After the whirlwind engagement,
the kiss of possibility,
we wait to settle down –
we float in that unweighted space
achieved through swift
acceleration and release –
a practice place for astronauts
and anyone who needs to feel no gravity –
anyone who needs
to learn a realignment
independent of the forces
of other fervent orbits
Anyone who yearns to move
in concert with the whole,
recenter to the source
that tunes us all.
©Wendy Mulhern
November 25, 2023
I walk myself back from the edge
(or tell myself to)
before I throw my hopes down
on something that could never hold them,
before constructing a set of cautions
which themselves are anyway
already over the edge
I put myself back
(or remind myself to dwell)
where light falls lightly as light
upon my scenes,
illustrating and establishing
what is real
So I avoid a heavy handed projection,
avoid an expectation,
avoid interpretation
of what simply is –
the evidence of present care
and nothing less,
the everpresent touch
of tenderness.
©Wendy Mulhern
November 24, 2023
I’ll take gentleness –
it’s better than offense.
It gives a landing place
where anything that’s beastly
can snuff and settle,
turn around three times
and fall asleep, maybe even feeling
gratitude for being let down softly
I’ll take laughter – it ripples over
anything that otherwise might snag.
It turns a snarl into a song,
lets us feel happy,
lets us be together
as day glides into evening,
easy forgiveness replenishing affection.
©Wendy Mulhern
November 21, 2023
Help me to tell
a story of beauty
pointing a path of patterns
We could follow this one
and it might teach us
a generous weaving
We might learn a way to be together
better than the one we fell into
(projections of someone’s fears)
If given the first step,
we could follow it out.
If given the whole image,
we would glow
right here where we are
We would be the way and the light,
we could join hands
and walk out together.
©Wendy Mulhern
November 16, 2023
Now that I’ve quit
the business of judging,
how you comport yourself
makes little difference
We all deserve mercy,
and we all have the stature
to grant it. And maybe that
is the greater role
we all have longed for –
mercy over judgment,
universal ease.
©Wendy Mulhern
October 23, 2023
Our tentative offerings,
our hapless lurching –
towards what we wish,
away from what we fear
Our ill-fated attempts
to make some sense
of you, of me, of work, of friendship,
can hold together
no better than
marbles balanced on each other
They roll away so quickly
in haphazard rattling,
and what holds us together?
Yet here we are.
Call it miraculous,
or call it a simple fact of being,
one that helps us
more than we know.
©Wendy Mulhern
October 23, 2023
There is a happy way to be,
a happy way to hold you –
hold you like water,
where you know
there are no holes for you to fall through
Hold you like a bowl
that lets you take its shape,
and lets you be yourself,
and lets you ripple,
but doesn’t lose you out the sides
This way of holding you
lets you be at peace,
and lets you find yourself
and quench your thirst.
©Wendy Mulhern
October 20, 2023
Today I reconsidered what’s possible,
and what’s not. And it’s not possible
for me to be outside of harmony.
Therefore any stories to the contrary,
of my blame or yours,
must be untrue,
and can have no effect
on you or me,
or what we are here
to bring forth together
This moment belongs to something higher
than we yet understand
of you and me.
This moment is ours
to find out what that means.
©Wendy Mulhern
October 7, 2023
Well, if I don’t tell myself the truth,
who will? And yet this truth
is not the stuff of petty disappointments,
layers of them, self-hidden by my self-image,
the sense I should know better
than to feel this way.
No. This truth must embrace
stepping outside the borders of myself
to look around. Losing sight, thereby,
of any self-sense. Picking up, instead,
kind eyes, eagerly receiving
all of these most interesting beings,
offering acceptance, and coming back around
to be accepted,
in the easy way where none of us is judge.
©Wendy Mulhern
August 11, 2023
The rising moon may be the least of it,
grand though it is, between the firs
across the fields
The rising of hope may be a greater thing,
and the sense of purpose and delight,
and the intuition
that where we find each other
is in a different place
from where we are offended –
that, indeed, offense cannot be possible
in the innocence of being what we are,
the gift to all of us our being brings.
©Wendy Mulhern
July 1, 2023