I want my legacy to be
of joy, of insuppressible
open inquiry, of kindness
and of comfort
I want my children to inherit
ways of being, not frayed and dusty
tokens of attempts to make meaning.
I want them to delight in their days
and their essential contribution
They don’t need
what these delusive times
would call wealth,
they need the richness
of water from rock, manna from sky
and the exhilaration of co-creating
all of life’s light.
©Wendy Mulhern
November 3, 2016
A line on paper, after all,
is not worth getting riled about —
it didn’t cost money, it can easily
be erased or moved
A gesture, too, is just a movement
of a frame, just an expression
of a construct of internal stories
which, themselves (though it might
not seem quite so easy) can be changed
A tone of voice, a whole visceral uprising,
a set of back and jaw, a reaction —
these things are not the person,
they can be released,
for each of us has the right
to grow in peace.
©Wendy Mulhern
October 26, 2016
None of us are what I thought we were.
We are not bundles
of incremental striving for self betterment
with random heaps of cluttered failures
making for secret shame
and weighing down our efforts with inertia
We are not defined or saved
by one or two shining streams of virtue
which somehow breached the ruts
we thought of as ourselves
And we are not the patterns
we unconsciously lay down,
learned from our culture, over and over,
hiding our wounds and our power
What we are
in leaving all of this
is free,
what we are is glory,
what we are is here for us right now —
look how it rises up from the stillness,
look how it brings us home.
©Wendy Mulhern
October 21, 2016
Let the paper of my life
be unscrumpled —
smooth it out with hands of revelation.
Let me feel their spreading touch
through my skin, through my bones,
let me stretch into the fullness of my being
Let the paper of my life
be transfigured,
the square of it giving place to light,
the pieces dispersing
like embered ash
leaving a bright space
replacing all that was written,
its opening dimension
now known as me.
©Wendy Mulhern
October 13, 2016
There is no element of self destruction
in my being.
There is no fatalistic caving in
to something happening to me.
Nothing can “happen to me”,
for I am entirely the product
of my own thoughts
I don’t come to my being
like coming upon a house
and finding rooms and furniture inside.
These feelings, postures, habits,
were not set up by someone else,
are not dependent on some outside source
This is my house, and everything here
is my choice. And I can give it all
the tenderest of care. I can untangle it
and let it all come clear
What I fathom of my source
provides my model.
What it shows me of my essence
syncs me up with elemental joy
There is no self destruction
in my being,
for what creates me
clearly means for me to live.
©Wendy Mulhern
October 9, 2016
They were lost for a long time
because the invader
had taken away the name of their land,
the name that had placed them,
right as moss,
in the order of everything
It had taken away their rivers,
straightened them, dredged them, drained them
to make way for logs and motors,
so they couldn’t look at them
and know their way home
Years passed. Cities rose, and generations
followed, one after another,
none of them knowing
how they were led by the neck,
how little what was offered
could touch the hidden caverns
of their need, of their potential
It was a revelation how a whisper
could resonate so loudly, could crash
so many stories, unearth so many
roots and bones and memories.
Something secret in plain sight, a code
of DNA, which all those layers of tales
couldn’t bury
It was the power for a revolution
how it spread from soul to soul
until the truth of it
rose like the dawn:
This is our name, our name
and the name of our land.
It can’t be taken from us now
for we are one
and we are whole.
©Wendy Mulhern
September 15, 2016
We are blessed here
with music and splashes and laughter
and the murmur of little waves
and the splendor of intermittent sun,
fresh breeze, white clouds
A good place to ponder
the infinite riches
of having nothing,
as earlier today,
in gratitude and tears,
I set down the little pile
I had scraped together to call my gift
and recognized
I have nothing to offer
but the everything we all share
Nothing to separate me
from the light each one of us is,
the light we all are.
©Wendy Mulhern
September 11, 2016
None of these distorted images
are your fault. There is no regime
that you must now adopt
to fix your bulbous middle
or your stretched out face.
You can’t be changed
by walking through here —
these traits will not stay with you
when you step outside
Though you may find it
disorienting
to see so many of you,
on and on to greened infinity,
though in the multiplicity
you feel so damned alone,
don’t be alarmed,
for when you shut your eyes
you’ll feel the company of others,
everyone who’s ever felt this way,
everyone who has emerged unscathed.
©Wendy Mulhern
September 8, 2016
This is the time
to learn to stand,
to let the lies
blow away like sand.
In the end they can’t bury
what is solid, what is true,
in the end they can’t destroy
the real you
There may be dunes,
there may be drifts —
you’ve seen how often
the scene shifts.
But what you are is stronger
than sand, than wind, than time,
and what you are will triumph
and what you are will shine
There has never been a limit to your being
and there’s never been a limit to your worth,
and there’s never been a failure of your goodness,
never been a weakness in your truth
This is the time
to learn to stand still,
time to surrender
your anxious will,
time to let the winds of time reveal
who you have always been.
It’s time to heal.
©Wendy Mulhern
September 6, 2016
With infinite patience
the land teaches us. The lessons
flow in slowly, altering our attitude,
our posture, changing us
from the inside out, letting us realize
the magnitude of what it demands,
but also the way we can meet the need,
the way to proceed
at the speed of seasons
where everything has time to harmonize,
at the speed of fog rising
and clearing,
of dew forming
and drying,
at the speed of frogs and crickets,
blackbirds and ravens,
grass and fern and fir tree
all breathing together,
at the speed of knowing right now,
of being and doing
what is needed.
©Wendy Mulhern
August 31, 2016