Thanks

To my dear friends
who together
have lifted up
the blanket of my sky
Freed my feet
from its tight tangles
Opened out my sight:

My gratitude
for this expanded view,
this new freedom to move,
and all I see
Fills me full
Fuels my fire
Feeds my fresh joy —
So many sparkles in these days!
Thank you for your light, your shine,
Your ways.

©Wendy Mulhern
August 26, 2012


Angels

Angels, like rainbows
come in the mingling
of rain and sun
of need and that which always stands to meet it

Angels come
because of ever present Love
that shines through driving storms of doubt
refracting light, illuminating, blessing
lending striking beauty to the dousing

Angels glow through you, they glow through me
We shine forth as our splendid halos hover
So we stand transfixed
at this most precious gift:
The way they make us angels for each other.

©Wendy Mulhern
August 9, 2012


Healing

It’s good to notice this
It’s good to remember
It’s good to look back in awe
and consider
how this has happened

From fractured trusts
and disappointed hopes
and the attempts to shore them up
by shoving them in boxes
and constricting them, 
depriving them of light

To a calm dawn
of endless possibility
A strong bond
An infinite security
An opening of something so grand
So boundless in its purity
We can’t begin to fathom what it is

Since it happened here
it can happen again
in every sphere
for everyone

The seamless, perfect pattern of our lives
can be revealed
And everything we held as hurt or broken
can be healed
And every promise of sustaining goodness
can come forth
in its effortless unfolding
And be our lives.

©Wendy Mulhern
July 16, 2012 

Perspective

He sits there with his dirty hands
And rocks and rocks, and squeaks and squeaks
He has gone vacant
You can’t trust anything he says about his day
You know he doesn’t have a clue what happened.
When he gets up you’ll see
the whitish marks his hands left on the chair


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


He sits there with his gnarled hands
still full of all the memories of having worked
still capable beneath the wrinkled skin
They tap against the chair arm keeping time
to some remembered song
Or to the band he marched in once
so many years ago

He rocks and rocks, remembering
The times he won, the times
He proved himself to be uniquely clever
The times when he was master
The times when he was kind
He plays them back, for they affirm him
Repetitious pleasure signals
Looping through his mind

When he gets up to eat the food that I’ve prepared
He’s always grateful: for the food, but more
He’s grateful for the time we share
Companionable repast nurturing
His sense of being wanted, and belonging


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~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


No facts that I observe can stand alone
I’ll always bind them up in explanation
Then let my story here
be one I’m glad to own
that holds my thought in nurturing relation.

©Wendy Mulhern
May 21, 2012



The Dawn of Spring

The trees arose before the dawn of spring
The running of their sap waking them up
Pulsing invisible and potent
Underneath their bark
Inciting buds to swell

And now their scent
Sent delicate through branch and blossom
Has touched the air with some delicious summons
To wake me up
The way the sap aroused the trees
Aliveness pumping through my piqued awareness

Ah Spring!  Such gratitude you raise
As you invoke this nameless joy
That fills my days.

©Wendy Mulhern
April 9, 2012



Tea in Wales

Because of gratitude—
Its calmness and the way it spread
soft smoothing over edges of my day
I’ve just remembered tea in Wales

In autumn marked by bright and dark
of thundershowers and rainbows
Expansive hills and warm close rooms
to shelter us from cold

And tea with milk that must be cream
because its butter kissed my lips
while its soft steam
enhanced the coziness
of that sweet scene

So now
Like shared discovery of magic places
A buttery warmth spreads over me
and leaves its traces
Here where I need this peace
and these bright graces
to meet the challenges
the day occasions
How bountiful this gratitude
That now avails me
of the memory
of tea in Wales.

©Wendy Mulhern
March 8, 2012