I will not go hungering and begging
for what has always been mine,
for what I have
by virtue of my essence
I will not underestimate
the power of Life to meet my need
with what another needs to give.
I will be glad my need to give
is similarly met
This is my point of waking,
to be assiduous
but with no doubt behind it,
move forward generous
and free of fear,
cultivate humbleness
and a ready ear,
reap the bounty
that’s always here.
©Wendy Mulhern
May 7, 2017
When the rigid walls have been abandoned,
we flounder a little,
seeking our structure
We will find it
in the logic of our movement,
in the tug of our connections
as we spin
We’ll build its lattices
with every act of kindness
and the sinew of attention
and the ebb and flow
of where we need to be
We will stay free
of rules that are external to our living,
we will grow strong
through listening and giving.
©Wendy Mulhern
May 6, 2017
The loop and curl
of hunger met,
the kiss of being needed,
the feeling in one’s body
of being beloved
and what it does
to the curve of one’s form
We live for these things.
which we find as we plant ourselves
face to the earth,
wet with the dew of heaven,
taking seven times, or as long as it takes
to enter the territory
where no words have been there yet,
where they must arise
out of the ground of experience,
long enough after the fact
to truly be real.
©Wendy Mulhern
May 5, 2017
Life is always knitting things together —
pick up an old mat, and you’ll find
many things have taken up shop,
habitats of dark and moist
created in the hidden spaces,
roots and mycelium, pill bugs, spiders,
the smell of earth
Pick up anything that’s been in place awhile
and you’ll find unexpected emotions,
sticky at your throat and maybe
behind your eyes —
your caring has set up shop
under your awareness
because life is like that
You will still leave
(life is like that, too)
but not without feeling
the many ways you were connected
but never knew.
©Wendy Mulhern
April 27, 2017
I don’t want to spend more time
in the house of sticks
with its rickety stilts
sticking down into the river,
not enough integrity to be a boat
and so required to constantly
resist the flow
I don’t want to rely
upon its chinks and weaknesses
to let the flashing light into my vision
(its shaking makes the roaring current fearsome)
Don’t want to be
the victim of its fall,
pierced with broken points,
toppled in rigidity
I want to slip free,
lower myself gently
into the coursing brightness
and glide.
©Wendy Mulhern
April 9, 2017
Storm at the windows
keeps us indoors,
wind flinging rain
all along the south side,
white pine bending,
tossing itself back
Some of us find goodness
under the storm,
some of us find it
in the shining of fine days,
proving (though we may come slow
to concluding it)
goodness is everywhere
And though it may seem treasonous
to abandon the system we’ve known —
small brightnesses etched out of darkness,
sadness and fear as defining factors —
in truth, Life wheels itself quite well
in the overarching fact of all goodness
Nothing is missing,
nothing is left undefined,
Life sings through all the storms
and all the clearings,
thus showing itself to be all.
©Wendy Mulhern
April 7, 2017
with the (virtual) biking philosophers
Maybe nothing changes but your story,
maybe your story changes everything.
Perhaps your being is as vast as mind
and what you see as change
is just a different way of viewing it
Life, after all, is not random —
it persists at being life
in every venue where it finds itself —
everything it’s dealt
becomes its opportunity
to grow, to live, to rise, to be transformed
So through its changes
it remains the same,
although its sense of being is forever new,
and that explains both progress
and immutability
throughout the days of folks like me and you.
©Wendy Mulhern
March 27, 2017
It has not cost me anything
to let go of worry.
When I consider
the collective effort
of so many of us
to lose weight,
I marvel
at why more people
haven’t noticed this one —
the great lightness that lifts us
when we recognize
the perfect order
of all things living
(including us)
has been established
and doesn’t need
to be worried into place.
©Wendy Mulhern
March 22, 2017
I emerge from sleep
into the bright light river
of sentience — I feel its keen flow,
delighted in presence,
poised and pleased
to cleave to its Life Source
along the rapid roaring course
of celebration and discovery
This being
is the only one that matters,
the only one that powers
the aliveness that my soul
longs for every day.
I endeavor to stay here,
bring this awareness
into my every move,
into my every breath.
©Wendy Mulhern
March 10, 2017
The last day of the year
dawns foggy, and continues overcast.
We sleep later than our habit,
tendrils of memories
interspersing themselves
with dreams, and with images
of streams, currents of possibility
weaving open and closed,
forming lenticular shapes along the flow
Artistic expressions from others’ lives
placed up against my own
invite reflection
These days we keep being asked
to take a side. I will not take a side,
for that is what conquers us.
I will take a stand.
I will stand for what is free and true,
I will stand for ribbons of stream flow
braiding lives into thirst-quenching unity,
I will stand for the excitement
of streaming, soul to soul,
along the course of life,
I will stand for pure reflective pools
and the welcoming in
of everything that yearns,
everything that hears.
©Wendy Mulhern
December 31, 2016