Dramas

When we thought we walked on solid ground,
our world was full of dramas —
so many things that could go right or wrong,
and underneath them,
the persistent weight
of hopes that never quite vaulted
to their victories, and the resultant lowering,
over weeks and years,
of the ceiling of our possibilities

As we began to learn that substance
is something else,
that what we thought we walked on
was separating, like melting floes,
but we were still standing,
the dramas, too, took on a different meaning

Things still matter to us deeply
but not so much for turns of plot
as for the places, shining through everything,
where our truth transforms the story,
where we prove that we are free.

©Wendy Mulhern
December 23, 2016

Once

sound-and-mountains

Truth is so potent
you only need to see it once.
After that, all the constructs
that were called right
are seen as powerless,
are seen as shams.

But if you haven’t seen it
you may be fooled.
You may think good
just means compliant
or sanctioned by the current tyrant power.
You may think you’re in
a zero sum game
in which it is a constant fight to live

If we don’t know truth
we need a savior,
someone to show it to us once.
Once we’ve seen it we’ll be free —
That will be enough.

©Wendy Mulhern
December 19, 2016

What’s Real

beach-locusts-winter

I feel what’s real
has been here all along —
it sometimes stood in shadow
beside everything that we were striving for

And sometimes in our clamor
we would wholly mute it out,
and sometimes in our prayer
it would sift in,
subtle as light between branches
lapping limb shadows
across the other trees,
coming into quiet focus, recognized as substance
by the joy that rises, and the fullness

And happiness turns out to be so simple,
not needing anything but presence —
presence and welcome, kindness and acceptance,
the free gift of loving you
just because you’re here,
the many-dreamed essence suddenly clear.

©Wendy Mulhern
December 16, 2016

For The Taking

lake-at-magnuson-early

I see that actually
the light can’t be hid,
the gift can’t be co-opted.
The revolutionary nature of truth
can’t be bought out or bought off,
can’t be papered over
with worldly celebration

No matter how extensive
and prolonged the misdirection,
our compass, finally,
will guide us home
to where we see the gift
of our inherent liberation
has never been withheld,
and no one stops us
from standing up to claim it

And as we claim it, we will feel
incomparable joy of solidarity
and we will fill
with that revealing light
which makes us know certainly
why we are here.

©Wendy Mulhern
December 4, 2016

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.

Requested Prayer

spanish-moss-needles

The indigenous nations
have asked for prayer —
it’s one thing I can do,
one thing they say
can really help

I’ve been steeped in stories,
wandering the internet,
my heart now ragged
from screaming with some stories
and raging against others

It has asked for a moment of silence.
It agrees that the only way
to get to truth, to peace,
is to sink down in prayer
and so I offer this:

Truth, be with us. You are
the fabric of our being
and you hold our wholeness
and you let no lie stand.
You deliver us from the ravages
of our oppressive culture

You speak to us from within,
you let us know
you are here to deliver us
from the whole centuries long
network of lies. You are here, Truth —
open all our eyes.

©Wendy Mulhern
November 27, 2016

Truth’s Battle

barbed-wirerailroad

When faced with truth,
why does the lie
continue to assert itself?
Why does it cry
with added vehemence,
why does it escalate violence?

When faced with truth
the lie does what it always does —
proceeds to blithely mouth itself,
pretends that volume
will give it substance

Keep holding truth! The lie
has no power of its own.
After all, it isn’t true.
The lie can only gain ascendance
in the chamber of other lies

Once people taste the truth
they must believe it
so keep holding on
and truth will win.

©Wendy Mulhern
November 22, 2016

Standing Watch

magnuson-ducksunshrub

This standing watch
is not without its distractions
but I am starting to learn
not to go barking off after decoys,
not to be taken from the inside
by what calls itself indignation,
what calls itself wounds,
not to be undermined
by complacency, and not to be
thrown off course by blame

I will watch to see
that no lies about anyone
can obscure their precious essence,
and no caul of helplessness
can obstruct our needed action

I appeal to the Truth
that knows more than I do
about these things
and will flood out
all the obfuscation
with its light.

©Wendy Mulhern
November 12, 2016

Forevers

morning-waves

We are left no choice
but immortality. The time has come
to step into our true nature,
or rather, to stand clear in it
while the winds of these times
blow our illusions away

All the things we thought we were
are now so imperiled, so compromised,
that there’s no point in parsing out
the things that have gone wrong

But what we’ve always known inside
about our worth
gleams forth as miracle
right where we were thinking all was lost
and we will rally
around that bright truth
and it will save us
in more forevers than we need to count.

©Wendy Mulhern
November 9, 2016

Standing Wave

bike-path-reflections

The energy that makes you,
that holds you as a standing wave,
your essence ever moving,
your particles suspended,
can never cease from being what it is
and so can never drop you

The pulsing of the fact of you
continues unobstructed —
no other source exists,
no other impulse

Your pure intention, lightly clad,
is more than match
for any armored machination,
as a pile of dust, however mammoth,
is no match for a breath of wind.

Look how strong you stand,
look how unmovable —
Goliath never stood a chance
against your truth.

©Wendy Mulhern
November 7, 2016

Truth Seeking

row-boat

Everyone seeks truth.
It is our nature.
Of course our curiosity extends
to all the realms we know —
our curiosity thus proves
the presence of all the realms
in which we seek the truth

To seek the truth is tantamount
to striving to survive:
truth is inseparable from being,
so everything that’s living
lives in truth

And what of lies? And what of self delusion?
And what of petty desperation
that seeks to hide its essence
lest it be found and killed,
and what of that which seeks to kill
in order to conceal the truth?

These cannot live,
they can’t sustain themselves,
they can’t continue to be seen as truth.
Sooner or later, they snuff themselves out
since Truth and Life are one.

©Wendy Mulhern
October 31, 2016