Every day has its moment of gold,
perhaps in the sky,
perhaps in the land,
perhaps in a true smile reflected back
or in the core warmth
of knowing who I am
This gold is not traded
but it is multiplied,
every time it is fully felt,
every time it is shared.
©Wendy Mulhern
April 3, 2023
For after all, what are we about but
kindness?
It’s our best sense of ourselves,
our best hope. It is what fills us up with sweetness,
enough in a moment to last a day,
enough in a day to rocket us
clear up to the stars
So how could we ever think
there is some score to settle first?
(I would be kind if only others
weren’t mean to me)?
We’ve never really been about reaction.
What we are comes only from ourselves,
and what we are is kindness,
that dear embracing wisdom
which resonates within as deepest truth
and solves everything.
©Wendy Mulhern
February 17, 2023
In my image of you,
your toes and wing tips
are dipped in gold –
you have a sheen about you
And you are held
in high regard
by all the threads
that weave you into place,
that hold your context
and your community
In my image of you,
you are blessed – it is a buoyancy
that lifts you clear above
any kind of judgment –
your very definition
is safe.
©Wendy Mulhern
December 5, 2022
You don’t need to ask yourself,
What can I bring? What thing to carry
would make me worthy
to walk in this parade?
No one is watching,
and no one is judging,
but the light of blessing
that falls, just so, upon your head,
the light that graces you, and then reflects
in every face with whom you interact –
it is the thing we all are here to walk in,
and all of us can tell that it’s enough.
©Wendy Mulhern
November 29, 2022
Try to remember
when the demons howl at you
that you have the right
to remain silent. You are not required
to defend yourself, to be drawn in
to their nets of intimation
Try to remember
that we are here for you,
and we can vouch for your innocence,
we can vouch for your worth
And even though you may succumb
to many tears at their taunts, you will find
that the truth about you
lets you leave them in the dust
as soon as you remember.
©Wendy Mulhern
June 15, 2022
So far I am from understanding
the algorithm that comprises
who we think we are
or how we think we heal,
and what I could possibly do
to reach into those complicated nodes
and set a thing to right
But this I know:
We’re powered by the same desire,
and there are words
each of us needs to hear
coming from deep within,
ensuring us that all is well,
including us, including us.
©Wendy Mulhern
May 29, 2022
After the weather,
between whatever storms
may seem to take up all your thought,
after fear’s spiral has driven you down,
there’s still a place in you
that finds a way to float up,
and the small good points
which you have counted on
to save your sense of worth
assert their buoyancy.
They are bigger than you thought,
able to deliver you,
able, finally, to shake themselves
from any other story
and fill up all the spaces in your being.
©Wendy Mulhern
May 28, 2022
I feel us coming conscious
of a simple fact, the truth of which
unpins a whole metropolis,
all its intricate relations and
exacting machinations
imploding
into
irrelevance
I feel the mirth of it,
the little ripple that becomes a laugh,
the rolling freedom rising up,
the waves of burdens
falling off, falling off
and now gone
Much larger than a birthright,
this right of being settles in,
this not needing to earn or prove
anything, this priceless value
of each of us
is everything we ever need.
©Wendy Mulhern
February 2, 2022
When you have to pay everything,
there’s no more counting cost,
no need, as there is no withholding
When you have to pay everything
because the cost is exactly
the whole of you,
you step across a threshold
to infinity
The things in daily life can’t tell you,
on their own, but somehow
you will come to know
you can’t be bought or sold,
can’t make a bargain of yourself,
and can’t be dolled,
and paying everything may be the price
for knowing that you always have been whole.
©Wendy Mulhern
January 12, 2022
In the way the world’s ways have been served to us,
(chopped and tiered, large swaths discounted)
it’s hard for us to fathom
how every single life is needed –
every perspective, even and especially
the ones that seem the most recalcitrant
They are holding out
for the most magnificent shining,
the one that will overcome
even their bleakest rages
They are holding out for a justice
so comprehensive
that no one here has yet imagined it –
the one that gives each one of us
our royal, rightful place.
©Wendy Mulhern
August 25, 2021