate? —
signature sweetness clearing our palates,
spreading to fill the unnamed hole within
Shall we look and notice
our smiles still find each other,
our hopes still run eagerly
to meet in the well-known fields
of our conversation
Shall we do reset without effort —
simply returning
with new attention
to what is always here.
©Wendy Mulhern
October 30, 2016
Sometimes words are overrated,
sometimes what’s needed
is a closer contact,
the lock of what’s present
between you and me,
side stepping the demand
for coordination
or negotiation
And maybe it’s not time
to be searching for words
as evening settles in steady
and an affectionate cat
pushes and purrs against my lap
while the creek murmurs
and the smell of dinner
wafts from a neighbor’s house
These trees will move in silence
towards darkness,
These cats want to be fed.
Whatever words I may have now
will fall unspoken,
but what’s essential will still be said.
©Wendy Mulhern
May 28, 2016
I’ve laid my needle down.
From here on out, I will not try
to stitch together separating clouds,
I will not stab
at what I, after all,
have no perspective
to clearly understand
The atmosphere has its own laws —
the vapors move on lines of pressure
I can’t see,
and even clouds with massive gaps between them
are still united in the common sky
As for this poem,
I’m not sure what I even meant,
and so it’s hard to know how it should end.
©Wendy Mulhern
May 19, 2016