No part of you
is beyond saving,
no cords of your life
so unravelled
that they can’t be rejoined,
there are no stray hopes
so lost they can’t be found,
there is no place beyond redemption
Every part of you
must fill the purpose
for which it is designed,
every promise is a hint of destiny.
In the end, nothing is betrayed,
we all come home
to claim our sovereignty.
©Wendy Mulhern
May 4, 2016
Truth rising like dawn
starts to reveal your form —
things you weren’t sure were part of you
start to stand out, you glimpse
the clarity of your imperative
And you discern
that you can never settle
for store-bought explanations
of what you are,
you can never settle for a life
that falls in a conforming line,
you can’t ignore integrity
What might have seemed
like just a few small harms
(not your concern, dictated, as they are,
by factors outside your control)
become abhorrent, become impossible
You see that you are all good,
and nothing else has any rights to your expression.
You see that standing up for this
is what you have to do.
No tallying of consequences.
The truth has risen.
©Wendy Mulhern
May 3, 2016
In one moment, I felt myself released
from time, from space, from history —
I saw my being as comprised of
what I’d always thought was hope
but now I saw was truth,
the impulse given me,
the exclamation of my presence
which nothing can diminish
In another moment, standing
freshly in the garden,
with the rain stopped
and all the scents rising
in the open gratitude
for all this life given,
I was clearly here,
attached to these particulars,
still with this purpose
of being joy.
©Wendy Mulhern
April 29, 2016
You are innocent.
There are no wrongs
for which you must atone,
no layers of pain and shame
rolled up in justification,
rolled up in anger,
rolled up in desperate deeds
There is no errant course
that justifies your bondage,
no years indentured
that you have to pay,
there are no habits
which keep you stooped, submissive,
no lock and key upon your day
You are innocent,
and you are thereby free
to shine the light of you, to be
the things you always sensed
were your potential.
You have not lost them,
you have not forgotten,
you have not failed
to take the needed way.
Stand up and walk —
all blunders are forgiven —
You are granted your primal peace today.
©Wendy Mulhern
April 27, 2016
Sometimes in moments
in between the trees
as my feet fall quiet on the walk,
I feel a tug that lists me slightly
to the left
and must remind myself
I’m through with pining,
through with indulging
that restless loneliness
that knows not what it wants
but feels bereft
I must remember
There isn’t anything
that, if I had, would make me happy,
there isn’t anything I lack,
and what I need
I carry here within me
and when I’m feeling lost,
it brings me back.
©Wendy Mulhern
April 23, 2016
Let me translate your words
back into light, back into
towering grand fir, gracious at evening,
green glow of grass in western sun,
purple of delicate iris
Let me translate your actions
back into desire,
into the impulse of being seen,
of connecting, belonging,
and being uniquely needed
This is the original language,
shared by bees and geese and ravens
and whatever bird it is that
sends that trill of liquid joy
continually across the land —
this is the language
in which we are understood.
©Wendy Mulhern
April 19, 2016
Oh, peace,
send your flourish
down all my fractal curls,
let me hum
with the vibrancy of unfurling,
each part in its most deeply welcomed
way, each a marvel,
the “aha” of this moment,
in the soothing ease
of belonging, exactly,
in this here, in this tapestry
where every color
nestles in around us
to uphold, define, and complement
our shape, our hue, our time.
©Wendy Mulhern
April 6, 2016
Though I have thought myself a figure
(as scribbled on a page)
in fact, I am the page,
and all that’s there
belongs to me —
the scribbles and the story,
and especially
the luminescence rising up behind them
whereby it can be seen that they are there
And though my body
and what I’ve called my mind
have craved to own
just a little more
of that resplendent light,
in fact, the light is me
so I can have it
with no further regimen
of self improvement
Indeed, there is no need
to look to those dark marks
for understanding and acceptance —
I can form them
as part of my expression,
but they don’t form me or contain me
I am so much bigger —
a page to tell the truth,
a light in clear reflection of its source.
©Wendy Mulhern
March 24, 2016
It doesn’t matter
if you think you’re weak,
if you think you’re damaged,
if you think you always fail —
the you that can do what’s needed
is not touched by what you think
There is a you that rises
in the space between the words,
between the thoughts,
a you you’ve met in glimpses
in the surges of acceptance
that you’ve felt, however rare they’ve been
This you wins everything
and it will win you over, too —
don’t be afraid —
you will come to your rescue!
©Wendy Mulhern
March 14, 2016
Ah, let me not know you
according to the little box
you have created for yourself,
however sunny its windows
and engaging its points of views
Let me not think
we can only know each other
if our boxes haply interlock.
We are so much grander than that!
Let me know you by the
bright winds of your thought,
the way you meet the broad air
and the smell of ocean,
Let me know you by your tender observation
of that which captures your delight,
by what you come to understand,
and what your hands master
Let me not even require connection
to know your worth,
Let the free ranging of your being
give me joy
for whatever span
it falls across my day.
©Wendy Mulhern
March 4, 2016