Tag Archives: transformation

This Peace

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face-pitcher

I can bask in choral warmth
as day folds into darkness
and indoor lights glow brave,
I can retreat now
to overriding peace

I have not battled
at the front lines,
but revelations about the world’s ways
have shaken me perceptibly

In these breaths,
I seek to step outside the false peace
of privilege, and feel towards the peace
that must be shared by everyone,
a peace that only Spirit can define,
a peace that sees us all as free, divine.

©Wendy Mulhern
December 3, 2016

pitcher by Adrien Miller

Note to my email readers: I would dearly love to hear your responses, but I don’t receive them when you hit “reply” to my email. (notice how it says “donotreply” in the address. That means the emails don’t get to me). If you click on the blue title of my poem, it will take you to my website. At the end of the poem is a place for you to reply. I’d really love to hear from you.

The Blessing

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morning-beach

You can’t walk away.
You can’t choose
not to be blessed

The blessing goes with you,
persistent as a taunt —
you may think you want to walk away
but you can’t

You can turn your back
on a thousand years,
on hundreds of your deaths,
you can focus in on countless framings
of the old story

You can wave your arms
and shut your eyes,
you can plug your ears and shout
(as you’ve been doing all this time)

But when you stop
you will feel the blessing
approaching as if from afar
like sunrise
where you realize
after a while
that the light’s been with you
all the time you were waiting for it
and you haven’t been shrouded
nor yet exempted:
the blessing has been here all along.

©Wendy Mulhern
November 14, 2016

A New Song

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sea-wall

We need a new music
and a new story —
This is not reality TV

This is the heart-gulp step
into the silent vestibule,
this is the waiting
for the summons of a chord tuning

This is the voice that rises
as if unbidden
from the depths of our longing
to reverberate,
to weave harmony,
to amplify the signal
that belongs to us and everyone

To sing this song
that hasn’t been imposed on us,
that rises from our fundamental frequency
and raises us
in grateful unity
as our collective voice
bounds out in light years
among the stars.

©Wendy Mulhern
November 13, 2016

Unveiled

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carkeek-path2

My eyes are new,
the dew still rests on my perceptions —
they have that brighter than life quality,
the startling delicacy of something
not yet parted from their maker

I blink, I feel the moisture
around my eyes —
may they so ever stay!
May every day refresh my vision,
may the new edge of my learning
always roll out in surprising colors.
If there is a destination
let me not dwell on it
till I arrive.

©Wendy Mulhern
October 24, 2016

Paper

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cloud-show

Let the paper of my life
be unscrumpled —
smooth it out with hands of revelation.
Let me feel their spreading touch
through my skin, through my bones,
let me stretch into the fullness of my being

Let the paper of my life
be transfigured,
the square of it giving place to light,
the pieces dispersing
like embered ash
leaving a bright space
replacing all that was written,
its opening dimension
now known as me.

©Wendy Mulhern
October 13, 2016

History

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evening-sun-outside-cabin

You can’t even begin
to sort through the layers
of hurt, mistakes,
attempts at compensation,
of slights and their reactions,
things taken and the gaping holes they leave

But maybe you can put in a little seed
and let the rain seep down
and let mycelium colonize,
and perhaps a little plant
will grow up through it all,
strong and clean and straight
and none of the past will matter
as life asserts itself once again,
perfect as ever,
conquering all.

©Wendy Mulhern
September 27, 2016

Submersion

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Erica's swimming hole Aug 2016

The way my body feels —
like jumping with delight
into a cold river,
bright as the sun edge
on the still shining far bank,
mirthful as submersion
where the clean cold is most welcome,
happy and wobbly like trying to
balance on slippery shifting stones

My body feels giddy
before the momentous proposition
of immortality
and the goodness of everything
and the clear conviction
of being rescued
from a sad dream.

©Wendy Mulhern
August 28, 2016

This Way

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understory

I walked back today
along the path, in my mind,
where I had come, saw the crags,
the sharp ascents, the bracing view,
a good reminder
(as the way trends downward
into the understory, shaded and close)
that progress has been steady,
that the path rises, after this,
to further heights,
and there will be more views,
more stretches harder
than I have ever climbed,
more to change me beyond recognition,
and nothing for it
but to keep going.

©Wendy Mulhern
March 25, 2016

Deepening

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Marcola oak

Truth will not let my love be shallow.
It will deepen me
if needed by carving canyons
with the restraint of a Missoula flood.
There won’t be any time for mourning —
all I cherished as myself
will be gone in a flash,
and in the ravished, newly purified
place of my being,
the rocks will stand exposed.
I will be deepened
along the channels that pour through.

Love will not let my life be shallow.
It will send its roots down
to the very depths of me,
finding the ancient water,
drawing it up
to nourish everything
that grows within my sphere.

©Wendy Mulhern
March 15, 2016

Breaking Through

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up at winter trees

You have permission
right now
to leave behind your paper life,
your paper and cardboard life,
your brittle or sodden life
with its sad messes
of glue and peeling paint

You have permission to embrace
that thumping and insistent life
that shakes the old foundations
and breaks through

You never were beholden
to the protocol
of all those stiff facades.
Your roots cleave to the earth’s core
and your branches —
your branches clasp the sky.

©Wendy Mulhern
February 8. 2016