Tag Archives: revolution

New Growth

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As old containers fall away,
we each may find
we’re more cohesive
than we knew,
and now, no longer blocked off
from the places where
we always longed to grow,
we’ll send our shoots out
bold and green

We’ll be so much more wild and thick
than how we had been told
we had to be,
we’ll twine with others
who had been forbidden,
we’ll make a thicket, a collective tree

And we’ll hold ourselves together
not by rules and condemnation,
but by the gracious tendrils of our truth.

©Wendy Mulhern
February 5, 2017

Daily Life

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Well, we want to just keep
living our lives,
but the problem is
a little more light
has made us lose the illusion,
and we can’t quite conjure it up

And what we thought were
the solid pillars upon which
our lives rested,
are not even there —
we’re still standing on something
but we don’t know what.

What we thought was true —
very little of it is still relevant
(this comes, we find,
as a relief in many ways)

And we realize we still want
to get on with learning and growing,
which will still be possible,
even if all the landmarks have changed.

©Wendy Mulhern
January 30, 2017

Deconstruction

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The whole story begins to rip
like a wet paper bag,
contents pushing through the corners

We have been so far
from where we belong,
so removed
from what we’re meant to be,
bundled away in this dark sack
wrapped up in our separate packages

But here’s the rain
and here’s a soggy mess,
and here in streaked glimpses
we see some light

We will get out of here somehow
and lift our faces to the rain
and sing and sing
and dance and dance.

©Wendy Mulhern
January 26, 2017

Rock Fall

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All those who have been wronged
for so many years, even generations,
lift up their voices. It is their time
to howl and howl. It is their time
to be heard.

The hearing is like
the tiny infiltration of water
into the face of rock.
It will bide its time —
it does not need to be a multitude.

In the mundane roll of seasons
it will freeze, and that expansion
will crack the rock,
and in the thaw
it will sink down deeper,
and one year suddenly
a whole cliff side may shear off
and fall, and bounce, and shatter.

Hear these ones who howl
for the whole mountain
is coming down.

©Wendy Mulhern
January 24, 2017

Intersectional March

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I will march in the awakening
of my late-rising accountability,
my chagrined sense that my cozy life
up till now, has had a price
I wouldn’t have incurred
if I had known it

I know now that none of the weakness
I’ve hid behind, all my sheltered years,
is any excuse
for not standing up
to today’s imperative

I will march silent
though my voice has not been heard till now
because my voice is not, right now,
the one that’s needed

I will offer, rather, my ears, my arms,
all my contrite attention,
and from now on, for all my sisters,
I’ll be strong.

©Wendy Mulhern
January 20, 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

Holy Night

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We come to understand
that we are holy,
not in closing ourselves off,
not in excluding anyone,
but in refusal to be anything but kind
and in insistence on keeping our light shining
and bearing witness
to every other light
and not permitting any
to be snuffed out

We come to understand
that this is our protection —
not in hiding but in standing up
to any imposition on our wholeness.
We will not allow ourselves
to be unloving or untrue,
and this will bring all impostors down.

©Wendy Mulhern
December 24, 2016

I Woke Up Grateful

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persimmon-in-snow

I woke up grateful
because good is the only power
and in my struggle
against all that is evil,
I don’t need to take
a mean-spirited stance,
don’t need to commune
with comeuppance
or deal in retaliation,
don’t need disgust
or even indignation

I woke up grateful
that the best I can do
is to fill my soul with
the presence of goodness.
When fighting hate with love,
love is what counts

Love effortlessly deconstructs
the structures of oppression,
love casts no one as villain
but liberates us all
from the mazes of pain

I woke up grateful
that the work of my day
is so joyful, so boundless —
to let Love lead me,
to eagerly follow.

©Wendy Mulhern
December 10, 2016

How We Win

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seagull-at-carkeek

You never were
that lost and lonely soul
that fought back, kicking,
that raged and spat

You never were
that desperate, huddled one
that squeezed, eyes shut,
against a tiny crack,
too small to justify,
to big to hide

You’ve always been beloved,
you never needed to atone,
and all the demons
that wrought all kinds of havoc
in your name
must shrivel, powerless
before the truth that you can claim

This is how we win —
soul by soul, to patiently restore.
This is the beginning
to which we now return —
so let it stand,
so let us soar.

©Wendy Mulhern
December 6, 2016

For The Taking

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lake-at-magnuson-early

I see that actually
the light can’t be hid,
the gift can’t be co-opted.
The revolutionary nature of truth
can’t be bought out or bought off,
can’t be papered over
with worldly celebration

No matter how extensive
and prolonged the misdirection,
our compass, finally,
will guide us home
to where we see the gift
of our inherent liberation
has never been withheld,
and no one stops us
from standing up to claim it

And as we claim it, we will feel
incomparable joy of solidarity
and we will fill
with that revealing light
which makes us know certainly
why we are here.

©Wendy Mulhern
December 4, 2016

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