Tag Archives: light

Light and Heat

Posted on by
Reply

carkeek6

Light answers light —
the brightness multiplies

Heat is not the same:
heat flows towards cold —
the same desire perhaps
but different mode

Heat spreads its blanket out
towards all who seek it,
cooling down with distance,
still too generous to hoard

We make heat inside —
we make it from our substance,
from our thoughts.
We feel and feed the small fire
that warms like coals
somewhere behind our hearts

So we come to know
the essence of this gift,
the little inner furnace
by which we recognize the sun.

©Wendy Mulhern
March 3, 2015

photo by Eric Mulhern

Light Travels

Posted on by
Reply

magnuson wetland

Teach me this way of moving
through the ephemeral —
swinging on shafts of light
too thin to hold my weight
yet somehow able
to pass me from one to the next

Teach me to hold without grasping,
just tight enough
to slide along
to the next bright thing
I can’t quite grasp
but which may send me
on down the bright lines

Sustained by nothing I can touch here,
held up, in some still dimly comprehended way
by something I can’t see
the source of all these lights
which, in its time,
shines me home.

©Wendy Mulhern
January 25, 2015

Waiting

Posted on by
Reply

I wait for inspiration
as cedar boughs wait for dawn,
foreshadowed in a subtle definition,
a whispered dark emerging
from the darkness,
imperceptibly gaining clarity
until they stand in silent, muted green

And then suddenly
dawn blazes through,
lights them up with gold
suffuses them
with incandescent glory

I wait, for
sure as dawn,
it will come.

©Wendy Mulhern
July 30, 2014

Gifts of Light

Posted on by
Reply

Light dances in memory —
Images form from ripples
Under closed eyes
Scenes resolve, dissolve

tree and waterlomo

All the harvest of the day’s sights
jostle and arrange themselves,
parade
brightly down the path
that leads to dream,
weavings of pictures
forming themselves into story,
crafting a narrative
for the ambient sounds

There is joy in this,
Joy in the surfeit of beauty
that springs from each frame
of my eyes —
Everything, all day long,
So rich to look on,
Plenty to pour through my vision,
enchanting me
all through the night.

©Wendy Mulhern
July 18, 2014

Transfiguration

Posted on by
Reply

transfiguration3a

Oh, I recognize this,
Coming, as it does,
in the rush of weather changes,
wind chimes frenzied,
tree tops all astir . . .

I don’t know if I’ve seen it before
but I’ve felt it,
The way those distant trees
(one layer behind the houses
across the street)
Were suddenly gold,
lit up at full attention,
limbs held in sudden
transfiguration
for a long moment in which
all I could do was watch . . .

One cottonwood took the chance
to dance copper and brass
instead of its usual silver,
Wildly, in full abandon,
until the glow was softly
lifted away.

transfiguration2

©Wendy Mulhern
June 19, 2014

Choosing Light

Posted on by
Reply

Light is always here
for me to choose —
Let me remember this,
let me not lose
myself in finding fault,
in feeling bad,
in calculating what is better
than what I’ve had . . .

Though in the dark and convoluted paths
of circumstance and self positioning,
there seem to be so many dismal turns,
it’s worth remembering:
Just when my angst and awkwardness seem prevalent
there is a light that renders them irrelevant.

©Wendy Mulhern
February 8, 2014

Essence

Posted on by
Reply

You brought your love in
like a fresh evening wind
sweetening your hair,
giving light and lift
to your face, your eyes

And I could breathe deeper
because you were here,
because of what you brought.

You had no fear
because it wasn’t about you
or about me, or the approval
of hidden voices that held the ear
of the board of directors,
wasn’t about opinions
or someone’s rigid template for perfection

It was as simple and as radical
as truth. That which can’t
be argued down
because it stands
in its own exquisite essence
ever renewed
from above, from within.

©Wendy Mulhern
January 22, 2014

A Place to Begin

Posted on by
Reply

This holy starting place
is like mist dancing in bright sun rays,
like soft light sifting through eyelashes,
a meeting of our hopes, our shaggy edges.

Here’s where we give ourselves,
Surrender to the mercy of
the grace that listens,
that finds the first fit,
the clasp with which 
we slide into the dance
of deepening reverberation,
plunging into fathoms of our souls.

This is the immersion
that we came here for,
This is the draft that satisfies
our fullest essence,
This is the blessing
we have longed to give,
shining the perfection of our presence.

©Wendy Mulhern
December 14, 2013


Chamber

Posted on by
Reply

Let me fill you up
with the hum of you —
the rightness of what you are,
the light-filled, sensitized
receiving substance
that understands everything

Let me be a mirror
sending love
into your resonating chamber
where it picks up
all the richness
of your inner form

Let me hear your timbre,
many-toned and radiant,
subtle and exultant,
sounding out the essence of yourself,
complex, unique, embodied,
clear across the fog
of all we thought we’d never comprehend,
illuminating you and me
and all the strands around us,
sending your strong truth throughout the land.

©Wendy Mulhern
November 11, 2013


The Law of Light

Posted on by
Reply

In the law of reflection
everyone is bright
(nothing is created or destroyed)
The light that rests on them
is the same,
and as it always has,
it shares its brilliance in full strength
with every thing.

And any time we fail to see it,
it’s just that it’s refracted
some other way —
turned toward a world, perhaps,
we haven’t even seen,
focused to bless
somewhere we haven’t known.

They will all do what they must
to find the place
where their brightness offers
the one clear shining ray that’s needed most.
Each has that gift
and each will give it
in the steady rhythm
of the law of light.

©Wendy Mulhern
September 24, 2013