Here is a dream of sweet movement,
something to find in the time
before attempted sleep,
something to bind myself to,
to embody, to walk in the steps
in which my feet rejoice
Here before lethargy paints
a bland blank wall,
let life bound up in me
and take the reins.
©Wendy Mulhern
March 6, 2020
Sure, the thoughts of things
I could have done differently
do parade themselves along
from time to time, still sail by
trailing their pronouncements
about how much better things could be
if only …
My policy is
to let them go by once
but not repeatedly,
and never to climb on board.
The now I have is, after all,
the only one I’ve ever had
or ever will. And so it follows
that all good things are here for me,
as they’ve always been.
©Wendy Mulhern
March 27, 2019
It is a simple thing
being here, in the land of reflection
There may be refractions,
bright angles, shafts of light
coming in from unexpected places —
they magnify the radiance,
they show its different facets
Sometimes I can trace them,
sometimes not. Yet simply
I am filled up with the glow
and simply
I am satisfied.
©Wendy Mulhern
December 26, 2018
I’m not saying anything
about the quality of the box.
It’s a lovely box, and I can see
how it has given sense to your life,
a frame from which to view,
with which to order
all the currents streaming through your mind
I’m not saying anything
about the quality of the cage.
Certainly it’s a fine cage,
gilded and artful. It sets off your plumage,
provides a visual counterpoint
to your graceful lines
I’m just saying
something inside is making me
want to walk away. I don’t want
to try those containers out,
at least not now.
©Wendy Mulhern
November 29, 2018
Underneath the slow drift of thought
(so many horror stories how it got that way)
there lies the urge
wild as water
wild as virgin rivers
to reconcile
to flow together
to abandon all divisive tales
and breathe as one
None of us really wants anymore
to be the winner —
we have started to see
that when one of us loses
so do we all
and we have all lost so much already
that we are really desiring
to come home
to the place we are all washed clean
and we are all sorry
and we are all forgiven
and we can start anew
to live at one.
©Wendy Mulhern
October 15, 2017
Every one of them, it was said,
has their drug. Once they taste it,
they’ll go to great extremes
to get their next fix.
They’ll feel the promise of that
rush of aliveness, they’ll crave
the affirmation that seems
so certain to be felt
as they receive, once more,
the dearly sought elixir
Every one of them, it was said,
can be roped in just like that,
can be controlled, can be enslaved . . .
They didn’t reckon on
the dawning recognition
of the light that saturates everything,
that satisfies everyone’s desire.
©Wendy Mulhern
July 26, 2017
What satisfies?
What fails to satisfy?
What offers home,
what fails to?
What is family?
How does it meet our needs?
We’ve been tricked for so long
about all this
As things we’re told to hold to
sift like light between our fingers,
as each promise glimmers
always out of reach,
as all the coached for goals
bring rewards that echo hollow,
we turn and turn
until we cease our turning
What satisfies
like light to open eyes
opens home and fits us safely in it,
finds cords of family
that pull enduring love
down and richly down
through generations.
©Wendy Mulhern
June 1, 2017
I had a hunger today
that paced around looking
for what would satisfy,
coming up short
time and time again
I wanted that hardwood core,
that heartwood coal
whose glow spread clear and even
with a heat that burnt through
all illusions,
resolving the confusions
of generations of lost souls,
the weariness, the giving up,
the vague loss of attention
that set us drifting
(even as I was today)
in search of something
we have lost the definition for
So to become lost
in a body not of my choosing,
so to be self-punished
for all my shortcomings
When truthfully the center
of my satisfaction
is something that I own
and am able to fulfill,
daily, in the moments of my knowing,
here, in the place I am aware.
©Wendy Mulhern
January 17, 2017
We’ve been dwelling in that bright edge
called Joy in Heaven, called
glory of needs met, the clasp
of reunion, the satisfaction
of soul-hunger fully fed
We didn’t know
that what seemed to us as
long nights with no stars,
deep tunnels with no exit,
hopes dashed again and again
was really just a backdrop
for the enduring truth
of our awakening
We didn’t realize that the bitterness
of what we thought was our perpetual betrayal,
when sweetened by the taste
of our belovedness,
would turn out to be
something else entirely,
something deeply craved
by all the host,
something greatly celebrated
as we come home.
©Wendy Mulhern
August 24, 2016
We build our little tipis, wait for fire,
we love the roar and warmth
and then it dies,
We’re left with ember, ash,
we’re left to ask:
where will we get the wood next time?
We seldom even notice that we haven’t asked
What lights the fire anyway?
And what of us has been consumed,
What has been fed?
What’s the sustaining substance of our joy?
Here is a secret: in our natural state,
we’re lit up not by burning but by being,
No conditions are required,
and we don’t need to wait —
Our love is in our yearning and our seeing
Our love ignites — it doesn’t need to be ignited,
our love is light before a fire is even lighted.
©Wendy Mulhern
June 19, 2016