Tag Archives: music

Life Song

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Let me inhabit
the song that I am,
Let its melody course
through my limbs,
Let the deep crystal harmony
roll out its hum in me
Filling my center with bliss

With the trace taste of 
dust of the high mountain rocks
washed in the snowmelt,
cleansed in its rushing fall
Telling the story
of timeless eternity,
Sending the rhythm on down,
And the soft scent of blossoms
So light and ephemeral —
Subtle insistence on living in now

Let me inhabit 
the song that I am,
Learn from my heart and my bones
How I have known this for thousands of years,
How I now come to my own.

©Wendy Mulhern
June 5, 2013


Sound Current

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I come aware
of the river of sound
flowing through me
and its currents
all around
singing to me

I dip my face in,
Fill my throat
with sweet music
Warble it out
Let it quench
my constant thirst to be in tune,
Let my bones hum,
my heart descant 

I roll and dive
in its bright curl and tumble,
Luxuriate in its exultant presence.
It bears me up, enlivens,
teaches me
It takes me homeward
to infinity.

©Wendy Mulhern
February 7, 2013


Current

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Music brings us together:
The songs we heard then,
when we hear them now,
Suffuse me with the same softness —
The same streaming of our shared current —
Fill me with the hum of that vibration
in which we feel each tuning
of each other’s thoughts

Togetherness is its own music:
Weaving of counterpoint and harmony
The impress of our love upon eternity
And the inclusive hold it has on us.

©Wendy Mulhern
October 8, 2012


Watching the Competition

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At a certain point I notice
Being nervous for another
does no good
and the tight way I’ve been breathing
with my breath held at half way
I must replace
must finish my inhale, then let it out
For no matter how I hold myself suspended
I’m still here
with all my weight
Any eggshells I’ve been sitting on
are roundly crushed
so I might as well relax

I know I’m called upon for something higher
I know it’s right for me
to hold a space
but not this one
I need an open place
within my consciousness
A soft, pervading peace
that holds no nervousness
that lets the grace
that always waits to flourish
open out, flow in
in healing waves with which I can take part
and so restore the rhythm 
of my heart.

©Wendy Mulhern
April 28, 2012



The nature of my needed lighter touch

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(in nurturing the music in my son)

Today I saw music
as it lit
(iridescent angel)
on the tip of sound
Tracing its bright melody and swift delight
Sending its rich pulsing through the ground

Today I see that music
doesn’t come at coarse commands
of sharp regimentation
nor years of dogged discipline and work
For, sunken under critical dismissal
How can the magic of the sound emerge?

But rather, music rises from
the gentle kiss of close connection
of the grace that is one’s being
with the grace that is the song
A lighting in the joy of it
A natural touching down
A cross-time current drawing out the tones
of all that’s beautiful in kindred souls

My job then: to protect
the sphere of space in which the music can appear
To let it grow by feeding it
with light and approbation
so it’s free to flit and choose to land right here
Where its reverberation will be clear.


©Wendy Mulhern
February 4, 2012



Ode to Beethoven

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So many years before my birth

Beethoven wrote the score
of my internal landscape.
His music opens doors
to wind-tossed trees and
fervent heady breathing of the day
the seething susurrus of grasses
and the pulsing of the light
and the fragrance of the air
and the insects’ humming flight —
How did he know?

His music walks
with sure and practiced steps
along the pathways of my hopes
my efforts and my struggles
through the darkness
to the ever unsuppressed
returning dawning of my joy
and the centered peace
that is my home—
His genius for me is not that he 
heard something no one else could hear
but that he wrote so truly
what is mine.


©Wendy Mulhern
January 18, 2012

(Background music: Beethoven’s 6th Symphony)

A Mom’s Lament

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He plays the cello suite

in a wrong tuning
The lowest string not dropped,
 each bass note
a step too high – rude barging 
into an otherwise soothing song
It is a musical joke.
He plays with his eyes closed
shifting inexorably 
towards the horizontal
from which he leveraged himself, 
with great groanings
demagnetized himself, most laboriously, 
from the computer screen
after playing, lying down with his travel guitar, 
a lament about having to rise.
He digresses to trim his fingernails
But I shall have music.  Eventual music.
It is my hope.  It would be a sweet fruit 
of weary repetitious prodding.
I am here to encourage him
to curl into his space among the animals
on the bed.  To occupy it
so it won’t pull him so quickly back.
How is it that this job belongs to me?
Or have I brought it down on my own head?
by too high expectations or by being too low key?
this daily nagging (begging) I have come to dread?


©Wendy Mulhern
April 5, 2011