Awaiting Sleep

While waiting for sleep

I can think about

lost love, or just as easily,

moss on logs, their curving velvet

catching luminescence

from some unseen source

I can feel the fall of my stomach

against the sheets,

I can feel my feet,

toes pressed against heel.

I can pay attention to my breathing,

slow and deep, with satisfying pauses

at the bottom of each breath

Perhaps I feel, at times,

a haunting tug, from just around

the curl of thought,

reminding me that I could cry and cry,

but by and by

I’d need to recognize

these dramas are my own concoction.

I’ll wait for sleep. 

It will come, no doubt,

while I’m somewhere else.

©Wendy Mulhern

February 11, 2016

February, Matthew’s Beach

A duck swims across my shadow

and moves on,

A seagull preens itself, and squeals,

Trucks rumble and beep,

out of sight, but with great echoing clatter,

Little waves lip the shore and ripple back.

The sun is not as warm as I expected,

Still welcome, after my shaded ride.

I’m wishing I could take it with me

going home.

Not every day has deep epiphanies.

Some, like this one,

have a slight smell of fish,

great strides of satisfying productivity,

and an easy feeling of well-being

Some days, like this one

ride high in the present joy

without much to say about it.

©Wendy Mulhern

February 9, 2016

Breaking Through

You have permission

right now

to leave behind your paper life,

your paper and cardboard life,

your brittle or sodden life

with its sad messes

of glue and peeling paint

You have permission to embrace

that thumping and insistent life

that shakes the old foundations

and breaks through

You never were beholden

to the protocol

of all those stiff facades.

Your roots cleave to the earth’s core

and your branches —

your branches clasp the sky.

©Wendy Mulhern

February 8. 2016

Processes

It is evening

but the skylights haven’t darkened yet —

clouds are still visible beside the cedar treetops,

moving east

My mind reaches into the boldening gloaming

where daylight is stretching

visibly longer than just last week.

I feel the lifting off of a forgotten weight,

like clarity after dizziness,

like fog condensing on my eyelids as it dissipates

There can be comfort

in the rolling out of time,

February’s fleetness,

the winds of spring,

the progress of all life’s processes,

underground, overhead,

within.

©Wendy Mulhern

February 7, 2016

Sinking In

I wrap myself

in this comfortable

sense of cozy,

then I snuggle in

close to you

so you can feel it —

how deep my contentment

to be right here, right now,

how I sink in to you

with the soft yes

that invites your presence

but doesn’t demand anything.

©Wendy Mulhern

February 5, 2016

Outlook

Some days are better than others,

some parts of days

better than other parts.

Some have highs and lows,

others blips of cogency 

with intermittent gaps,

places where things seem

reasonable enough

but in retrospect

it is astounding

what I missed,

what I allowed.

There is no chart for this, however,

no beeping graph to mark the ups and downs —

it is subjective as the very moment

that frames my outlook —

it can change in an instant.

©Wendy Mulhern

February 4, 2016

Absolute Value

In our lives,

only good is given —

The darkest shadow

is still just a shadow,

cast by something

so magnificent

we don’t know how to see it

Dark times are here to show

how deep the love

that reaches down to gather us.

We won’t remember them

as anything but light —

jewels of our journey,

guiding our paths.

©Wendy Mulhern

February 3, 2016

vessel by Jennifer McCurdy, photo by Julius Friedman