As night closed in

It’s too dark to see my words

but not too dark to see

how the light falls on the page,

the glow along the center line

where it slopes in, and the orange cast

of the nightlight catching the curve

It was too late to find a poem that night,

shadow shapes showing where the words were

but not enough of thought

to pull it through.

©Wendy Mulhern

January 31, 2020

Word Vessels

At some moment of your permission

I step inside your words,

inhabit the image 

that you constructed,

a vessel in which I feel

the rush of life

that you put into it

In that moment 

it becomes mine, too —

a gift you’ve given me:

Heart body.

The trunks of trees that spoke

in your father’s voice

There is so much offered here —

so much more than conversation —

a boost of brightness

that arcs beyond the words,

warming and strengthening our bond.

©Wendy Mulhern

January 30, 2020

What People Sing About

There are so many ways to fall,

so many things to grasp

that just can’t hold you,

so much drama

at how things unravel,

or sag, or crash, or splinter

There are so many songs

that detail how the thing went down,

how it spiraled, how it flailed,

how it sank

We feel the pathos,

for who of us has not fallen,

who of us has not known

the stomach drop, the swift slide,

the quicksand’s implacable suck?

It isn’t known, as much,

what happens after —

the nature of the place where finally,

we land. If people knew of that,

maybe they’d sing of it more often —

the core of gravitas awaiting there.

©Wendy Mulhern

January 28, 2020

Winding Down

The rain outside sings a duet

with the clothes dryer in the other room,

sounds of wetness and of drying

sharing certain similarities,

ticks that are not quite rhythmic,

a repetition of random

Our orbits in the house

intersect sometimes

but mostly we are silent

in our own pursuits,

winding down the evening,

shoring ourselves up

against unraveling. 

©Wendy Mulhern

January 27, 2020

A lesser day

Before the day devolves

to winter evening’s sodden dark,

before the sun withdraws

and dusk and rain take over,

let its singularity and freshness make their mark,

let me take in all they have to offer

And let me not forget

the simple happiness 

of a place to be,

a place with warmth, 

a place with windows,

a place with everything I need

Though unmomentous,

this is not a lesser day,

though unpretentious,

it is still enough. 

©Wendy Mulhern

January 26, 2020

Ripping the Veil

If stars are pinpricks 

in the sheet of night,

if everywhere there is a tear

reveals a burst of light,

if every glimpse of truth

calls forth a clearer sight,

let’s look again to see 

what things are made of

Across the waves, across the sky,

in every blink between the views,

there is a place where we can try

to change the focus, find new clues

To rip the veil, to see beyond

the playbook written for our lives,

to where the wonder cracks the seams

and wells up in our hearts and minds,

and from our gait within the rhythmic beat

we have to stop

because this life is far more brilliant

than what we could describe.

©Wendy Mulhern

January 25, 2020

Citadel

I’m not waiting

for something to happen

(nothing ever comes about that way)

I’m coming back instead

to guard my citadel

(which, before this, I didn’t even know I had)

A citadel that I can furnish

with warm lights

and soft corners to inhabit,

with knowledge of the truth imparting sacred peace

And when it’s set, and when it’s centered,

when it’s clear,

I can invite others in,

I can bring them in to share

this all transforming calm.

©Wendy Mulhern

January 23, 2020

Starting Point

Every life has some deserts in it.

So I start with this — wind driven sand,

searing dry heat

and the sweeping of everything

till it’s bleached clean

I’ll start with this,

fighting my words back

to the starting point

through the cluttered

piles of mundanities

back to where the pure essence gleams

I start here in this desert

because of how clear

across the bones and rock

rings the voice of God.

©Wendy Mulhern

January 22, 2020

State of the Union

I have no skills

to bring to the table

I have no table

to bring anything to

I didn’t learn

in all my years

to make connections

that could pull any strings

And yet I’m pulling

with any breath I can align,

with any thoughts that I can think,

to reinforce the patterns

I hope to see emerge

I’ll pray for justice,

I’ll pray to see integrity

rise up in people

who were self serving

up till now

I’ll pray we all will see each other

by our lights and not our flaws

and see a way for true direction

for our land.

©Wendy Mulhern

January 21, 2020

Darkroom

You won’t find this answer

in the room of comparison —

it will expose the sensitive film,

and the image

that would rise up in the still darkness

of your own concentration

will be flooded out,

the alchemy aborted

You will find this answer

only as you learn

to close everything out

except the micro movements

of the present moment

as they unfold in timelessness

In that moment

(who can say how long it takes —

days? years? decades?)

you will see.

©Wendy Mulhern

January 20, 2020

Various Chasms

The lady I stayed with

(long time ago)

had little notes to herself

on her dresser —

reminders to keep going,

to look again for the joy of life,

to hold herself

against the drift of sadness

This I took note of,

though I had no place to put it

and no way to even relate,

various chasms

(at that time)

rendering it impossible

for us to know each other

I might know more now,

be able and willing

to bridge the gap

into which fell

all referents of recognition,

and also the knowledge

which we didn’t mention but probably shared

that I was the same age

her dead son would have been.

©Wendy Mulhern

January 19, 2020

Asymmetries

These asymmetries

must have their reasons,

a needed distinction

between upper and lower edge,

a way to account

for a difference in pressure, or drag

They must be balanced

by a corresponding weighting

on the other side —

the existence of one reveals

necessities of others

Nature doesn’t deal

in imprecision,

doesn’t throw any shape

carelessly about

Any distortion reveals the influence

of other forces,

the partnering in patterns

greater than oneself.

©Wendy Mulhern

January 18, 2020

Perception

In this dimension

there are no lines, really,

only curves that move

as you approach them,

only planes that sport

the spreading shadow of their angle

So don’t think you need

to draw the line —

this understanding is really

about inhabiting the form,

glowing the light from the inside,

feeling the curve and fullness of it —

how that always makes it seem to shift

as the perspective moves.

©Wendy Mulhern

January 17, 2020

Third Day

From my window

I keep watching the snow —

it’s falling fast now,

large flakes swirling

forcefully from the south,

waves of it rushing

to catch up with itself,

covering footprints

as if it could fall fast enough

to outrun the coming rains

which will wash it all away

swift as it came

(I went out for long enough

to get my face wet

catching snowflakes in my mouth and hair —

I felt like I owed it

a longer homage

but I was also drawn

to the hearth fire.)

©Wendy Mulhern

January 15, 2020

Snow Drift

Day dawns slow and pretty

in the sifting, wistful snow —

sky dark, snow light,

air held in windless stasis

These days, our sense of purpose

can easily drift, though we walk

in the cold air and the snow crunch

and ground ourselves, as best we can,

among the winter trees

We will hold hands and remind each other

our work is not in things

we can tick off lists,

and our gain, from each day,

is somewhere deeper than here,

something we may see again sometime.

©Wendy Mulhern

January 14, 2020

Winter Sap

You wake and seek the life elixir

but the sap of trees is sleeping

and yours — perhaps it’s crusted over

in the stress of things you tell yourself

and the press of boxes you’ve taken in —

cold steel against the softness of your inner parts,

dull ache from where you try

to bend around them

But still there’s something —

the touch of air, or movement

against the blankets,

a feather breath of light, or of another,

and the warm liquid stirs, finds strength,

begins to run the lengths

up and down along the inside of your hopes —

you stretch yourself, you move,

you feel alive.

©Wendy Mulhern

January 13, 2020

Come now, and let us reason together

though you may feel the tug

into the small box of sadness

though you may curl up there

though you may feel

in all honesty

it’s your only choice

the only thing that’s true and real

though you have no desire to fight

and from that standpoint

you see no reason why you’d want to,

this is not the story for you to choose

Consider life, after all.

Then your despair, or if you quibble

with the term, your nihilism,

could not exist except as foil

to all you’ve ever loved —

to love itself — and yet that love

has no need of an opposite

to be itself

By which you see

the love alone is real,

and so you might as well relax

and let it shine.

©Wendy Mulhern

January 11, 2020

Always an option

Today I thought about how

silence could be an option

in the early fading away

of light from the windows,

in the random lamplit reading

of books most often looked at but untouched

upon my shelves — basketry, house design,

Anglo-Welsh poetry, mushrooms —

I could stay silent

for this, another night like any,

not try to add any insights to the world

(as if that were what I do anyway)

I could have stayed silent,

but then there was this.

©Wendy Mulhern

January 10, 2020

Repentance

After this, I’m hoping

to remember to surrender daily,

or more often, as needed,

to give up all the small accumulations

trying to accrete,

to make themselves be something

and to fool me into thinking they are me

Ach — let them all dissolve,

may their lurid blooms float up

and dissipate

in the springing forth of what sustains me,

in the burble lift of purification,

the constant renewing of my place

in the unity of being.

©Wendy Mulhern

January 9, 2020

Blanket

Let me construct a thought blanket —

it’s light as lace, and made of stars,

it’s stretchy and it’s huggy

and infinitely soft

I will throw it over

my thought of you —

I hope you will feel it

snuggling in. I hope you will find

the stars nourishing,

and that the net of it

will pull things together for you

and make you feel at peace

I hope it will hold you

steady like the moon

through all the hours of night,

that it will help you sleep

and make your dreams be sweet and bright,

I hope it will cancel all your worries

and deliver you refreshed

into the morning light.

©Wendy Mulhern

January 6, 2020

Ready to launch

Just now, walking back from next door,

(five days in and none too soon)

it felt like the new year. Something about

the cold air, maybe,

or the gibbous moon,

something about the clarity of the dark sky

Quick as the steps through the dark,

well known enough that I wouldn’t trip

on the rough ground,

I felt a sort of whirring,

a clicking in of hope, of stamina —

I looked up — something inside said

OK, I’m ready,

ready to launch.

©Wendy Mulhern

January 5, 2020

Instant Vision

In the instant vision

I saw the way your touch

took its place

in the work of restoring

the radiating order —

how it gave everyone

a key thing they needed

to relax in inner peace

and look up

I saw it as a token

for how we each

will find our place

and fill in the grand design.

Broken filaments will twine themselves

back together

and the whole world 

will light up.

©Wendy Mulhern

January 4, 2020

I don’t know

We watched the water change.

No sun to set, but gray and russet

tones darkened, something less than wind

ruffled the water, pleating the reflections,

bringing the lighter and the darker

lines across the surface

I don’t know where to put this,

you said. I don’t know where 

to put anything,

not here, not anywhere.

I don’t know why I’m crying.

©Wendy Mulhern

January 3, 2020

2020

A year to see with clearer eyes,

a year to walk away from lies,

a year to speak the nuanced truth,

a year to listen and to hear

A year to seek the unity of mind,

a year to leave the rhetoric behind,

to find the sanity of quiet voices

and leave the ruts of falsely defined choices

It could be now, it could be just the time

to cease our flailing and take on the steady climb,

and in the face of so much we could fear

it still may be a fine, auspicious year.

©Wendy Mulhern

January 2, 2020

Something like that

(from the biking philosophers’ notebook)

I wouldn’t want a tame bird,

she said. Wild birds

have so much life. They don’t

need our bread

Still, a wild bird

could take you somewhere,

in the trill of song,

the dip and dart of wing

You could have a relationship

with the badlands. They could

take your breath away

in the way they pull the light

like it was a silk scarf

or a skein of time

stretched and altered,

rendered otherworldly

You could find a related essence

in a baby’s smile, in the flash

of that moment where you shared

a recognition of each other’s souls,

your unplumbed depth,

or a mutual acceptance

that lets you both stay wild

in some elemental way,

elixir of living,

life breath of day.

©Wendy Mulhern

January 1, 2020