Preparing for Departure

There is a pacing

that falls shy of grace,

caught up short

on either side of waiting,

the quick skip effort

to align my step

with the gliding blocks of time

that we must mount

to reach our destination

So many back and forths

along the rushing skitter

and the pauses noticing

there’s plenty of time,

time to wait for things to charge,

time to breathe,

time we can’t apply, however,

to the final flurry

of all the things that have to happen

just before we leave.

©Wendy Mulhern

May 8, 2014

Leapfrog

I play leapfrog with the bus

down 15^th Avenue —

It stops for passengers,

I forge forward,

sometimes coasting, sometimes climbing.

It’s not my choice of game,

dwarfed, as I am,

by my opponent’s size

Somewhere along the long climb

up to 90^th,

I sense it must have turned,

leaving me to the scent of lilacs

and the quiet waving

of the backlit grass.

©Wendy Mulhern

May 7, 2014

After the Effort

OK. Breathe deep.

Sigh of release.

Back from the surge of exertion

fall

the elements of me —

falling to rest,

falling to quiet.

In a while there will be little stirs —

What has this meant?

How have I changed?

(though for now I’m less than eager

to inquire)

Maybe who I am 

is the feeling of the movement

and of the stillness,

not as a form that moved and stopped

but as the impulse

in and of itself,

as active in the stillness as the racing,

as undescribed as waves

thundering home.

©Wendy Mulhern

May 6, 2014

A Play of Day

It took all day

(a day of scurrying,

clouds rushing back and forth,

making things ready,

rain putting in the last details)

Then the curtain lifted —

blaze of gold on many brilliant greens,

creamy clouds with dark undersides

blushed slightly as they drifted

on towards evening

through the tender blue,

sending grateful glowing

into tops of trees . . . 

It was a fine production —

short play of splendid day,

just long enough

for the sun to bestow

blessings on everything.

©Wendy Mulhern

May 5, 2014

Shifting

The day moves

in the contentment of rain,

and change that rolls through

like showers on the wind,

not unpredicted, still arresting

in the subtle fresh shifts

of clouds, of air

and shafts of sun

We stand here

in this singular moment

swift as rainfall,

and move on,

still present

as the landscape changes,

never the same again.

©Wendy Mulhern

May 3, 2014

Your Truth

You can’t resist your truth.

By and by, it will overtake you,

make you see

the countless ways

you have been wrong.

But it will hold you

in such tenderness

that you will understand

you’ve always been approved of,

always loved.

No one else can resist your truth.

Though they may try

with edicts, ultimatums,

though they may think,

since you are dear to them,

that you should hear.

In the end they will admit your truth —

That, or you will lose each other.

Like a pupa, like a harvest,

truth ripens within us.

We may not know it when it’s small

but it will grow

until the day it bursts forth,

insistent,

and the protective stories

will split apart,

no longer relevant.

And truth’s form will be surprising,

elegant,

It will stretch out in perfect grace

and claim your day.

©Wendy Mulhern

May 2, 2014

Meeting the Need

The deftness required

in this case

comes from having nothing —

nothing preset, no opinions,

nothing pent up in emotion,

no beliefs, no sacred cows,

nothing to trigger.

But who can possibly do that?

— Water can do that,

Ever insistent in its fluid weight

and how it moves

as fast as thought

to its deepest level

And you can move like water

to be at the right place

in the right time

with the right mirror,

taking your form from the moment,

your essence ever unchanged.

©Wendy Mulhern

May 1, 2014