Guidance

I am thankful your desire

is stronger than your will,

stronger than your resolutions,

stronger than anything that I,

in my foolish teaching,

may have installed.

Your desire is a persistent weight

that always, in the end, plumbs true.

It will lead you

to just what you need.

It will feed you

all that completes you,

all that delivers you

to the life-filling purpose

that is you, that is your home.

©Wendy Mulhern

August 31, 2013

Symphony Road, Boston

Through the city windows throb

music and voices from a life

that is not mine,

though the tendrils of connection

from my past

still reach deep into my psyche,

and the allure

of living that life

with the skills I have now

tickles my dreams.

But my face in the mirror shows me

this life is as far removed from me

as those voices,

close across the narrow street,

stories and walls away.

©Wendy Mulhern

August 30, 2013

Doing Things Together

We did not sail in the rain

though we came right to the edge of it

in the sweet game of willingness

to enter the space of shared experience,

to find the delight 

in each other’s pleasure,

to join in at something 

that all of us love.

Anyone’s strong intent

would have brought the others along

but we all decided

in the grey mist and wind on the shore

that we’d be better served

going home

to hang out together and bake things

in the cozy kitchen,

letting the wind outside

wrap us in a soft cocoon.

©Wendy Mulhern

August 29, 2013

Logan Airport — Ground Transportation

Certain things can be written

in the roar of the airport terminal

where buses wheeze and screech

in the echoing concrete beneath the interchange.

The words are not soft,

though there’s a calmness in our waiting

and good-naturedness in others

in this slowing space

along the disparate trajectories of travel.

It’s too loud and hard

amid the engines and the beeping carts

to find an outward peace —

It is a time to patiently endure,

a din to send my focus inward.

©Wendy Mulhern

August 27, 2013

Refuge

I’m putting down roots,

finding anchor

against the dizzy winds,

the strident lying stories

that have swirled us all our lives

as we tried to find meaning

in the vague continuity

offered by their endless repetition.

In the stillness of groundedness

the winds seem harder

but they serve to reinforce

the sense of refuge,

the place of home,

the finding of the solid truth on which I stand,

the rock from which I now shall not be moved.

©Wendy Mulhern

August 27, 2013

Napping

While we nap

wind blows through the house,

doors slam,

rain patters outside.

Your hand twitches —

you’re already under.

I hear the cars roar by.

A jay squawks, and a flicker.

A little dog is yapping

and we are here in a sweet space

connected by the rise and fall of our breathing

and this short span of time

before I go.

©Wendy Mulhern

August 26, 2013

Edges

The waning day moon

cruised across the breathless sky,

the air caught in that magic freshness —

sun warmed coolness —

drawing all breath to its attention.

Then clouds converged

along the bounds of summer

and rain came down to wash us

towards the edge of fall.

©Wendy Mulhern

August 25, 2013