Put your mind
in a place where it will dream,
let it be a wide open space
You will have, after all,
all the freedom you give yourself,
you will be able to get around
the things you stumbled on before
Let your dreams be teachers —
Even if you don’t remember
where you were,
you may be able to bring back
a way of understanding,
you may bring back
the potent calm you walked in.
©Wendy Mulhern
January 7, 2018
They roar and rage
outside the door,
they hurl their cries
against the walls of their frustration.
They wouldn’t have to scream
if they could just get in,
if they could have the streaming
of connection
There is no pressure
when hand clasps hand
and understanding finds its level
in the flow between them.
There is a great release
as they let go of static standpoints
and embrace the view
that sees them all as one.
©Wendy Mulhern
January 5, 2018
Lift up your eyes from the rubble —
these blocks are broken, crumbled,
they will not be re-stacked, reset,
they won’t be home or citadel
No use to pore, again,
through all the plans,
no use to wonder
where they were wrong
or why they failed
to keep the city from going under
Let us arise and build —
not with these
but with the substance
we are made of —
bright vectors of intention,
strong cords of close connection
and the steady purpose
that knows us even when
we don’t know it, the one
that guides us ever to our own.
©Wendy Mulhern
December 1, 2017
When you looked up close at us
we were a misfit bunch —
none of our shapes exactly fit,
our parts adapted from some other use
We limped and lumbered along somehow —
it seemed remarkable, in fact,
that we had come this far,
and then the light shifted
and the vectors of our power aligned
Those parts that didn’t fit
never supported us.
As our lines straightened
and our rays gained strength,
the jalopy of our former sense of self
chugged to a stop,
abandoned in our upward climb.
©Wendy Mulhern
November 28, 2017
Aghast at the clunkiness
of words, I sit down
on a block of them,
unwilling to lift any,
unwilling to make a wall
Whatever it is
I may want to have said,
it’s better that I let
the surprise blue
of late afternoon sky
convey my meaning.
©Wendy Mulhern
November 15, 2017
It was a light task
picking up the ashes
though they are heavier
than they look like they’d be
It’s not so surprising, however,
that a lifetime of stories
would be ponderous
and besides
There are roots that go down
that must be still connected
where we can’t see them
that would also render
a package like this
hard to lift.
©Wendy Mulhern
November 14, 2017
I got caught like a moth
between the folds of illusion
and the real light, and I thought
I was working the solution
but it was just a dream
running parallel to the truth
but without its power
Let me take the time to wake up.
It won’t seem like the story I’m imagining
but I will be lifted and straightened
from within, I will be infused
with new understanding.
I will not roll down the great conveyor belt
towards death. I will be translated,
I will walk free.
©Wendy Mulhern
October 17, 2017
In order to take off,
thought needed
a bit more of a runway,
enough space between the tasks
to gain continuous speed,
(the weight of thought being
ponderous as it is)
In order to be caught
thought needed to soar first,
far enough that its arc of sparks
could be seen
That was the story, at least,
that was told
to account for the silence —
thought, of course,
made the whole thing up.
©Wendy Mulhern
October 4, 2017
There’s no escape for me
from the debt I owe
to my past,
no self-satisfied slide away
from what I was cast in
To be truly free
I must go back
to what I walked away from,
must bring the liberation I have won
to my perception
of those I left behind
This is not a task for intellect
nor for alleged virtue I have earned.
I surrender it
to the great truth that lifts me —
if I am lifted,
so, too, must be we all.
©Wendy Mulhern
October 1, 2017
Well, who wouldn’t delight
in the law of Life, in the law of light?
Who doesn’t thrill
with the intricacy of every interlocking need,
each interlacing gift?
Who wouldn’t be amazed
at how perfectly
all these separate entities
flock and soar together,
turn and breathe as one?
From here comes the courage
to leave behind the old story,
that’s based on conflict
and has to have an enemy
and makes its horrid bargains
and insists on being right
There’s plenty of evidence
for the goodness of everything.
It may not make a good story,
but it makes a good life.
©Wendy Mulhern
September 28, 2017