The breath between the notes of a flute –
a time to consider
the nature of the spaces
where nothing has been said
And if I need a way to know
the purity of tone,
perhaps it lies in this —
not in the mellifluity of words
but in the calmness
and the listening
of the space between.
©Wendy Mulhern
September 17, 2017
(a bicycle song)
We seek it in the loneliness,
we seek it in the kindness,
and the bright chinks in stories’ walls
that lead us up from blindness
and in the shining memories
with embers that remind us
times of play,
times of laughing raucous play
We wish to ground, we wish to fly,
we seek the perfect union,
we thought we wanted glory
but we really craved communion,
the words were fine but what was wow
was when we put the tune in,
and we could sing,
we could really sing
We battle down the myths
that box us in our little walls,
each at our place of passion
till the massive structure falls
and what we didn’t dare believe
is obvious to all —
we are joy,
we are made of joy.
©Wendy Mulhern
August 12, 2017
Storm at the windows
keeps us indoors,
wind flinging rain
all along the south side,
white pine bending,
tossing itself back
Some of us find goodness
under the storm,
some of us find it
in the shining of fine days,
proving (though we may come slow
to concluding it)
goodness is everywhere
And though it may seem treasonous
to abandon the system we’ve known —
small brightnesses etched out of darkness,
sadness and fear as defining factors —
in truth, Life wheels itself quite well
in the overarching fact of all goodness
Nothing is missing,
nothing is left undefined,
Life sings through all the storms
and all the clearings,
thus showing itself to be all.
©Wendy Mulhern
April 7, 2017
True leadership
shows me how to follow
the liquid love that flows
under the surface,
the light that glows through
cracks in our illusions,
the course of which transfigures
everything we thought we were,
everything we thought we knew
We may have said
our life is crucible
for this appearing
but perhaps more accurately
this appearing is our life —
this pure substance
not only powers everything,
but is the everything,
all we ever hoped for,
what we’ll always be.
©Wendy Mulhern
March 5, 2017
Can’t get too excited
about the choice between
the fox and the raccoon
to guard the henhouse
And though we well may be distraught
before the litany of fallen freedoms,
truth be told,
we’ve been chained
for as long as we remember
The shackles of any lie
will hold us prisoner.
Most effective are the ones
we never see
The amazing thing
is what unclasps them all —
miraculous, it seems,
when we consider
number and duration
But it’s not a secret,
it’s what we all have heard,
for surely it’s the truth
that makes us free.
©Wendy Mulhern
March 4, 2017
So listen. If you’re going to be
a smart fish, know that,
if you take the bait, you don’t get credit
for all the times you passed it by.
The fisherman only gets wilier,
the lie never gets more true,
and if you want to stay free,
well, it’s up to you.
©Wendy Mulhern
March 2, 2017
Note to my email subscribers: There was a typo in yesterday’s poem. I’ve fixed it on my blogs, but once the email goes out, I have no way to get to the email texts. To see the poems on the blogs, just click on the title at the top, or on the comment button at the bottom. Thanks!
I start my journey back
across the chasm,
all those times of disappointment,
all those hurts, all those dry years,
the places where I felt
I’d need explanations, apologies —
to tell someone the wrongs
that had been done me
I take these steps
and virgin forest
springs up around me,
familiar as something
that’s always been here,
rich with layers and layers
of interacting life.
Where is the desert,
where the wilderness?
How deep my blindness must have been
not to have seen this!
How full the healing truth must be
to bring me home!
©Wendy Mulhern
February 24, 2017
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
There is no secret
that can be hidden
from honest hearts,
for they are bound together
in the pulse of everything
The rhythm teaches them,
the beat sustains them,
the sequence of the wave,
in how it moves and flows
to each one in its perfect time
assures there is no lost knowing,
for they are all connected
There is no shadow government
that can control the working
of inner truth —
It feeds us from within
with what we are, with
what can never be subjugated,
because there is no place to stand
outside the All.
©Wendy Mulhern
January 3, 2017
The last day of the year
dawns foggy, and continues overcast.
We sleep later than our habit,
tendrils of memories
interspersing themselves
with dreams, and with images
of streams, currents of possibility
weaving open and closed,
forming lenticular shapes along the flow
Artistic expressions from others’ lives
placed up against my own
invite reflection
These days we keep being asked
to take a side. I will not take a side,
for that is what conquers us.
I will take a stand.
I will stand for what is free and true,
I will stand for ribbons of stream flow
braiding lives into thirst-quenching unity,
I will stand for the excitement
of streaming, soul to soul,
along the course of life,
I will stand for pure reflective pools
and the welcoming in
of everything that yearns,
everything that hears.
©Wendy Mulhern
December 31, 2016