A place that’s warm can give me
permission to cry — kindness so often
sets me off, I don’t know why —
I don’t know if it rolls me onto
the underside of long and steady courage,
if it makes my vigil seem bleak, if it allows
a setting down of strength,
and if this flood is something
I just needed, or if it is
a detour from the program
and does no earthly good
I don’t know why, but I feel
grateful and unhinged
both at the same time.
©Wendy Mulhern
April 4, 2018
They roar and rage
outside the door,
they hurl their cries
against the walls of their frustration.
They wouldn’t have to scream
if they could just get in,
if they could have the streaming
of connection
There is no pressure
when hand clasps hand
and understanding finds its level
in the flow between them.
There is a great release
as they let go of static standpoints
and embrace the view
that sees them all as one.
©Wendy Mulhern
January 5, 2018
We will do this even though
we don’t know how it will be done.
We will ignore the many voices
telling ways they know that it will fail
We will do this because
it is the one thing that can prove to us
we are here, and we are not pretending
From the depths of each of us
we’ll bring our capacity to know the truth,
and we’ll see the truth together,
rolling into awareness like some grand dawn,
evoking cries of wonder
from all who see it
This understanding
will unify and strengthen
what we are together
and what we are alone.
©Wendy Mulhern
January 3, 2018
They catch you up
in rings of kindness,
they cradle you,
they hold you sacred,
they wish to see you blessed
with everything you need
This gift to you unfolds
as gift to them —
they are caught up
in the light that kindness brings,
they define it with their actions
They summon it
from the ever-presence —
so they become light bearers
and also light.
So you have catalyzed
and so you shall receive.
©Wendy Mulhern
December 28, 2017
When you’re coming across the land
towards the city — the barren, arid land
from which the city can be seen afar,
when you’re riding through the heat,
clouds of dust around you,
we will not wait for your approach
from within the city’s walls
We will send messengers to greet you.
They will wash your feet, robe and crown you,
bring you celebrated into the city
so you will know how to be with us,
so you’ll be included in our peace.
©Wendy Mulhern
December 5, 2017
And in the evening
I find myself desiring
the close-winged flutter
of gathering —
families and clans
home to roost,
home to the weighted warmth
of bodies who belong together,
long flights notwithstanding,
distances of years and thought
falling off
with the shrug of feathers
and the nestling in,
warm throughout the night.
©Wendy Mulhern
November 5, 2017
In this place of everybody’s tears,
it feels amiss to have opinions —
better to let the collective pool deepen,
better to hear the cleansing music
of the quiet drops
and let the gathered ocean
sigh and shift, pour in, recede,
find its common rhythm,
sweep us up within its cycling waves,
rock us, rock us, till our sobs subside
till our restive motion
finds its restful ease.
©Wendy Mulhern
October 18, 2017
Funny how we used to think
we had to fight for our perspectives,
had to change the minds of those
who didn’t see as we did
Funny how we didn’t know
each view was like a puzzle piece,
each one required to amplify the whole,
each useless if they all were just the same
Now we feel how rich we are
in opened out dimensions
for every view that’s different from our own
that we, with courage, choose to understand.
©Wendy Mulhern
October 13, 2017
We can be an oasis,
we can offer home —
we have these places,
we have the path
down which we’ve come,
we have these graces
and there’s no need to be alone —
after all, we are designed
to weave together
There are particulars
that we can’t know before we try
but as with anything
it takes some jumping off to fly —
as for our wings,
maybe their need to stretch is why
and they’ll be urging us
out to the edge forever.
©Wendy Mulhern
October 7, 2017
And after the effort
we notice the lift of synergy,
the filling out and up
of so many unfolding layers
of expressiveness
with momentum like
white foam after the wave breaks
rushing up the beach
and bathing everything
in its soft fizz,
like flowers unfurling in time lapse,
like stars unendingly appearing
along the zoom toward infinity
We put so much in
but what we got out is even more.
©Wendy Mulhern
September 9, 2017