Tag Archives: healing

Enemies

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twin ponds shadow

We looked around for the enemy
but all we could see
were faces wanting to be loved —
some with glints of longing,
some with aching hope,
some afraid to even
look up and see

No one was standing
with bared teeth
waiting to devour
or in the inscrutable ice
that blandly wields a pen
to steal the lives of millions

Instead we saw the power
that kindles kinship from afar,
that brings each one back
from dim benighted stances

We saw the incredulous
but then willing
dropping of forms,
of roles, of strictures —
we saw the relief,
grateful and repentant
of coming home.

©Wendy Mulhern
April 25, 2015

Keening

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farm in fog2

There is a place for the low wolf howl,
a place for the long keening,
a place for the cry that launches itself
out of tears, after facades have fallen

It can go on as long as it has to —
no need to question the purpose
or the meaning
or if it (really now!) must be enough already

I may be howling for myself
or for the world
or for everything I put up with
but shouldn’t have,
for all the stands I didn’t take

It is a part of me I didn’t know —
Ancient, loud, flinging its sound out
Sharp enough to echo through the trees.
It frees me, at least a little,
from domestication,
from constrictions on what I’m allowed to be

It can continue as long as it needs to.
Afterwards, the horse comes out of the woods,
the bright flashing fish appear from nowhere.
I may do lucid dreaming
but this — how my creator holds me —
This is more.

©Wendy Mulhern
April 16, 2015

photo by Susanne Weiss

Under

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Brackett shade

No answers, please —
no answers from me, anyway.
Let me go down
to that place far underneath the words
where the rich shadows
snuggle like blankets,
soft undulations of somber colors,
and the subtle hammock swing
rocks me to stillness,
weighty as sleep
tugging me deep
to where the silent waters
wait to spring.

©Wendy Mulhern
April 13, 2015

The Valley of Shadows

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shadows

In the shaft of rescuing light, I see
I was not wrong,
need bear no shame,
for letting myself fall into shadow

I’m not expected to prevent
the cold dark spires
from passing over me,
the deepened gloom
from seeping in

It’s been foretold that this would happen
not once but regularly,
for which I am given instruction:
Walk through.

Walk through without fear:
Neither the shadow
nor the saving light
are your creation

But my feet are mine
and the light within
(though it seem tiny in its distance)
will ever seek its own
and pull me through.

©Wendy Mulhern
April 8, 2015

Refining

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mossy trees

When the fuel of our stories was spent,
when we had hurled our “perspectives”,
demanded to be heard,
burned up all our points of persuasion,
set forth our posturing
and watched it fall

We finally had to admit
What held us together
was far stronger
than what held us apart
and it felt better to find a way
to concede our points
than to win them

And our only reason
for bringing the whole thing up
was our need
to be closer together.

©Wendy Mulhern
March 7, 2015

Surrender again

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surrender

Here I am again
considering infinity
and the swift intake of breath
that meets the deep cold plunge
of surrender

Here I am
releasing my impressions and opinions
and the sense of things
I held so hard as true

Here I am falling
into the sky
where the searing immensity
of what can be healed
shimmers all around.

©Wendy Mulhern
February 21, 2015

Forward

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puddle

There may be times to look back
but this is not one of them —
Not now, when the dissolving floes
are drifting,
breaking up the paths
we used to walk on

Not now, when our only hope
is in how solidly we place this step,
right here. And how attuned we are
to those deep harmonies
along whose lines
reality solidifies

This is the time to create the ways
for those who have been lost to follow,
and for all those coming up
with hope as yet unsullied
to have our boughs to twine on

In this way, we’ll weave a world
we all can stand on
and look around
in any way we want.

©Wendy Mulhern
December 18, 2014

Current Events

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trees at mill creek1

I tear myself away from the pictures
so many times a day,
sickening and sad,
grief hanging with the edge of rain
on my windshield,
on the ledge behind my eyes —
Where can we turn now,
How did we drift so close to checkmate?

I look for solace in the colors —
winter reds of shrubs against storm gray,
dark trees against the sky,
I look for comfort
in the words of friends

These send me where I need to go,
down to the depths of my roots
to find the place where life
is ever coiling
to rise in its own strength,
to claim its truth.

©Wendy Mulhern
December 10, 2014

Everything

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Wood's Hole sunset

If this is really true
it changes everything

If we can always
in every place
meet our need to love,
find the way to harmonize
with anyone or anything that’s present

If today’s amazing flight
was not a miracle
but just the steady working
of a law that’s always been here,
an embrace around our shoulders
gentle as a swing push,
soaring as the moment of release,

Which synchronizes now
with my experience
because I know it’s true,
It changes everything.

What then, can I say about tomorrow?
— Watch and see.

©Wendy Mulhern
September 28, 2014

Soul Repair

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soul repair1

We don’t need
many sizes of patches
for all the holes in people’s psyches,
all the rips and rifts,
the things that they may hold
now in their bodies,
that make them stiff,
that make them limp

We don’t need to figure out what’s wrong
so we can mend it, don’t need
to set them on a course of self-correction

No. We only need
to shine a tender light
on the tender bright
place of their regeneration —
what can image them new,
image them free.
That will fill in all the holes
with its abundant suppleness,
with its effulgent strength.

©Wendy Mulhern
August 5, 2014