I’d rather have no drama
and nothing to say
than something made up,
claiming attention
but lacking the tone
that fills all the spaces
with presence
I’d rather wait silent
and so make an opening —
place for a thing that’s just forming
to gather, to grow, to get strong,
and send its sweet tendrils
in untouched directions
to cleave the clear air with its song.
©Wendy Mulhern
December 22, 2018
Maybe there isn’t an easy way.
Maybe my journey forward
is long and hard. My joy, though,
is that there is a way,
and I can take it on
Today the winter solstice sun
has shined its gift, benevolent,
while rays of clouds assembled
the day before the storm
The sea, surprising in its paleness,
has given illustration:
this is the light, so live in it,
filled, transparent, humble, vast
The rain that comes tomorrow,
will offer its own gifts. If I can stay
reflective, true, responsive, kind,
I’ll know where next to set my foot
and that will be enough.
©Wendy Mulhern
December 20, 2018
No need for agony —
it doesn’t matter
how many times you failed —
no need for bludgeoning yourself
with all those painful awkward memories
You can leave them in a pile.
You don’t have to take them with you,
and, in fact, you can’t.
You will not be judged by them —
they never have been you
No one will weigh you,
for your measure is infinity
and your unfoldment
beyond all time.
©Wendy Mulhern
November 2, 2018
With rain comes rest
and pleasure at work well done,
and the realization
that it’s been a long, hard grind
and we are just beginning. It’s not clear
how long it will take
till the tiredness lifts
or if we can afford to let it
before we dive back in again
Meanwhile, on another plane
(as fall rolls in, all drama and color)
unfolds a sprout of inner knowing,
small leaves hardly hinting at
the vastness of the world
its presence indicates exists.
It is an invitation
to pause here and consider
what we are really building
and where it really stands.
©Wendy Mulhern
October 5, 2018
There is a calm
that stands against the flurry
of all the thoughts about what must be done,
there is a current underneath the worry —
it bears you down in silent swiftness
all along your truth —
a stream to drink from
and fill with gracious power,
a stream to cleanse away
the images of lack,
there is a calm
that you can find and hold inside you
as you go out
and come, triumphant, back.
©Wendy Mulhern
October 4, 2018
I think not many people
want to consider
what it’s like
on the other side
of the unthinkable
— certainly I never did
And when they say
they just can’t imagine it,
that is most likely true,
though their minds have thrown up images
of the pain,
and walled it off quickly
(that is what I always did)
Yet there are also many
(more and more of them,
as we get older)
who have crossed
(or been thrown over)
the line
And of them
I’m sure many have found
the sweet secret peace,
and hold it like a small light inside
and don’t tell anyone about it
(for who would they tell?)
but you can see it there
if you know to look.
©Wendy Mulhern
September 19, 2018
Tuck your feet up,
feel the wind lift your wings —
you don’t want to be caught
in the stories beneath
Height brings perspective
and sights that unsettle —
ways you have been
that you wish that you hadn’t
Pump your wings hard,
hold your feet up from dragging —
no need to founder
in floods of regret
What matters now
is the course you are flying —
you will have time
to redeem yourself yet.
©Wendy Mulhern
August 6, 2018
And patience must be
the waiting, in full appreciation
of each growing sense of purpose,
for each development, in turn,
of needed elements
and their essential folding together
into the pattern
Patience must be
hearing the theme afar off,
and letting it come around
through all the orchestra
until it’s time to sound.
©Wendy Mulhern
July 13, 2018
Sometimes I feel like I’m a paper person,
all my learning, all my skills,
spelled out across a flattened world,
who now, through some necessity,
has been punched free,
my shape no match for rain or wind,
stepping out trembling
And yet, here where my feet touch stream,
I start to feel
maybe in this world I’ll find myself
finally real.
©Wendy Mulhern
July 11, 2018
I can’t walk easy
along the paths I used to walk,
hedged by familiarity,
bordered, more distantly, by fear.
I can’t pursue the old hopes,
flanked by worry, with the protections
of bravado and blurred vision
I have to walk
now as ever
in the clear bright world
that has always been here, too —
a plain without paths,
a presence without arriving,
being caught up in the offering
of myself, like a mirror,
to the light.
©Wendy Mulhern
July 8, 2018