Tag Archives: satisfaction

Pioneers

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star flowers

In time we stopped wishing
we knew someone
who knew the answers,
stopped fearing
we would make terrible, stupid mistakes.
In this place, we are pioneers,
alone in the stature of our own thoughts

As we work
the generous scent of kindness
rises from the land,
blackbirds trill by the pond,
a raven riffs in a nearby forest
while songbirds fill the closer,
lower, places
with their exuberance

What we need to know
will come to us
in the logic of our needs
and in our birthright of belonging.
We find clarity as we listen,
we will fill our place
as surely as all of these.

©Wendy Mulhern
May 30, 2016

Bread of Life

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Green Lake birches

Oh — taste this:
The bread of life
is not a metaphor —

What really sustains us
is not metabolism,
and what we’re made of
really is the one thing,
the flavors of which
are joy, exhilaration, love

What sustains us in our being
is kindness, and seeing others true,
and gladness to be here,
to be the light of life.

©Wendy Mulhern
May 10, 2016

Shelters

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shelters

Later in life, I’ve found
there are many kinds of shelter,
many ways we lean upon each other,
many structures that give us what we need

(fairy tale castles, after all,
being hard to come by,
and within, beset by drafts and rodents,
picture perfect cottages proved lacking
in dimension)

I have a lean-to in a corner of my mind
that’s made of nothing, as far as I can tell,
except my love,
I have a fire
that delights me every time
I find it still burning,
its cheering flames
produced by time with friends

I have a sense that after
all my fumbling efforts at this life,
the shelters lost, or casually abandoned,
I’ll come to find that nothing mattered,
and everything did,
that shelter resides
in any circle of support,
and they are numerous
as crystals on the shore.

©Wendy Mulhern
April 28, 2016

Filled

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Mill Creek, dusk

May you be filled, daily
with what you desire daily,
that thirst that opened up in you
when the deep crevasse was formed,
when you cracked open
and the molten light welled up
swift and searing and so satisfying,
(and you had never before even known
of the desire before that happened)

May you be open like that daily,
and may you be filled.

©Wendy Mulhern
April 18, 2016

Wellspring

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twin ponds reflection

Our desire to bless
brings us here —

Though we feel empty,
we are attracted to the need,

This is what we hunger for
and it draws us
to the opportunity

We desire to bless,
and bless we will.

The goodness we bestow
will satisfy us, too —

Wellspring of water from within,
coming up infinite,

Filling us
with life’s compelling light.

©Wendy Mulhern
August 23, 2015

So many people

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hidden light

So many people go through life
without ever having written a symphony,
without ever doing a cartwheel,
without ever knowing what it feels like
to be free

So many people (or so it’s said)
have never known true love,
have never felt the exaltation
of the egoless willingness
to be a blessing
and having that fulfilled

People go through life
buying expectations for themselves
from the shelves of sanctioned social options,
wearing them, though they don’t fit,
eating them, though they don’t nourish,
hardly noticing the pressure of the light within
as it attempts to free itself and shine

But by and by
the light will win,
spill out of some chink,
overwhelm them
as it bursts forth
revealing all the vastness of their being
where they don’t go through life —
they really live.

©Wendy Mulhern
May 14, 2014

Consent

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consent

So gently wooed we are
by quiet songs that thrum
against our bones,
through urgings, ocean deep,
that, irresistible, sweep us
into the slowly rising current

We can pretend we haven’t heard,
pretend we aren’t moving,
pretend we don’t notice
how our yearning now
has gained a little courage,
how it senses itself part of something grand
which never is delayed
and cannot be ignored

We are wooed gently
so we won’t resist
until it’s too late —
Too late because we’ve thrown our whole consent —
our hearts, our hopes, our will —
into the thronging force
that bears us on.

©Wendy Mulhern
January 22, 2015

Wasteland

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trees and wires

We could live all our lives
in suburban toyland
with no discomfort,
with our pretend jobs,
with tools that are not dangerous,
that sort of work

We could tell ourselves
there’s no reason for
that reckless longing
that keeps rising up —

We could beat it back
through shopping,
live all our lives that way
But they would be short —
We’d die of shallowness,
of not being able
to get a deep breath

We’d die of feeling no danger,
no aliveness
We’d die because fear
would come and get us anyway
in our little holes
because fear is never conquered
by running from it

We can’t live all our lives
in suburban wasteland.
Wilderness calls us
and from deep in our throats,
deep in our guts,
we answer.

©Wendy Mulhern
December 17, 2014

Flash

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temple

I want what I want.
My desire is my own.

No one can make me not want
what I want,
No one can make me
want what I don’t.

A simple truth,
a spinning shape,
flashing peach-toned light
through my center
outwards
What does it mean?
Joy and power

I want what I want:
it is not moderated,
not bargained down
or capitulated,
with no apology,
no wrong, no shame,
clear as my conscience,
strong as my name.

©Wendy Mulhern
February 23, 2014