At Heart

I sometimes feel
I don’t know
what things are made of anymore,
don’t understand
how people live,
what they do behind their doors,
how they afford to be there,
how they fill their days,
how they find a way
to make it all work

And then sometimes I get a chance to see
the grand complexity of someone else’s life —
the trials and hurdles,
joys and satisfaction,
with what they’ve made their lives
and what they have been given

And there I see the way
that we are all the same,
however different our paths have been —
we radiate our fervor from the same source,
we share, at heart, the same core.

©Wendy Mulhern
September 7, 2017

On the sidewalk benches at the local pub

At my first impression she was
fragile as paper, and I wondered
how she could settle in
to any kind of a life
like that, with so little
to be solid in

But then my husband
asked her a question
and we broke through the bubble
to find someone eager to connect
someone we might see again
and wave, and maybe even talk with

And maybe most people
are hard to know deeply
and maybe most of us have
our quirks that make us
hard to live with. But maybe
what matters is less
what we might be, and more
what we might be together.

©Wendy Mulhern
July 30, 2017

The Hollows of Belonging

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

Honest

Behind the drama and the worrying,
Beneath the calculations and the scheming,
Beyond the many layered paths,
the inter-tangling loops of things
that people try to be and do,

In that same place but separate
from all projected causal chains
Is found the honest heart of every you.

Honest, it beats through nights of sleeping,
Keeps vigil through the waking day,
Honest in its hope for worth and justice,
Honest in its deep desire to bless

In this we are the same — let us remember
Each one of these has infinite weight,
and their being matters
and their dignity matters

And you can’t take shortcuts with them —
They deserve their place in time
and their time in this place.

©Wendy Mulhern
June 21, 2017

Bounty

I will not go hungering and begging
for what has always been mine,
for what I have
by virtue of my essence

I will not underestimate
the power of Life to meet my need
with what another needs to give.
I will be glad my need to give
is similarly met

This is my point of waking,
to be assiduous
but with no doubt behind it,
move forward generous
and free of fear,
cultivate humbleness
and a ready ear,
reap the bounty
that’s always here.

©Wendy Mulhern
May 7, 2017

Shine

And the weaving together
of all these bright points
stretched into curving lines
through their movement,
tracing color, tracing form

The weaving together
that delivers unrestrained joy
and super refined peace,
that weaving is directed
by the being that enfolds us all

We will dance it
but we don’t need to design it —
all we need to do today
is shine.

©Wendy Mulhern
May 1, 2017

Reweaving

Notice the changes
from walking through time,
things that shift,
things that unravel,
ways we thought were the givens of life
suddenly proved
to have been gone
long before we noticed

We fall quickly
through things that we counted on,
feeling the searing fear
mixed in with soaring free
not to be held in the place we were sewn

We walk through the fringes
reach for connection
trying out how we can reweave the fabric
to hold us together
but in a new pattern,
one where more of the bright threads show
one that will hold up the weight of our souls.

©Wendy Mulhern
April 6, 2017

The Dance

Hand to hand
and gaze to gaze
we look to find our truest ways

We try on clothes,
we try on moves,
we try to find a self that grooves,
we want to lift and float and fly,
break through the stiff and staid and dry

We want the space to give consent,
we want to be uniquely met,
not image to image
but soul to soul —
so shall we see each other whole.

©Wendy Mulhern
February 21, 2017

Gathering Light

Where two or three are gathered
we can do the work we couldn’t do alone —
we can see each other holy,
we can see each other whole

When so resolved to be the truth’s beholders,
our eyes can lock and concentrate the light —
we form a crystal pact that leaves no room for darkness,
we look on everything with deeper sight

And so is ushered in our knowing
of the living power, so we are transformed,
the network of our caring ever growing,
as everyone who joins us here is warmed.
Though they may enter cold,
they leave here glowing.
This is why we’re here,
this is where we’re going.

©Wendy Mulhern
January 18, 2017

Lessons

morning-snow-10th-ave-ne

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