Join me in the place
where we never have to prove anything,
never have to measure ourselves
against each other,
so filled up, as we’ll be
in the joy of flying,
streaming in infinity,
exultant in the Allness,
too awestruck to compare.
©Wendy Mulhern
July 12, 2017
In the quiet of twilight
birds fly, and people walk or drive
to one perch or another
All of these
are like seeds,
every one of them full
of the glorious hopefulness of life
that chortles and bubbles
as if to burst its envelope
but which, instead, carries them along,
puts bounce into their being,
sings the song of them
even as they live it
Every one of them waiting
for the sure sign of their belovedness
so they can spring forth, holding back nothing,
so they can relax, borne up
on overflowing joy
Every one of them precious
in the eyes of anyone
who chooses to see them,
every one of them able
(on being seen)
to deliver the whole world.
©Wendy Mulhern
June 30, 2017
I don’t want the goodness of being
to be something I make up,
something that can fail
if my imagination
or my persistence
be lacking
I don’t want it to be up to me
whether there’s joy in the day,
whether the people in the world
feel fulfilled, know they are beloved
I want that truth to dawn
on its own, because it’s true,
because truth is insuppressible.
I want to get to be surprised
and delighted
by the goodness of being
spilling into my life
with joyful abandon
I ask this in the name of
all that is real.
So be it,
and so it is. Amen.
©Wendy Mulhern
June 16, 2017
When understanding dawns,
no pool of sorrow,
however hedged about with care,
however poignant,
gets to remain
Truth evaporates it
with the constancy of tender love
Love floods it
with ever present joy
Joy heals it
by being exactly what was needed –
all the tears are wiped away.
©Wendy Mulhern
June 2, 2017
My father-in-law says to the empty room
(his hand gesticulating)
“That’s the place where all the people
yesterday and before came,
they were dancing,
they started a dance there”
While the clear tones of Appalachian Spring
soar from the radio
and I did just dance
here in the next room
because I couldn’t help it
Outside, blossom petals
carpet the streets with grace,
not caring if it’s sun or rain
It feels like it’s been
a long and tenuous time
but here I am,
where I belong,
hoping to take with me
next time I go
something like the memory of birds wheeling
to help me find my way back.
©Wendy Mulhern
April 26, 2017
Today I woke up happy —
maybe it was the fresh wind
through the night,
or the spring-heralding sound
of many birds,
maybe it was the dreams
that had me tossing
but in the end resolved to power, freedom
Maybe it was the prayer
that stayed with me, deeper than thought
but surfacing, in song and memory,
at my several wakings,
sweeping in the clarity
of how I am held
safe and beloved
in the arms of morning.
©Wendy Mulhern
February 18, 2017
My little mind, with all its love
held in potential,
awaiting its permission,
awaiting right conditions,
is in the business of deferring good
It has its explanations and excuses,
it has its blame, it has its resignation,
it tells me that my joy depends
on things that happen and what others do
I choose, today, the grand act of surrender
of my mental machinations
to the one Mind —
my partial, hesitating love
to Love, the universal and divine.
If I can stay with Mind, with Love,
that’s all I have to hold,
for Love is in the business
of turning straw to gold.
©Wendy Mulhern
December 27, 2016
I see that actually
the light can’t be hid,
the gift can’t be co-opted.
The revolutionary nature of truth
can’t be bought out or bought off,
can’t be papered over
with worldly celebration
No matter how extensive
and prolonged the misdirection,
our compass, finally,
will guide us home
to where we see the gift
of our inherent liberation
has never been withheld,
and no one stops us
from standing up to claim it
And as we claim it, we will feel
incomparable joy of solidarity
and we will fill
with that revealing light
which makes us know certainly
why we are here.
©Wendy Mulhern
December 4, 2016
Note to my email readers: I would dearly love to hear your responses, but I don’t receive them when you hit “reply” to my email. (notice how it says “donotreply” in the address. That means the emails don’t get to me). If you click on the blue title of my poem, it will take you to my website. At the end of the poem is a place for you to reply. I’d really love to hear from you.
Having stepped
sometime in the night
or so it seems,
into the land of happy
I have nothing to complain about —
not heat nor cold, not missteps,
not setbacks —
the bubbly truth
about the nature of everything
cancels concerns
I notice I no longer
feel myself riding in my body —
instead, I inhabit it,
all the way out to my fingers and toes.
I touch the earth and sky
just in my everyday walking,
at home in this day.
©Wendy Mulhern
August 29, 2016
The water becomes wine
as induction into
what was dearly sought
and only known
through dim translucencies
What would it mean henceforth
to see the light without the medium
of lantern panes, without
the coloration and diffusion?
How would it feel for that elixir
to well up from within?
For that soft glow to which
we’ve dedicated all our earthly efforts
to be the very center of our being?
What would that change? Certainly
the things we do with thought, with time
Then let us drink that wine
and raise our hands and eyes,
let the shine
that now reveals itself as us
illumine and align
all our endeavors
Let us walk out
into the common square,
let us look
and recognize each other there.
©Wendy Mulhern
August 2, 2016