Tag Archives: daily living

Everyday Miracles

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 (Inspired by Leo’s words)














The miracle is what we do together
It’s not required that you or I
should raise the dead
For now it’s plenty
that we be alive
And that we each
bring our small gift
and see it multiplied
by all the others who have done the same

The miracle is what we do together
It’s not required that you or I 
should light the world
But that we each conduct
that bright electric spark
that holds our hands enclasped
while the current
the one that lights our every cell with life
flows through us and illuminates the whole

The miracle is what we do together
It’s how we feel to have our thread of song
caught up in harmony and echoed through each other
in that great chord to which we all belong.

©Wendy Mulhern
April 4, 2012


(background music: Isaac Shepard “back to basics”)

Trip’s end

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Lazy as lizards
in wilting heat
we wait
The fans twirl
Time has shifted gears
as we descend:
Loud, hot, slow rumble
of our trip’s approaching end
Roads are shorter, returning —
Signs and sights less strange
And as we travel back, we see
how much we’ve changed
how much we’ve grown
how much we’ve done
So much experience
we’ve crammed
in this small span of time
Tomorrow we’ll arrive at home
We’ll sleep, and then unpack our clothes
Allow the normal tendrils once again
to wrap us in the patterns of our days
Much later, over weeks and months
We still will be unpacking
perspectives, images, connections, loves
new things to share, new family to be tracking
We still will be considering
how much there is to learn
And now will be imagining
our next return.
©Wendy Mulhern
April 1, 2012





Another Lullaby

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Time for another lullaby
One that melts us all into a deep dream
Where all the words that missed,
intentions misinterpreted,
impressions gone awry —
can there dissolve, be fully washed away
And everyone who felt entangled
in the things about themselves
they wish were changed
can move out free
Their only impetus their deepest essence
and the pure desires
that guide their shining
In the morning, may the dream remain
Establishing the pattern for a fresh start
Where nothing blocks the good we may attain
And where our actions fully show
what’s in our hearts.
©Wendy Mulhern
March 26, 2012



On the bus

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On The Bus (Background Music: Max Richter “Horizon Variations”)


On the bus
I look at you
and you, and you
and think of you as loved.

I notice, suddenly, how cute
you are — those shoes
and how your feet slip into them
That chin, that slight tilt of your nose
And you, that face, that’s smiled
so many times, that has such memories
within its lines
Could be your smile right now is from the thought
of something twenty, forty years ago . . .

I do it as an exercise
I think of you as loved . . .
I find a smile has settled
on my face
And now, a visual litany
a thought parade of those I love
Recites itself unceasing
in my mind

A treasure, this
Well worth the weight of carrying
Indeed, it carries me
with all the energy I need
into my day.

©Wendy Mulhern
March 5, 2012






Weight and Lightness

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Nothing in this world —
Nothing —
Not houses, not credentials
Not webs of friendship —
Has any strength to hold
the steady falling of the heart

They break like spider silk
against its weight
And it will fall right through
until it feels
the centered force of its own gravity
Until it slows
in thoughtful drift
and feels the atmosphere that gathers
meditatively
around its presence

Everything in this world —
Everything —
Each sense of home, each memory
Each smile exchanged —
Has grace to hold
the precious light that shines upon it

Grace to catch that light
and shine it forth
and be illuminated
Light that has no weight
That sits so brightly
on each snow crystal, each
hair of thistle down, each poised hope
that meekly lifts itself
into its own being.

© Wendy Mulhern
February 27, 2012

(background music: Isaac Shepard, “People and Puddles”)

Sinning and Rebuttal

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As I was reading over the poem I wrote today, I thought, huh, I don’t really believe that.  So I wrote a rebuttal.  In the end, I think there’s room for both perspectives:

I. Sinning

If I shoot many arrows
I will miss the mark
far more often
than if I shoot none
So much to learn:
How to align my stance
The arm that holds the bow
The one that draws the arrow back,
My eye . . .
Some of my arrows may not even fly
And some will fall so wide
you couldn’t even tell
which target I had tried
The ones that land in the intended haystack
will be my early victories
and I may hit the target by and by

They say the verb “to sin”
derives from archery
and means “to miss the mark”
Well, let me sin, then
and often
and wildly
Let me fall colossally
if that is what it takes
to live a life that zings
that’s vibrant through and through
If that is what it ultimately takes
to be true.

II. Rebuttal

The sinning poem assumes
That we are separate from grace
And must attain it incrementally
By many times of falling on our face
This is a thing we’ve been so deeply taught
It’s hard to separate it from our thought
Hard to imagine lambency, perfection
Or certainty, or peace, or clear direction
And yet, if once we’ve felt the light arise
That lifts our heart from sorrow into joy
Delivers praise and wonder to our eyes
And liquid harmony into our day
We can believe that even without work
We can stride forth at once and hit the mark.

© Wendy Mulhern
February 25, 2012





Imbolc

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I wrote this poem on a bike ride near the beginning of the month, when an unusually balmy few days appropriately heralded the seasonal return of the light:

Still water of the winter river
Deep moving but surface smooth
Clear reflection with a subtle shimmer
Brown, bare trees thrust into blue
Moon ghost floating in a cloudless sky
Sailing low, so pale, alone
Bikes and skaters glide on by
Through air that’s soft and warm — sun owned
Its scent enticing us to dream, to yearn:
A day to celebrate the light’s return.

©Wendy Mulhern
February 3, 2012



The worth of a life

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What is the worth of a life?
Is there a metric for this?
Consider the sun on the water
The sparkling path
which always presents itself
right where you are:
Each sparkle is for you—
the meeting of light with your eyes—
Though others see sparkles too,
they aren’t the same ones that you view.

What is the worth of a life?
As if you could separate 
One life from all others—
From the sun’s sparkles, isolate one
Take it away from the sun . . .
What is the worth of a life?
There is no measure for this
No way the question can make any sense
It’s worth everything that there is.


©Wendy Mulhern
February 23, 2012

(background music: William Ackerman, “Anne’s Song”

You have to be grounded to fly

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You have to be grounded to fly
As kites well show—
Resistance from their strings
giving the wind the force
to push them high
Which if released would let them fall
slicing tip-wise 
through the layers of air

You have to be grounded to fly
As birds well know—
as they push off against the gravity
that holds the air that cushions them
Through which they carve their flight
with sharply honed intention
and the slipstream of their glide

You have to be grounded to fly
As planets go
through space, 
their molten centers coalescing force
The silent concentration of their cores
connecting them in orbit to their stars

And so it is with us
Within our deeply grounded center
is born the power that sends us forth
on arcs of soaring splendor.


©Wendy Mulhern
February 19, 2012



The need to be witnessed

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It is not too much to ask
to have someone to take
by the hand
To lead down corridors
of memory, experience, imagination
To say to: look—here’s a picture of me
as a child
And here’s the song that still reminds me
of that summer back in ’78
full of sun and angst and wild escape
And here’s a thing I learned in Italy
along the streets of Florence

It’s not too much to ask
to have someone who keeps
a special box for treasures
tucked in an honored place
inside their mind
to put the things you share
and take them out
and look at them sometimes

And yes, you’ll keep a treasured box
for all the things your friend has shared
You’ll take them out in gratitude
You’ll love them, since you care

No need to strive for some
prescribed degree of fitness
It’s not too much to ask 
to have a witness.


©Wendy Mulhern
February 18, 2012