Seed

Left once again

in the detritus of dysphoria,

ripped, deflated,

rendered helpless by its flat words

(give up, you can’t do it

and you don’t want to anyway

(take that palliative, don’t complain)

you don’t have whatever it may take

and don’t deserve to either)

You are not alone,

and though you feel

no one could approach you,

look again

As you let the stillness sweep you

as the ebbing wave subsides,

you will sense, inside, a tiny seed,

its threadlike roots extending,

pulling you together

till the sprout can lift its head

It will tell you

nothing overcomes you —

you will blossom, and your voice will soar,

you’re made of life —

that old voice isn’t —

it falls to dust, but you,

you still shine clear.

©Wendy Mulhern

March 7, 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

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

Rainy

I let myself fill up with rain.

It was an indulgence,

not something to sustain,

not something I have time for

in the day to day,

while the various buckets

we put under leaks

register their irregular

pticks and clangs and taps,

and hope seems to be leaking, too

We will get through this —

our source of strength does not depend

on all things rosy.

It will show itself steady,

well able to overcome

both internal and external rain.

©Wendy Mulhern

September 9, 2019

A kind of lostness

There was nothing substantial

to make a poem with

in that squid-inky mass of emotions

that squished around on the currents

of deep sighs, and a breeze

a little too cold to fall asleep in,

a state that could pass

like the swing of a hammock

or an adjacent snore

of exhaustion, late in the afternoon

of a day so unabashedly brilliant

that no kind of lostness

made any sense,

yet there it was,

waiting to be redeemed.

©Wendy Mulhern

June 23, 2019

Dry

I felt my vessel

had become a sieve,

suddenly unable

to capture and retain

that which would slake my thirst

For though the day was not devoid of brightness,

I found no pool within,

in which to reflect —

just a dry concavity

in which to feel alone,

a place collecting shadows

and the sound of bones.

©Wendy Mulhern

December 13, 2018

Protection

We need to put our heads together

and entwine our arms,

make a structure,

an impervious protection,

need to spread it largely out —

over everyone, in fact —

to hold us safe,

hold us all within

So when that old corkscrewing vortex

comes hurtling, twisting through

with its cold insinuation,

“what’s the point of you?”

we will each know

it has no toehold

in our sense of what is true,

and that old lie

will simply fall away.

©Wendy Mulhern

November 17, 2018

Taking the Train

We have come so far

along this haphazard path,

our footsteps not following

what we thought held our gaze,

our gaze, it turns out, being

too distracted and unfocused

to draw us to our hoped-for destinations

We will take the train —

its paths are laid down,

we don’t need to determine every step.

We’ll arrive where it takes us,

and if our lives feel unmoored, uprooted,

we won’t notice that so much

as long as we are moving.

©Wendy Mulhern

November 16, 2018

Look Up

Look up, little one —

there is a light to guide you

through the wistful night,

through the longing day

There is a place you are received

and not just at the end

of a long and lonely span

Your reception is right here, right now,

in the ever-present truth about your being

(a truth that never leaves you,

being immanently what you are)

It touches in

to the infinity that fuels your presence,

releases grace into your day,

robes you in its royal essence,

lights up everything

along your way.

©Wendy Mulhern

November 14, 2018

Indeed

The wind chimes sang to me

through the night

and into the morning —

they sweetened my dreams

and my prospects.

They were untiring

in their celebration of

the wind that came

up ocean, through trees,

across the craggy rocks of mountains,

bringing the fragrance of

the powerful rightness of everything,

that which returns each day, as if

all our pathetic twistedness

had not touched it at all

And indeed

the freshness that escapes

in these rifts of wind

is proof.

©Wendy Mulhern

March 10, 2016

Window

I waited for joy to come

like rain clearing,

but the rain didn’t —

I found myself tensed against

its cold drops, and against

the tasks at hand

(or lack of other ones)

I noticed there was nothing

I could summon to pine for,

no conditions that I felt 

occasioned or could remedy

the gray occlusion of my countenance

Later I remembered

how anyone can be a bright window —

Anyone can show a tiny hope,

just enough to engage the recognition

that brings me back,

that fills me up with light.

©Wendy Mulhern

March 9, 2016

Squozen

There had to be

enough force, I guess,

to break the tiny membranes,

to spin out the pulp

and let the juice come out

so it could coalesce

here at the bottom of the bowl,

here at the core.

Slow drips are still oozing down.

Later, we shall drink.

©Wendy Mulhern

February 15, 2016

Simply

This love was always

such a simple thing —

love of your bones, your limbs,

your snuggle, your warm, heavy head

How could I fail so utterly

to know my only duty

was to pass that love still gleaming,

my bone to yours, shiny and smooth,

clear, unequivocal,

holy and pure?

Here is my prayer —

in your presence to see

that this crucial transmission

has always been given,

with joy to perceive

that you’ve always received it,

it never depended on me.

©Wendy Mulhern

June 23, 2015

Mourning Time

I need the blessing

for those that mourn.

I mourn for something nameless

that cries in you

but won’t explain itself

I mourn for the chasm,

for the absent bridge,

I mourn for anything

I might have done or failed to do

to close the gap or span it,

I mourn the self-fulfillment

of a persistent dread

This healing is not

something I can do by sleight of thought.

This healing requires something ancient, timeless‚

the truth about you and me

that existed

before the world was framed,

the love that asserts itself,

flooding out the lie of pain.

©Wendy Mulhern

June 16, 2015

The Valley of Shadows

In the shaft of rescuing light, I see

I was not wrong,

need bear no shame,

for letting myself fall into shadow

I’m not expected to prevent

the cold dark spires

from passing over me,

the deepened gloom

from seeping in

It’s been foretold that this would happen

not once but regularly,

for which I am given instruction:

Walk through.

Walk through without fear:

Neither the shadow 

nor the saving light

are your creation

But my feet are mine

and the light within

(though it seem tiny in its distance)

will ever seek its own

and pull me through.

©Wendy Mulhern

April 8, 2015