Tag Archives: love

Then and now

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I tell myself, in those days
I didn’t understand much about love,
though I did love
(as now I see we all do)
haplessly, perhaps,
helplessly at times,
with an intensity that could have been a key

I didn’t understand love’s power,
didn’t know to use it
so the ones I loved would feel encouraged,
safe, encircled, ready to go forth
to meet their own exigencies with love

I ask myself, well,
how much more of love
do you know now?
And are you able
to shine the light in such a way
that it illuminates instead of blinding?

And if I am, and when I am,
then all those other times of love
will also be redeemed.
That is the way of love,
and love will teach me how.

©Wendy Mulhern
October 25, 2019

Clearing

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Our enslavement lifts like fog.
Our freedom begins to shine
like fresh-washed air —
Though there may be
many layers till we walk
fully unencumbered,
till we fly
in the manner we’ve always desired,
every little liberation
makes us stand taller,
lets us breathe deeper,
gives us the grace
to love each other
with more generosity and kindness,
shows us that we all are moving
through the same layers of clearing,
our eyelids tingling with the dew of heaven.

©Wendy Mulhern
October 20, 2019

Footing

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If I find you before you set foot
in the world, before its quick traction
grabs your steps, flings you
on an unintended path

If I find you in the impulse
of your desire, in your wish
for all the beauty and perfection
in all your interactions

Then I will see you as you are,
and hold, perhaps, a beacon
to help you find your footing
in this day.

©Wendy Mulhern
October 6, 2019

Recurring Lesson

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Back to the loop again
of learning
not to be afraid —
it’s not that difficult,
though it may seem so
in the echo chamber
of my benighted mind

I free myself from there
by tracing, in my thought,
the circle that enfolds us all,
that leaves out nothing,
so everyone, and every cause,
surrenders to the fact of being loved.
And in the all embracing love,
there is no fear.

©Wendy Mulhern
September 30, 2019

The object of our hope

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What we’ve been taught to hope for
is so paltry, so far from being able
to deliver satisfaction, that it’s surprising
that we feel so disappointed
when those hopes are not fulfilled

If someone told you,
You can have the sky,
and free flight in it,
you can have fellowship
with all the thought, with all the music,
you can sing color and dance
the whole kaleidoscope of pattern,
would you believe them?

If someone told you,
You can be the love
that comprehends and celebrates
every small and large
impulse of being,
you can be the love that nurtures,
that engenders joy and exaltation,
would you embrace that hope?

Here is the voice telling you all that.
You don’t have to say if you believe it —
only notice if you want it.
That, eventually, will be clue enough.

©Wendy Mulhern
September 7, 2019

Together

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I guess I don’t know how
to pull myself together,
have no antidote
for centrifuge

I’m overcome
with feelings of expansion —
want shining love
for all these people,
want to understand
how this present light
fills them all with the overwhelming sense
that who they are
is just perfect
and how they look
is just fine
and what they give
is absolutely needed,
truly seen and gratefully received.

©Wendy Mulhern
August 21, 2019

On Love

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What we collectively
don’t understand about love
has filled volumes

We keep trying
one person’s map or another,
we feel so sure at times
and then so doubtful,
and much of what we’re sure about
is false, and as for what we doubt,
who knows if it is true?

And yet we keep on seeking it,
and somewhere deep inside we know
that something in us always loves
and so is always worthy

And any love we know
is real
and it will shine out
through our misconceptions —
every love will purify itself
until, with deep relief, we understand.

©Wendy Mulhern
August 7, 2019

Your Spirit Today

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The trees give shady respite —
I see their gentle breathing
in the rise and fall of limbs —
they are at peace with wind,
with Spirit

You are like that today —
in the calm of your demeanor
I feel the day breathing,
your spirit a balm against the work,
your steady motion
bearing us forward
along the course that we are learning
not to plan so much as ride,
not to engineer so much as live.

©Wendy Mulhern
July 27, 2019

Twinkle

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A lot can ride
on the twinkle of eyes —
the smoothness of days,
the feeling of having done well,
the ease of incitement to laughter

These things testify
to the presence of
that which engenders the twinkle —
the substance it’s made of,
how it appears
out of what you might think of as nowhere,
thus proving as everywhere
what you may never see
but still most certainly need.

©Wendy Mulhern
July 13, 2019

To Edward

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Though I may not know
in the eternal scheme of things
just what you are to me,
I can say
you are more than my calculus problem,
more than my ongoing test,
more than the mirror
it’s taken me too many years
to recognize as such

We hold each other up
in undetected ways —
perhaps we each receive
direction, motivation,
perhaps we are encouraged
and in our different vectors, strengthened
by each other.
I may be vine
to your trellis,
you may be
bird to my tree.

©Wendy Mulhern
July 2, 2019