Tag Archives: peace

Untouched

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In the place of home
named Who You Are,
nothing ruffles you

You will still hear
the raging outside,
you will see the great array
of arguments and power plays
that say you should be
scared and cowed and battered

But yours will be the peace
of being untouched
by anything that’s not your maker,
unplayed
by anything that’s not
your sweet musician,
unmoved by anything
except the grand harmonic motion
that defines you, new in every moment,
that delights you in the humming
of your being.

©Wendy Mulhern
January 19, 2018

Into the City

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When you’re coming across the land
towards the city — the barren, arid land
from which the city can be seen afar,
when you’re riding through the heat,
clouds of dust around you,
we will not wait for your approach
from within the city’s walls

We will send messengers to greet you.
They will wash your feet, robe and crown you,
bring you celebrated into the city
so you will know how to be with us,
so you’ll be included in our peace.

©Wendy Mulhern
December 5, 2017

Still small voice

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I was asking you to go
to that still point
where there was no argument,
where the raging anguish
that roared at the surface
was unheard,
where the tumbling waves above
could only relay
a small tremor,
just at your heel

I felt like instead
I was just shouting
against the din,
so I considered:
my tiny voice
will never be
the still small one
that moves the mountains
but you have a voice within
and it is speaking.

©Wendy Mulhern
October 5, 2017

Memorial Day

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But if we were a peace-based society
we wouldn’t pause to honor
“fallen men and women in
the service of our country.”

We might mourn and remember
the monstrosity of war
and how it drew us into acts
we never could atone,
which only the most rigid of story lines
could grant some space to live in
(since we couldn’t live
with the bitter truth
that all war is vain)

If we were peace-based
we would honor
the courageous men and women
who stood up to the lie,
who wouldn’t buy
divisiveness of sides,
who refused to fall from love
into something partial,
who held the line of peace
till it was real.

©Wendy Mulhern
May 29, 2017

Secret Place

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My entrance into the secret place
and the stillness there
is assured

The door is anywhere,
close as my thought,
close as my prayer

A quick lasso around
the rapid scramble of the day,
a net that holds
the worried chattering at bay

A silent sinking
into the depths of truth,
a steady drinking
of what fulfills me

And I am home
as I have always been,
in peace and power
same as I ever was.

©Wendy Mulhern
May 23, 2017

Mindful

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Though there may be little to celebrate
in the march of days,
in the laying down of one year
over another,
though reasons to think and notice
be papered over
with sales
and paucity of leisure time,
though days themselves have little power
to elicit mindfulness,
still a wave of progress
is coming through

We will not use the tools of war
in this, our urgent bid for peace,
we will not tear down first
before we rise.
It takes our every ounce of effort
to grow, to build connection;
we’re filling now with our imperative
and soon our interlock will overcome
what, all this time, was set up to divide us

We will be mindful
not because of history
or because of others
but because of us, because of now.

©Wendy Mulhern
January 16, 2017

This Peace

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face-pitcher

I can bask in choral warmth
as day folds into darkness
and indoor lights glow brave,
I can retreat now
to overriding peace

I have not battled
at the front lines,
but revelations about the world’s ways
have shaken me perceptibly

In these breaths,
I seek to step outside the false peace
of privilege, and feel towards the peace
that must be shared by everyone,
a peace that only Spirit can define,
a peace that sees us all as free, divine.

©Wendy Mulhern
December 3, 2016

pitcher by Adrien Miller

Note to my email readers: I would dearly love to hear your responses, but I don’t receive them when you hit “reply” to my email. (notice how it says “donotreply” in the address. That means the emails don’t get to me). If you click on the blue title of my poem, it will take you to my website. At the end of the poem is a place for you to reply. I’d really love to hear from you.

Seeds

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maple-seeds

Consider how these maple seeds
have within them everything they need —
cloistered protection
and precise instructions
for when to sprout, how to become trees

Likewise never underestimate
the power of this now —
everything contained within
to realize dreams:
imagination, memory,
just right alignment
with time and timing,
protection and release,
everything to move in poignant harmony,
all you need
to become peace.

©Wendy Mulhern
November 29, 2016

In Peace

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carkeek-maple-with-sound

A line on paper, after all,
is not worth getting riled about —
it didn’t cost money, it can easily
be erased or moved

A gesture, too, is just a movement
of a frame, just an expression
of a construct of internal stories
which, themselves (though it might
not seem quite so easy) can be changed

A tone of voice, a whole visceral uprising,
a set of back and jaw, a reaction —
these things are not the person,
they can be released,
for each of us has the right
to grow in peace.

©Wendy Mulhern
October 26, 2016

Unflappable

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clouds-clearingfir

So if you’re going to be unflappable,
it doesn’t mean
to a certain extent,
doesn’t mean
until you finally hit your limit
and explode

It means you move in a different ether
where none of the tugs from former worlds
affect you at all.
Your calm is not conditional
nor is your peace
nor is your love

The currents that move you
are those of your own essence
and your belonging
hand to hand
constellation to constellation
springing in cartwheels
through the sky.

©Wendy Mulhern
October 7, 2016