Trying

 

My tears keep trying
to dissolve the contours
leading to the sad stories  -
deep and innocent desires
and how they're dashed
by nothing but the surge of seas
of crossed intentions, missed perceptions,
and the desperate reaching
for glinting lights
within the tips and furrows of the waves

My tears keep trying
to settle all this out,
not just for me, but for every one of us,
everyone whose story makes me cry.
We are all striving for the same thing -
we just don't know it -
my tears are trying
to make it clear.

©Wendy Mulhern
October 31, 2022

Citadel

 

It could be fall.
What could befall?
I will not allow
the course of my life
to be turned

And yet land falls beneath me,
a sinkhole, a swallowing,
the sudden downward shift  -
how to maintain footing?
And where can I land?

An image has been forming,
appearing, as out from fog,
solid, but only sometimes seen -
a citadel, a rock to stand on,
a place that will not shift,
that will stay with me,
whatever changes ripple through,
whatever seems to disappear

I will learn to feel it
under my feet,
I'll learn to find it,
and I'll stay here.

©Wendy Mulhern
October 29, 2022

Wait

Well, I'd rather tell of light that reaches through

than poignantly delineate depression
(sustain of all my strings
muted to a dull gray "thub")

A light that reaches, rather than piercing,
a lifting off of fog, frequent as dawn

And in the same way as I can't
make it light outside before the morning,
I can be patient now
and wait the coming day.

©Wendy Mulhern
October 28, 2022

Present time

 

(from the virtual biking philosophers' notebook)

What you remember
belongs to you. You can have
the saturation of a bright red crayon
and the sound it makes
when it leaves its waxy mark on the paper
on a hot day in Pasadena

You can have the bright cold
of blue green water,
salty and enlivening
at Menemsha

You are free to weave dreams
of all of these, or you can layer them
with the view out the window,
you can use them to craft possibilities
for future moments

You can transmute them as needed,
you can harvest and employ
their secret power,
you can enjoy them
as light-mixed colors
adding riches to your present time.

©Wendy Mulhern
October 27, 2022

Climbing

 

There is no magic elevator
to lift you from the pit -
you must climb out,
handhold by foothold

It's not enough that you have tried,
proven that you know
how to grasp the rocks -
every elevation must be gained

But there's a secret sustenance  -
you'll feel it as you climb -
your hands, your feet, your breath
will send the message

The life power of your movement
will fill you
with more of the same,
increasing steadily,
up the rough terrain.

©Wendy Mulhern
October 26, 2022

Secret

 

We forge this knowing
in the texture of a moment,
as winds and rains blow through
and pause

Everything we see contains the secret,
shouts it, really,
in its unspoken way

And we may ask and ask and ask,
and that is good,
for in the waiting
we find the silence,
and in the silence,
we hear the truth.

©Wendy Mulhern
October 25, 2022

Deeper

 

I seek solace in tears
but they are way below the surface,
an aquifer that needs to be replenished

I have stood against the opaque rock,
prayed that it become crystal,
yearned to see the light refracting through

And I don't know what messenger to send
down the coves, down the caves,
to reach the still point, bring things out right

So I'm called to a deeper surrender,
an ocean, perhaps, or something vaster,
a power so far stronger than words or reason
that can enclose us all and bring us home.

©Wendy Mulhern
October 24, 2022