Is this a function of years?

Things start to feel

more like a story,

less like my life

All the things we failed to engineer,

all the things we tried to make happen,

the things that happened anyway,

the time that passed,

all the little memories —

trapped jewels of moments

glinting in the web 

of our day-to-day past

The soft glow of acceptance

soothes the edges

of fervent and forgotten hopes —

we will not cause

the things that happen

but we will move through them

like light across the day,

we will take them in

to our ascending warmth.

©Wendy Mulhern

December 10, 2015

Christmas Letter

There will be no Christmas letter

from us this year.

No Christmas letter, and no attending parties

where people talk and laugh and fill each other in

on their lives.

We have gone under water

and all our currency is ruined,

Or we have flown or fallen

into some different world

where we have yet to learn the referents.

We are rendered mute

not by being empty

but by being full —

too full to stir the new things in

(sloshing over the sides)

We’d love to tell you all about this

but we can’t.

©Wendy Mulhern

December 8, 2015

Unmiraculous

Days can seem unmiraculous,

even when someone returns,

from three days in bed

and one foot in another world,

to this one, and resumes his former place

as if nothing has happened

(and it hasn’t)

Days can seem staid

though much has been accomplished,

papers sorted and filed,

order restored

as rain lays down its seeps and puddles

throughout the darkish day

and things settle underground,

and the water table rises capably

It may be unmiraculous

that life goes through its quiet transformations,

yet miracle ever awaits

our moments of noticing.

©Wendy Mulhern

December 7, 2015

Course Correction

Forgive me. I have overstepped.

I should have known.

Thank you. For in this rebuff

I have come to understand

I was off course. I must not 

take personal credit

for that which shines through me,

I must not

try to direct it, make it a story

(featuring me)

That which shines me

may have other vectors in mind

and is calling me

to a more present focus,

to work that magnifies

peace for everyone,

letting worries slide away,

letting each idea

come in and be received

in its perfect time.

©Wendy Mulhern

December 6, 2015

If it is art

If it is art

it will build on everything

that came before it,

and it will add something —

the excitement of

the fresh curve of cresting wave,

bright froth touched

by this singular breath of wind,

the clean erasure of past footprints

and its new line on crusted sand

brought here through

swells that built across the sound,

carrying each signal

of ships, of currents,

fish and whales,

the deep memory of ancient water

and the surface memory

that knows the oneness

to which it constantly returns

If it is art

it will touch your skin

in just that way —

so much truth laid down

in the communion of your viewing.

©Wendy Mulhern

December 4, 2015

vessel by Jennifer McCurdy

photo by Julius Friedman

Saved

We will not save each other

but we will be saved.

When our tallies fail,

when our expectations fall,

and we’ve both put up our barriers

and each need to be saved first,

we can not save each other

But the fact that we reached out our hands

invokes the ever present aid,

the way we once saw light within each other

has earned our eyes the power to see the light

The light will save us

as it always has,

for it has never left us from its sight.

©Wendy Mulhern

December 3, 2015

Untangled

You lift me from my tangled threads of story,

though I grab back at them, keep trying

to catch them up, to follow them,

to tease them out

Your hand is firm,

You hold me still

until I recognize

I was not ever tied

to all those histories,

never bound to those projected outcomes

I have always been 

determined solely

by Your essence.

Your untroubled knowing of who I am

sings me into being 

in every moment,

never moved by any other force,

hallowed, safe, and steady on my course.

©Wendy Mulhern

December 1, 2015