Tag Archives: joy

The important thing

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You might be borne
by golden jet stream
to float high, in your dream,
among the canyons,
you might dream that you wake up
to find yourself snagged by brambles,
and be amused

You might trace some of those images
back to some waking moments
of the day before  –
(the color of a copper beach,
a volunteer putting a brambly vine
into a pail)

The important thing is joy –
can you take it with you
through the dream and out the other side?
Are your moments kindled
to ignite more? If you need a spark,
please take one from me –
I have plenty.

©Wendy Mulhern
December 7, 2022

Consent

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Consent to joy –
don’t ask it to prove itself  –
consent to it
and you will see it rise
like wisps of morning fog,
you’ll see it
in a tree limb’s gesture,
you’ll feel it
like the sun across the hill,
bringing hope with it,
shedding light on purpose

Consent to joy –
it wants to shine in you,
it wants you,
all of you –
it wants you as you are.

©Wendy Mulhern
October 4, 2022

Little joys

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I notice myself garnering
joy from little things  –
fire in the evening,
coffee in the morning  –
though I have felt the pull
to dedicate myself
to larger causes

And have done so,
and felt the heady hope
and also undercutting deluge
of despair. Shouldn’t this be easy?
– To put my full weight
into what I know is true,
and to be wholly unimpressed
by contradicting lies?

Shouldn’t this be easy?
But when it’s not, I guess
I also am allowed the little joys.

©Wendy Mulhern
September 20, 2022

Day moon

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Why it makes me happy
to see the half moon
while looking up to harvest
high growing peas
must be a human thing,
or rather, something things that see
might share, curve of pea reiterated
in the curve of moon,
my needing to look up to reach the peas
occasioning the sighting  –
day moon colored like a cloud,
returning, with my sight of it,
all the other times it’s made me glad.

©Wendy Mulhern
July 7, 2022

Joy’s Promise

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The promise of joy
is not distant, after all  –
is not based on conditions to be met

The promise of joy shines brighter
than the jagged fear edges
through which it breaks

and ultimately
it doesn’t need to overcome them –
in its brilliance nothing else
has any presence

For joy is even more than promise  –
it is our natural state,
the breath of life before the world began
which knits us, breath by breath,
with our I Am.

©Wendy Mulhern
April 29, 2022

Ready

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This morning I let myself imagine
a happy future  – nothing special, really  –
just a family, and some bubbling love
and easy music – just the overflow
of joy engendered in simple presence,
children, and parental bonds
showing life to be so far beyond
what could be bought, or sold, or planned.
And it was plenty, such that I could relax
into the days to come,
open armed and ready to receive.

©Wendy Mulhern
April 28, 2022

With Approbation

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I won’t quibble over whether
the way you’ve parsed things out
matches mine

What matters to me is that somehow
you’ve made space for joy to bubble up
within your structures,
and you’ve made a place
to honor enduring value,
to make people feel at home
and also seen, and also loved,
and so encouraged
to stretch into their greatest being

When you do that I can see
that paths you make for others
are ones that you can also use,
and so you stride forth free
bringing glory into all your days.

©Wendy Mulhern
March 29, 2022

For Susanna

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You bring your origins,
you bring your history,
you bring your hope,
and every day,
you step into the needed work,
finding steady sustenance
in the conversation of mind and hands,
intimate, delighting in each other,
forging steady progress
as they each await the other’s strength

So you are fed
in the joy of work
and in the work of joy
and in the upward flow of light
released by your perception and expression
in whatever medium you work
of what is true.

©Wendy Mulhern
March 12, 2022

Birds in the oak

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The sun and the company invited us
to fly down the day
like it was a long grass hill,
our arms out wide,
embracing the air as it rushed by,
trusting our feet to navigate,
trusting the curve of the hill
to bring us out safe

Birds in the oak tree celebrated
collective being,
singing, flying, returning.
We celebrated too,
Life having its way of calling us
just like that.

©Wendy Mulhern
February 5, 2022