Grand plans notwithstanding,
life comes to us,
unfolding in small ways,
whether or not our presence
has anything to do with it
Far from our former need
to know everything yesterday,
we are content to notice what we do
Slowly the net comes together
to hold us graciously
in the web we hoped to make
Visions of how it may look later
entice us, appearing, as they do,
from wisps already here.
©Wendy Mulhern
April 26, 2020
The life you feel between your toes,
the squish of mud, the flowing stream,
can curl into your feet, can swirl
in all its earth affirming splendor
through your form. The calls of birds
which grace the air, affirm
the same current. We are not alone here.
We are riding life, trilled in the atmosphere,
caught up in song.
©Wendy Mulhern
April 21, 2020
From the place we ride
along the contours of the story,
high along the climax
or underneath,
fading into background,
rolling up to stark relief
The roles we think we have, the destiny,
the share of light or grief or glory,
the way that we may try to parlay
one place for another, one situation
for something we believe
will gain us more
We’ve called these things our lives
but we are learning
these are just distractions,
these are misplaced vectors
sending hopes careening
along the sides,
never getting closer
to their desires
We start to see
another gain, another goal,
standing still, letting the whole story roll
away without us. What we want
was never there.
It’s always been here.
©Wendy Mulhern
March 31, 2020
Grace grows
like moss, like grass,
between the counted milestones of a life,
the things we hoped and strived for
laid out, summed up, empty,
except the grace that fills in everywhere,
becomes the reason, becomes the joy,
becomes what overflows in memory,
the gratitude of being
Things we built may stand like ruins,
listing in the shift of time,
moss and flowers and trees
will be their counterpoint ,
as the substance of everything
turns out to be quite different –
luminous glisten of grace,
©Wendy Mulhern
March 28, 2020
I feel great peace remembering
the starting point never
gets far away
Whatever structures
I may have erected,
whatever standpoint
I may have backed myself into,
they never dictate
my next step,
which can always start right here
with the fundamental innocence
of all life,
with the first impulse
that unites us all.
©Wendy Mulhern
February 26, 2020
Not in a map
so much as a practice —
the practice of presence,
the practice of catching
the tiny upliftments
each moment holds —
the silent flowing,
the intricate crystalization,
the clasp of life,
always a celebration,
every living thing reprising
life’s essential properties,
joy ever being what rises
like oxygen, what fills and blesses,
what confirms my being here.
©Wendy Mulhern
February 20, 2020
The silk I was washing
tore in my hands like wet paper,
myriad holes appearing
in what before was whole cloth,
my innocent fingers proving themselves deadly,
hapless
The oil from the orange you described
stayed on my fingers
and my lips,
its presence in thought
so immediate, so important
Ways of seeing things fall away,
suddenly proved unable
to hold truth in them,
new images tingle,
evocative, potent,
their scent suffusing everything.
©Wendy Mulhern
February 17, 2020
Do not be dismayed
at the insanity you see —
the flagrant lies, the bland
denial of what’s known to be
This whole charade
with its elaborate displays
can only lope so far
before it topples
Do not be afraid,
for underneath the bald parade,
Life’s engine hums,
and in the end, life moves itself
the way life wants to go,
and as you nurture it,
it will bloom huge —
there is no lie it will not overthrow.
©Wendy Mulhern
February 4, 2020
(from the biking philosophers’ notebook)
I wouldn’t want a tame bird,
she said. Wild birds
have so much life. They don’t
need our bread
Still, a wild bird
could take you somewhere,
in the trill of song,
the dip and dart of wing
You could have a relationship
with the badlands. They could
take your breath away
in the way they pull the light
like it was a silk scarf
or a skein of time
stretched and altered,
rendered otherworldly
You could find a related essence
in a baby’s smile, in the flash
of that moment where you shared
a recognition of each other’s souls,
your unplumbed depth,
or a mutual acceptance
that lets you both stay wild
in some elemental way,
elixir of living,
life breath of day.
©Wendy Mulhern
January 1, 2020
Now that my hope is fully uncoupled
from the day’s outcomes,
now that it holds itself
in its own light,
I can see shoots sprouting
where before, perhaps,
the weight of my wishes
would have smothered them
I have no wishes,
only conviction
that every living thing
forms in this sacred space
of weightless hope,
nurtured to fruition
by the attention,
in wave form contiguity,
to every breath.
©Wendy Mulhern
December 25, 2019