Sorrow

Sorrow has its season,

not as master, but as shadow,

a reminder of emptiness

and the song that fills it

Sorrow brings us 

down through the wet passage

of echoes, dark shiny walls

and the sound of dripping

We will know how deep we are

as sorrow plumbs us.

We’ll come out richer

on the other side.

©Wendy Mulhern

December 30, 2019

Circling Home

We keep on circling home

like coins that spin and fall

and ring and ring

before they find their still point

We circle home

and our sudden sadnesses

bring us up short.

It may be a long fly

before we realize

we never left.

©Wendy Mulhern

December 22, 2019

In the library parking lot

Children emerge from the library

paired with parents

and two steps out the door

they invariably

break into running or dancing or singing,

bouncing against their parent’s staider gait

like leaves caught by the autumn breeze,

pent up from stillness

now released —

as rich a gift to me

as the tall oak trees,

resplendent red above,

speaking of community,

a place that cares for them.

©Wendy Mulhern

November 13, 2019

The look of love

You wear the look of love

on your face. It’s easy to see

that someone lets you know

that you are cherished, every day.

It lends a sense of comfort

to your gait, your smile,

lets you move easy

through the changes in your life

If I can help someone —

—anyone — to look that way,

I’ll surely do it. It’s worth considering

in what small ways, and in what kind

of continuity of care, I can convey this

to people in my life,

so they will have the comfort they deserve.

©Wendy Mulhern

June 14, 2019

Imagining

I’m imagining us, not too long hence,

walking hand in hand

though in the vision

it’s more like streaming light,

all of us grateful

to have been brought together

I imagine us streaming like that

all the time — then I consider

you will have others, too,

others to share and celebrate

and so will we

and the whole thing

will be so much grander

than I can think up

So I’ll just bask in the warmth of it,

how it comforts me and holds me up

right here and now.

©Wendy Mulhern

March 10, 2019

Reflecting on precious times

I collect these moments like stars.

I can hold them in my hand.

Though they may be short blips in time,

they are as infinite

as what they reveal

For sparkling grace is this exactly —

the evidence in one small moment

of one great Truth, 

big enough to guarantee

heart-waking beauty,

tender and wonderstruck alignment

in the unfoldment

of the perfect peace

of now.

©Wendy Mulhern

February 27, 2019

As it continues

We have covered ground here,

through the longest night

and well into the year,

we have found healing,

sometimes tenuous

but slowly coming clear,

and though you’ve flown,

we still will walk this path together

The sun this morning

was almost match

for the gusting winds,

blue ruled the water and the sky,

we skirted puddles

on the familiar road to town,

hand in hand, you and I

So far we’ve come, beyond the judgment,

beyond the strife, beyond the words,

we think we see the curving of the earth,

and maybe on that circle

we’ll find our way back home

and taste the flavor of our native worth.

©Wendy Mulhern

February 14, 2019

Investment

You brought the fresh wind in with you,

you brought exhilaration,

the momentum of swift striding

and moments of being at your best

I took the time to share with you

some of that breathing,

some of that joy at just-right-ness.

It’s worth a lot — 
an investment, no doubt,

sure to enrich.

©Wendy Mulhern

January 28, 2019

Soft

The day went soft.

Snow started but did not continue.

Ice on the pond got wet on top

and slushy at the edges.

Our feet stepped quiet

on the brown oak leaves

We, too, are soft —

soft towards each other,

soft in the tender places

where our edges touch

We may be overcast

but we are warm,

we may lack brilliant blue

but we still have sienna.

©Wendy Mulhern

January 18, 2019

Winter Rain

Mist hides the distance,

rain knocks against the house,

we turn on lights against the dark and cold,

a fair-dealt day of winter

eliciting our fair response —

napping, dreaming,

drawing close to family,

seeking the inner light

each holds as beacon,

seeing the radiance

of our harmonic shine.

©Wendy Mulhern

January 5, 2019

Gathering

This is not the end.

This is the gathering,

the quick forming of a circle

that pools light, exudes warm,

and sets us remembering

what we are here for anyway,

sets us thinking

this is so easy,

this is really so very simple,

this is so much what we’ve always been about —

why didn’t we come to it sooner?

©Wendy Mulhern

December 10, 2018

Welcome Home

You can go ahead

and set those worries right down

in the hall. You don’t need

to carry them upstairs

Come in, relax — every part of you

is welcome. We will thoroughly enjoy

all that you are

Even Awkward, that funny half-relative,

can feel at home here.

We don’t take him too seriously,

which comes as a relief to him.

I saw him settling in, with new ease,

leaning in to the surrounding laughter

We’re glad you found us. Whether you traveled

five hours in a sleigh, or six in an airplane,

or ten minutes across the bumpy winter grass,

your coming makes our circle rounder —

your presence is desired.

©Wendy Mulhern

November 27, 2018

Bars

Though you may fall and fall

through the bars of memory,

hitting at moments, going back and down

Though you may feel

striped beyond redemption,

branded by the light and dark,

strobed to instability

You cannot fail.

This is not about you —

it’s about your Maker,

and your Maker knows you whole.

©Wendy Mulhern

October 31, 2018

Summer evening on the land

The evening chirps of turkeys

are almost as refreshing

as the coolness that hasn’t come yet

(though I expect it soon)

— something like the sound

of bright cold water drops

I know enough by now about their language —

this chirping is the dialog of mom and chicks:

I am here and you are here —

let’s gather in this place

and call it home —

we are safe when we are here with you,

you are safe with me

They’ll fly up later into trees,

the mama birds will spread their wings,

the chicks will snuggle in.

The cooling night will magnify their coziness,

its quietude a lullaby for them.

©Wendy Mulhern

July 23, 2018

Progress Report

Baby steps toward healing —

being able to talk about it,

recognizing there was nothing

we could have changed,

given what we understood then,

given what we knew

Nothing that, had we done differently,

could have brought a different outcome.

Nothing short of 

the salvation of the whole world

could make a difference

So there it is —

what could have helped us then

can help us even now.

We turn around and face the place

where dawn will come.

©Wendy Mulhern

May 28, 2018

Continuing

And life asserts itself

unendingly, with patience and with joy,

in baby ducks and beavers

and herons on the wing

and that blackbird

with its exultant warble

in the late afternoon sun

that still reaches it, there in the treetop

Life continues, in dating and in weddings,

in friends confiding in each other,

in families, in passing generations

And we will, too,

affection being the most important thing —

we’ll hold it tenderly

and we will rise.

©Wendy Mulhern

May 25, 2018

Mother’s Day

A rose may be shared,

as also, perhaps, a child,

or at least, the ties of motherhood

This didn’t come out as we expected,

did it, my love? But no matter —

it can be another thing we laugh about together

You, me, your dad, your brother —

we’ll all have a good laugh at this,

next time we get together,

next time we take a walk along the beach.

©Wendy Mulhern

May 13, 2018

Mending

Family folds us in

in ways we didn’t know we could expect,

nets of connection bear us up,

many arms embrace us

So the mending begins,

of holes we mostly can’t even see,

things that must be obvious to others —

places we are leaking,

Why we seem to need to keep sleeping,

simple tasks that seem impossible —

At some time we will have to rise up

and reassume our former mantles.

But for now we’ll let ourselves be held

circled up in other people’s care.

©Wendy Mulhern

April 29, 2018

Surrender

I’ll take what is given,

this storm, with roaring winds

and rain that slaps itself through screens

and runs down panes,

this sleep,

these people whose threads

are so deeply interwoven with my fabric

that we feel each other’s tug,

each other’s strength,

this truth, which settles out

(today, in luminescent teal)

so clear, so unassailable,

awaiting, but not demanding

my surrender, my return

to where I was before the world began.

©Wendy Mulhern

April 27, 2018

Aquifer

We will sit

in the comfort of each other,

we will talk

of things we know,

we will find solace

in the solidness of bodies,

in the quiet light

of shared confidences

There is a way forward —

it may come in settling back,

back into what feeds our life flow,

the shared aquifer of truth.

©Wendy Mulhern

April 26, 2018