Open

I want to find that box again
and see if I can open it –
the light that came out
was yellow and orange,
and the warmth of it indescribable

I found it in a small place
tucked deep within  – it was unpretentious,
it had a secret latch
and I opened it almost not on purpose

And the light bathed everything
in its wondrous glow,
and illumined a space so large
that there was room for all of us
to stretch into our true being
and inhabit the full size
of our innocence
and our dominion
and our duty and our power
to heal the earth.

©Wendy Mulhern
July 23, 2021

Shrouds

Go ahead and take it down –
however proud of it you may have been,
however much you thought you needed it

Go ahead and take it down,
though you have counted it as your own,
like a tattoo, or something deeply etched

It may have markings of your status,
high or low, or what you’ve earned,
it may be tied up in how others see you,
but go ahead and take it down

Old tatters or a rich brocade,
the colors and the tallies of the teams you played,
the records of your triumphs and mistakes you’ve made –
you’ll be much freer when you take it down

The shroud removed, the light comes streaming in,
you feel the air anew, and you can breathe again,
as life unlimited fills up the waiting plain
at every place the shroud is taken down.

©Wendy Mulhern
May 15, 2021

Others, too

Others, too, have moments
of quiet beauty. Others, too,
feel the tingling lift,
Life revealing its most tender secrets,
Life compelling them
to give their gifts

Let me not think,
amid this shimmering unveiling,
that I must hurriedly proclaim it,
make it known,
for everyone is held in the unfailing
light through which these wondrous views are shown.

©Wendy Mulhern
February 16, 2019

At Dawn

Be not tormented —
you weren’t, after all,
any darker than the whole canvas,
any darker than the dark on dark
of stories about darkness
and rumors of a thing called light
sometimes dreamed, more felt than seen

And in that darkness,
no one prescription
is any better than any other,
however much prevailing topics
are wrongs of others, wrong on wrong

At dawn, it is revealed
none of these paths
are inaccessible to light,
none of those torments
have any staying power

They will lift
effortlessly as shadows,
we all will bask together in the sun.

©Wendy Mulhern
August 29, 2018