What People Sing About

There are so many ways to fall,

so many things to grasp

that just can’t hold you,

so much drama

at how things unravel,

or sag, or crash, or splinter

There are so many songs

that detail how the thing went down,

how it spiraled, how it flailed,

how it sank

We feel the pathos,

for who of us has not fallen,

who of us has not known

the stomach drop, the swift slide,

the quicksand’s implacable suck?

It isn’t known, as much,

what happens after —

the nature of the place where finally,

we land. If people knew of that,

maybe they’d sing of it more often —

the core of gravitas awaiting there.

©Wendy Mulhern

January 28, 2020

Various Chasms

The lady I stayed with

(long time ago)

had little notes to herself

on her dresser —

reminders to keep going,

to look again for the joy of life,

to hold herself

against the drift of sadness

This I took note of,

though I had no place to put it

and no way to even relate,

various chasms

(at that time)

rendering it impossible

for us to know each other

I might know more now,

be able and willing

to bridge the gap

into which fell

all referents of recognition,

and also the knowledge

which we didn’t mention but probably shared

that I was the same age

her dead son would have been.

©Wendy Mulhern

January 19, 2020

Something like that

(from the biking philosophers’ notebook)

I wouldn’t want a tame bird,

she said. Wild birds

have so much life. They don’t

need our bread

Still, a wild bird

could take you somewhere,

in the trill of song,

the dip and dart of wing

You could have a relationship

with the badlands. They could

take your breath away

in the way they pull the light

like it was a silk scarf

or a skein of time

stretched and altered,

rendered otherworldly

You could find a related essence

in a baby’s smile, in the flash

of that moment where you shared

a recognition of each other’s souls,

your unplumbed depth,

or a mutual acceptance

that lets you both stay wild

in some elemental way,

elixir of living,

life breath of day.

©Wendy Mulhern

January 1, 2020

Good Night

At the delicious edge of sleep —

the doors of dream enticingly ajar

(or maybe they are more like pools

or limbs exploring towards infinity)

From that alluring edge

I’m reeled back in —

your voice, or at another time

your finger tapping —

engendering my dull reluctant rise

through layers swiftly shredding

back to here

And so my softest thing to do 

is laugh —

it shimmers with releasing ripples,

keeps my thought from coalescing solid,

allows my sleepy drift

back toward the edge …

©Wendy Mulhern

December 26, 2019

Us in the morning

You: What are you thinking about?

Me: Same thing I always —

You: Oh, God …

Me: That’s exactly right

You: And me, I’m thinking about 

what I always think about, too …

(a pause, we snuggle in)

…the house — how to build it,

what to do next

The wonder of it is

that we can come together,

or almost — good enough

to keep the project going

day after week after year.

©Wendy Mulhern

October 17, 2019

Between the rains

The rain has given us a break —

we work in silence,

finding it more harmonious

than the questions and projections

that would otherwise fill up the space

No need to annoy each other,

no need to talk about the things we cannot know.

After the window closes,

we’ll do the next thing that makes sense,

taking in the necessary factors

that will reveal themselves by then.

©Wendy Mulhern

September 16, 2019

On Love

What we collectively

don’t understand about love

has filled volumes

We keep trying

one person’s map or another,

we feel so sure at times

and then so doubtful,

and much of what we’re sure about 

is false, and as for what we doubt,

who knows if it is true?

And yet we keep on seeking it,

and somewhere deep inside we know

that something in us always loves

and so is always worthy

And any love we know

is real

and it will shine out

through our misconceptions —

every love will purify itself

until, with deep relief, we understand.

©Wendy Mulhern

August 7, 2019

Your Spirit Today

The trees give shady respite —

I see their gentle breathing

in the rise and fall of limbs —

they are at peace with wind,

with Spirit

You are like that today —

in the calm of your demeanor

I feel the day breathing,

your spirit a balm against the work,

your steady motion

bearing us forward

along the course that we are learning

not to plan so much as ride,

not to engineer so much as live.

©Wendy Mulhern

July 27, 2019

To Edward

Though I may not know

in the eternal scheme of things

just what you are to me,

I can say

you are more than my calculus problem,

more than my ongoing test,

more than the mirror

it’s taken me too many years

to recognize as such

We hold each other up

in undetected ways —

perhaps we each receive

direction, motivation,

perhaps we are encouraged

and in our different vectors, strengthened

by each other.

I may be vine

to your trellis,

you may be

bird to my tree.

©Wendy Mulhern

July 2, 2019

Leaning

This can be a space of

leaning into you,

of being quiet,

taking our tone

from the softness of the day,

its cloudiness, mist hanging

in the trees,

evening seeming to come sooner

Feelings can rise like mist

and sit in mind

like low clouds —

we won’t do anything about them

except lean in for comfort,

lean in for support.

©Wendy Mulhern

July 1, 2019

Victory

There is victory

in finding a way to work,

finding a way to work together —

the rhythm, the banter,

the settling in to tasks

that take two hands, and three,

and sometimes four

There is victory

when ways to get things done

open up, and what seemed impossible

becomes a set of steps that we can do,

getting better at them

as we go,

gaining in the strength to see things through.

©Wendy Mulhern

May 30, 2019

The World of People

Everywhere we stopped,

I wanted to eavesdrop,

wanted to throw myself

into the current

of other people’s lives,

wanted to feel

whatever it was they were feeling,

though I never really could quite hear

Out on the land

I am alive to the sounds

of geese and ravens,

turkeys, owls, the cycles

of water, of the seasons,

and the tutelage of Spirit,

my mind cleaving eager

to what it teaches

The world of people

drifts so far away,

I forget the goals, the games …

and though I don’t know

if I’ll ever play again,

I still, it seems, am drawn to watch.

©Wendy Mulhern

April 21, 2019

Trusts

With all the offerings of easy trust

we may accept some

that are not trustworthy,

just for the ease of letting go

of something that seems so hard

There is always a deeper trust

we can sink our roots towards —

it will offer strength

rather than ease,

and though the ease may seem

so tantalizing, 

the strength, most certainly,

will satisfy us more.

©Wendy Mulhern

April 19, 2019

Take a breath

A sudden light revealing snakes —

twisted, tangled, convoluting —

all the things I’ve thought

about these others here

while never casting light within myself

How could I, then, have thought myself

a better model? How blind to think 

that I could hold judgmental thoughts

without the mud and soot of false opinions

smearing all my windows from within!

Well, take a breath. It’s always

a good idea.  And let the sunlight

reveal what has been cleansed

and what’s still needed. Let tenderness

towards both yourself and others

wash everything and show you what is true.

©Wendy Mulhern

April 7, 2019

Intersections

We may walk together

along these paths,

along these stories,

we may share vistas

but this is not an open beach —

I am aware of holes

big enough to get lost in

Mostly

I’m not mentioning them,

I’m choosing ways

to go over or around them,

things I think you can believe,

things that won’t demand you

to walk the miles with me

through and out of darkness,

things that won’t demand you

to veer off wildly

from what you perceive.

Perhaps you also do the same for me

We only know each other

at the intersection of our known worlds,

and that’s the sector we can walk together.

©Wendy Mulhern

March 29, 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

Sparkle

Within the sparkle of your being,

between the separate sparkles,

I thought for a moment

I could enter. Could feel the crackle

of electric movement, effervescence

of the spaces in between —

Could step beyond boundaries

to where we occupy

the same space. A way to light up,

a way to receive.

©Wendy Mulhern

January 30, 2019

Unawakened

We rely on each other

and we let each other down

in small ways and in big ways

every day

We feel the crush of disappointment

but we keep on reaching out

because we think we have no choice.

Sometimes our efforts are rewarded,

if briefly

Our words and our intentions

go out like threads. They tangle,

they fall away. We try again

but often with the same results

We think we need each other

and we feel our need

is seldom satisfied.

We fall together unawakened

through the dream.

©Wendy Mulhern

December 17, 2018

Spaces

A big part of us

is the space we make for others,

the shape of them

we hold in our hearts, 

large enough to encompass

all their potential,

cozy enough to hold them close

We enlarge ourselves

the more we understand —

the more of others we take in

and hold dear.

We become what we love

and so we love what we become.

©Wendy Mulhern

October 20, 2018

Building

This work is changing us.

We are tacked and tapped

and jostled and nestled,

whacked and wrestled

into a closer fit 

This joinery, of old called harmony,

will make of us a sturdy structure.

What we build upon it — ah, 

that is unfolding day by day,

in rhythm and in dreams,

in understanding and in laughter.

Maybe someday

we’ll have time to see it.

©Wendy Mulhern

September 7, 2018