Tag Archives: community

This Peace

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face-pitcher

I can bask in choral warmth
as day folds into darkness
and indoor lights glow brave,
I can retreat now
to overriding peace

I have not battled
at the front lines,
but revelations about the world’s ways
have shaken me perceptibly

In these breaths,
I seek to step outside the false peace
of privilege, and feel towards the peace
that must be shared by everyone,
a peace that only Spirit can define,
a peace that sees us all as free, divine.

©Wendy Mulhern
December 3, 2016

pitcher by Adrien Miller

Note to my email readers: I would dearly love to hear your responses, but I don’t receive them when you hit “reply” to my email. (notice how it says “donotreply” in the address. That means the emails don’t get to me). If you click on the blue title of my poem, it will take you to my website. At the end of the poem is a place for you to reply. I’d really love to hear from you.

Kindness

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a-few-bright-leaves

Let the light of kindness
shine upon us all
now in the low time of the sun’s angle
when momentary gleams offer
bittersweet awareness —
a few bright leaves among the bare branches
lit up against the dark clouds

Let kindness be the warmth
upon the tangled coil
of hunching inward against the cold,
let it glow upon
the laughter stretched too thin
to counter tension

At the touch of kindness
we can uncurl,
stretch out the places that were cramped and pained,
open outward into the comfort
of seeing there’s a place for us again

And as we are kind,
we will feel the flow of golden,
spreading richly through our limbs,
suffusing skin,
promising sustenance
lasting through winter’s chill
bringing us supple
into spring’s sweet rays.

©Wendy Mulhern
November 17, 2016

Standing Wave

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bike-path-reflections

The energy that makes you,
that holds you as a standing wave,
your essence ever moving,
your particles suspended,
can never cease from being what it is
and so can never drop you

The pulsing of the fact of you
continues unobstructed —
no other source exists,
no other impulse

Your pure intention, lightly clad,
is more than match
for any armored machination,
as a pile of dust, however mammoth,
is no match for a breath of wind.

Look how strong you stand,
look how unmovable —
Goliath never stood a chance
against your truth.

©Wendy Mulhern
November 7, 2016

Good Use

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afternoon-clearing

No need to be nostalgic for my past,
however lovely photos say it was.
My life is ever here, in the placing
of feet on wet grass, in clouds sifting
between the trees, in the smell of sun
after the morning rain

My life is here, in sitting together
cutting and peeling apples,
joining in a task without asking
or being asked, just because
our hands know what to do

My life is here
in waiting out storms,
in holding the peace, in offering calm,
in giving clear direction as I see it.
I’m learning to put myself to good use
in the small and steady way
of every living thing,
essential member in the web
we weave together,
the web we all need,
that needs us all.

©Wendy Mulhern
October 2, 2016

Heart Country

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morning-pink-clouds

This is heart country
and everyone here has their tender places,
everyone has the deep hollows
they can get lost in,
and if you step in them you sink way down

Walk easy
for this is heart country,
home of breaks and bruises
and of grateful, boundless love.
All who have hearts can see each other
if their eyes are open

Tread carefully, for each heart is different
and the paths to understanding
have many false turns,
but if you keep your own heart clear
you’ll find the steps
that lead you ever inward
to the common hearth.

©Wendy Mulhern
September 26, 2016

Moments

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canal through leaves

Those moments
wanted to translate themselves
into dreams, wanted to be
buoyant floating in delicious water
and amazed soaring
through suddenly supportive air

They wanted to be
the supreme comfort of offering solace,
for indeed they were that —
they were the clarity seen through tears,
the contact point wherein
our eyes receive each other

The sense of being held
fully as long as is needed,
the fact that people can sometimes be symbols
for something much deeper,
much more desired,
than their circumscribed lives
can offer. They can represent
the truth — the one thing someone
just at that time
most needed to know.

©Wendy Mulhern
August 16, 2016

Shade Garden

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shade garden

Summer days,
and if you want a shade garden,
if you want refreshing honeysuckle breeze
to float through cedar,
if you want the cooling
of eighty years of standing
through moisture nurtured northwest nights,
come join us — you are welcome

If you want to be lifted
in the bright bubbling release
of knowing you are loved,
and that none of your halting efforts
and unfulfilled resolutions
make any difference —
nothing held over your head —
we are here to love you — you are welcome

And if you want to feel your roots
growing thick and strong
in the rich, dark humus of home,
curling like toes in cool, damp sand,
kissed by mycelium,
if you want to know your purpose
is established and entwined with many others,
come join us — you belong.

©Wendy Mulhern
June 28, 2016

At Play

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grass and dock

We take turns, playing this game —
It’s called “I can’t hold myself up”
We fling ourselves to the center,
to the mercy of the circle,
to the ready arms
that join to catch us

It’s a good game. It helps us feel
the web of care that gives us all our power,
the substance of the arms
that never let us fall,
that hold us, even as we hold each other

When the long arced summer sun
finally recedes to twilight,
sky going blue to sunset to gray,
we’ll leave these grassy fields
and go home for supper
and the lights in which we are sustained.

©Wendy Mulhern
June 23, 2016

Lazy

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garden, evening

Let’s not call ourselves lazy,
as the wind plays the chimes
and ushers cherry blossom petals,
not unkindly, along,
as needle fall, from douglas fir,
makes its dry ptick against the wooden bench

Let’s not call ourselves lazy
to be lifted thus, by sun and scented breeze,
to notice the pace of insects,
to be in dialog with what will grow,
in gentle give and take
with what the garden offers

Indeed, it is not lazy
to honor the pace
of our breath, our days,
to take time to listen,
and know to offer
only what, right here, right now
can be received

These tendrils we develop,
these tender patterns we pioneer,
will prove essential
as our sights clear.

©Wendy Mulhern
April 14, 2016

Landing

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maple, alone

We are each in this place
where life’s currents
(so it would seem)
have set us,
much like these hills
dropped by floods
so many times
so long ago

The seeds within our banks
wake up and start their processes,
roots seek into soil, scout into places
where water collects under pebbles,
where threads of mycelium
extend their welcome,
shoots lift their heads
as if nothing else had ever happened,
as if no cataclysm
had rent the land,
as if, indeed,
this opportunity to live
had been expressly prepared for them,
this dew, this sun,
this whole community,
this hour, this day.

©Wendy Mulhern
April 3, 2016