Tag Archives: life

Life Flow

Posted on by
Reply

In all the things we think we know,
so many things we don’t —
a city in a frond of fern, a universe,
the vast unfolding vibrance
in the corridors between the cells,
all the exuberance that life can send
coursing through those unseen channels

In these two turkey hens
ambling among the ferns,
nonchalantly snapping up the bugs,
chirping conversationally as they step —
perhaps two nebulae
grandly moving through the depths of space

They all — we all — are orchestrated
in the unceasing law of Life’s eternal joy,
our movement so much deeper than will or whim,
held by its breathing through us all.

©Wendy Mulhern
June 16, 2018

Life Line

Posted on by
Reply

I don’t even wish
I had understood these things sooner —
they render such desires irrelevant.
Loss is gain, life propels us forward

I have clearly reached the place
of the divide of my life line
written on my right hand (not my left)
that I had wondered at since childhood,
told myself maybe the left is what counts for me,
being left handed. Maybe palm lines
mean nothing

In any case it doesn’t matter.
There are no circumstances which
avoiding would release me
from the journey I’ve been given,
no failure on my part which could deprive me
of the path where I’ve been sent.

©Wendy Mulhern
June 13, 2018

Listening

Posted on by
Reply

The land speaks to me
in insect hum
and in the chirps of birds
along their daily paths

The air speaks to me
in the awakened breath
of all that is alive,
that rises eagerly
from the patient soil
and makes itself known

The day speaks to me
in the steady shine
of its curving arc
as large and subtle
as the earth’s turning

It says, you will find peace
as you learn to be peace,
it says, come with me
and I’ll show you.

©Wendy Mulhern
June 7, 2018

Changes

Posted on by
Reply

The only place we’ve ever lived
is in the place where we can never die.

This isn’t what it looks like,
these days, these goals —
whatever I have thought of them before —
these changes . . .

Now I’ll keep paying attention
to what lights us up
deep down at the source,
what makes us live and move
before we even enter all the surface fray

This isn’t what it looks like
but it is something. Indeed,
it overrides whatever I had thought —
these changes, this which never changes.
This which I may find to be enough.

©Wendy Mulhern
June 1, 2018

Continuing

Posted on by
Reply

And life asserts itself
unendingly, with patience and with joy,
in baby ducks and beavers
and herons on the wing
and that blackbird
with its exultant warble
in the late afternoon sun
that still reaches it, there in the treetop

Life continues, in dating and in weddings,
in friends confiding in each other,
in families, in passing generations

And we will, too,
affection being the most important thing —
we’ll hold it tenderly
and we will rise.

©Wendy Mulhern
May 25, 2018

Deeper

Posted on by
Reply

Beneath the pale etchings I have called my life,
something momentous moves,
something that fills out
more dimensions than I can count

Something so ultimately satisfying
that all I have attended to before —
all the inept scratchings,
all the lines I tried to set  in place,
and what was scribbled over all my efforts
by other hapless hands —
amount to nothing

I settle myself
into the deeper motion
and am at peace.

©Wendy Mulhern
May 14, 2018

Time, and times, and half a time

Posted on by
Reply

The heaping apple cart
tips over, the rolling hopes and expectations
jostle and fall,
bounce along roads,
lost to us now

We can’t even begin
to gather them back,
and the cart is broken anyway,
one wheel following the apples down
careening and ringing like a coin

And it makes no sense to us
to go back, to start over —
What would it be to us, at this point?
So in the aftermath
we wait to be lifted,
our lives to be borne
along a different arc.

©Wendy Mulhern
May 10, 2018

Rooftop Prayers

Posted on by
Reply

Dust and pollen have sifted
through the quiet air,
the soft breezes,
warm and wistful,
have lifted
the scent of lilacs
and brought it here

I will reach through this
drifting afternoon,
to find the prayer
that knows the heart
of all these living things,
and brings me there,
where I, too, can know
my core and highest cause,
where I, too, can be the message
long awaited, gladly shared.

©Wendy Mulhern
May 8, 2018

Bright Release

Posted on by
1

What will you do with this?

Mothers — take it, use it to love your children
even more than you have before,
Fathers, use it as a way
to deepen grace, to find your footing
in the place where your nobility
touches ground

Brothers, sisters, friends —
use this to remember
how tender and how tensile
is your connection to each other,
how paramount it is
to keep these ties
awake in your heart

All of you — take this bright gift,
this strong release of light,
this nourishment of life —
use it to celebrate
our common source
and the fountain of our days.

©Wendy Mulhern
May 2, 2018