Sweeping down the centuries

Time is of no more use to me.

I’ve been forced to give it up.

From now on I will approach it broadsides,

I will move in the current

where our growing awareness of Spirit

sweeps up all the broken dreams of history,

sets to right every small and large sadness

that ever occurred,

unites us with our past and future generations

and chimes a chorus

that will echo throughout the vast eternity

where there is time no longer.

©Wendy Mulhern

May 18, 2018

Navigating

We tried to go back to the old hills

but they were gone, tried to navigate

the once familiar paths,

but after walking them awhile

we could tell that we were blind

and couldn’t see the markers

Strangely, we could also tell

that we had never seen them —

we had been content with blindness before —

now we can’t abide it

and we would rather

not take any steps except

when walking in the light,

not say anything

unless we know it’s true.

©Wendy Mulhern

May 16, 2018

Hush

This concentration of power

allows no excuses.

There is no weak spot in the field

where the potency could leak out,

could run away

There is no voice against it,

no answer to it.

We are hushed, aware

that nothing makes sense,

nothing gets a hearing

outside of this truth,

in the face of which

we lay our weapons

and our burdens down.

©Wendy Mulhern

May 15, 2018

Deeper

Beneath the pale etchings I have called my life,

something momentous moves,

something that fills out

more dimensions than I can count

Something so ultimately satisfying

that all I have attended to before —

all the inept scratchings,

all the lines I tried to set in place,

and what was scribbled over all my efforts

by other hapless hands —

amount to nothing

I settle myself

into the deeper motion

and am at peace.

©Wendy Mulhern

May 14, 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

A day with no name

The day has stretched out long,

we have worked, we have prayed,

we have been busy, and also listless.

The sun is still splendid,

low through backyard trees

as the clock rolls past seven.

We will eat, we will cry,

we will clean up. A day

between the days,

a day with no name.

©Wendy Mulhern

May 11, 2018

Time, and times, and half a time

The heaping apple cart
tips over, the rolling hopes and expectations
jostle and fall,
bounce along roads,
lost to us now

We  can’t even begin
to gather them back,
and the cart is broken anyway,
one wheel following the apples down
careening and ringing like a coin

And it makes no sense to us
to go back, to start over —
What would it be to us, at this point?
So in the aftermath
we wait to be lifted,
our lives to be borne
along a different arc.

©Wendy Mulhern
May 10, 2018