We can be an oasis,
we can offer home —
we have these places,
we have the path
down which we’ve come,
we have these graces
and there’s no need to be alone —
after all, we are designed
to weave together
There are particulars
that we can’t know before we try
but as with anything
it takes some jumping off to fly —
as for our wings,
maybe their need to stretch is why
and they’ll be urging us
out to the edge forever.
©Wendy Mulhern
October 7, 2017
If everyone could be
wrapped in the arms of family,
if they could all feel
there is a place for them to be
where they know they are
at home in each other’s homes,
known by each other’s fathers
and mothers and children,
then everyone would also know
the most important way to be —
everyone would know how to be kind.
©Wendy Mulhern
September 8, 2017
The Island wraps me
in a cocoon of gray,
warm strong wind on the ferry,
steel sparkles from a partly shrouded sun
Though my loyalties have drifted,
though I don’t boast of ownership,
won’t brag about partaking
in night swims and sunset sails
Still the pull of family is strong,
and the wind is part of it,
as is the kinship with other ferry riders,
whom I don’t know,
as are the salty swells out of the east,
rocking the boat as it docks,
splashing the waves on the rocks,
speaking the rhythms of home.
©Wendy Mulhern
August 29, 2017
What satisfies?
What fails to satisfy?
What offers home,
what fails to?
What is family?
How does it meet our needs?
We’ve been tricked for so long
about all this
As things we’re told to hold to
sift like light between our fingers,
as each promise glimmers
always out of reach,
as all the coached for goals
bring rewards that echo hollow,
we turn and turn
until we cease our turning
What satisfies
like light to open eyes
opens home and fits us safely in it,
finds cords of family
that pull enduring love
down and richly down
through generations.
©Wendy Mulhern
June 1, 2017
Harmony lives in my house —
This I insist on,
even and especially in
the multicolored movements of thought.
I witness them converging in
towards a small collapse, a place
where disappointment could form
and sadness, where the colors
would dissolve into mud, and
other structures would raise
their mud-encrusted forms
to impose some ugly order —
resentment and its minions
But I will not have it.
Harmony lives in my house,
and the net of generosity
and sweet caring
keeps the channels open.
We all will get what we need.
We don’t need to demand it
from each other. We all
are harmonized in the One Mind,
who gives us our full fulfillment
and our radiant peace.
©Wendy Mulhern
February 14, 2017
I want to go home, he says.
This is home, I say,
and then I pause, and ask,
what would make it feel like home
to you?
It takes a few times of asking,
then he says, it doesn’t matter —
anywhere there are two or more persons
to receive you.
Well, that’s all right, I say,
because we are here. There are three of us.
This is your home.
I feel a little uneasy,
because I have used a bit of force
in an issue of hygiene.
Perhaps it felt hostile.
I do my best, now,
to fill this living space
with the glow of home,
to be one who receives him
as well as one who puts him to bed.
©Wendy Mulhern
January 14, 2017
With great relief, we set aside
the screen of judgment,
and with great awe
in that ungridded space,
we find the light emerging
from within us,
from within each other,
we find the bonding chords
to sing our unity
And we pass under,
the signal coming with us, tree to tree,
presenting presence, here and here and here
along the trail,
the bright reminder of this arc of circles,
connecting network spreading out
as far as we can think
This, now, is home,
the one we’ve always longed for,
this is what we own,
this is our sense of peace.
This is our home
we share with all that lives,
boundless embrace
which we never leave.
©Wendy Mulhern
December 17, 2016
I sit here in this winter afternoon
with time laid down in multiple exposures,
coming round to end of year,
softly tugged by nineteen-year-old photos
With carols on the stereo to knit the years together
and drafts around the windows to remind me of the weather
and nothing, really, that I need to do in here and now
except my heart’s deep preparation for eternity
Those friends, who were such sweetness in our lives back then
are gone from us, except in memory,
those little faces, and the strength of love they pulled in us —
they are still dearly loved, though not the same
And we approach a Christmas where we won’t see them
and we’ll put no decorations in the house
as we look for something often sought but found seldom
to fortify ourselves for time to come —
the perfect peace to bring this world safely through its changes,
to play our part in witnessing the birth of truth.
©Wendy Mulhern
December 15, 2016
Rain outside,
Schubert within —
the old man taps his toes
as if in rapture
though I don’t know
what he really hears
We have a cozy place —
we’ve made it out of walls and paint
and music, heat, and light,
and presence and kindness
We are teaching ourselves
the art of home —
how to design the spaces,
how to build them,
how to provide
for all the flows we want to come through
We built this house
with hope and imagination.
Our young family emerged
and flowed through it,
filling some spaces, not using others
in the way we had imagined,
moving on, leaving behind
the cavities its movement carved,
the flotsam from its ebbing presence
We are teaching ourselves
what to take with us, what to let go,
how to make a house that fits how we live,
how to live so that our home
grows up around us in support.
©Wendy Mulhern
November 5, 2016
Sweet day
returning to waiting circles
laughter and affection
unpretentious talk with folks who understand
Easy sun
after the night’s rain,
watching waves,
thrilling to chords and colors
Relief of being in our own home
despite systems that are down.
We see a way forward
and that is good. We feel into
a way of being present,
and that is even better.
©Wendy Mulhern
October 23, 2016