Author Archives: Wendy

Family again

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And suddenly today
I feel the way I felt
when we were young  –
grown up and setting out to find
whatever was the journey that was called our lives,
and coming back together for a holiday,
the major strife of growing up behind us,
creating home with laughter, as families do

Today my sense of failing falls away,
and I see we have been living well –
each of us has our own sufficient pile
of life lived

And I see there is a grace
that doesn’t measure things like that –
grace that unfolds second by second
through all the seconds
in which we live.

©Wendy Mulhern
June 12, 2023

Reckoning

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After many intervening years, I pretend
that stings of isolation from my early days
didn’t mark me,
didn’t set my mind on long and searching struggles,
didn’t define, in any way, my sense of self

Not to say there is no sense
in which that pretense counts as true,
for did I not work hard
to overcome the stigma?
Did I not form bonds that proved me
worthy of connection?
And did I not carry these – what I had gained –
back as proof? And wasn’t I gratified
to find myself graciously received?

Yes, and …
Yes, but …
Some part of me cries out for truth.
Some part of me wants to be reckoned with

I may have overcome the sense of not deserving,
along with social gaps that put me
in the line of shunning,
but this is not a smooth sea.
I have worked hard for this, my innocence.
I have worked hard for yours, as well.

©Wendy Mulhern
June 11, 2023

At the memorial

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It’s very strange, she said,
All these people going into the past tense.
Yes, I said, and when I look around
to see the people I knew,
it’s their children who are at the ages I remember

So many people we knew once,
but don’t recognize  –
it doesn’t feel like the march of time
so much as having suddenly
passed through a curtain,
being on the other side
continually surprised
to find myself here

Generations slide together.
Grandchildren occupy the place
where children were.
Children move into the full and swift passage
where time doesn’t seem to move –
careers are built, own children raised,
unexpected lurches
send lives on different courses

And we come together here.
The formerly absolute gates
of inclusion and exclusion
are gone,
their specter just a shadow
I can step over …

We all are drenched
in the moment’s richness,
the layered colors of foreshortened time.

©Wendy Mulhern
June 10, 2023

Gentle

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It takes a gentle hand
to tease out the tangled strands
of how we think about each other,
which of each other’s words we’ve heard,
which we’ve discounted,
what we would see each other meant,
if we would listen

It takes a gentle heart
to smooth the ruffled sentiments,
to ascertain we’re smoothing
in the right direction,
to hear from way down deep
and to respond
in ways that put each other’s hearts at ease

For we are tender,
and we are intricate,
and can’t be superficially assessed,
yet we are strong of fiber
and can take some rearranging
when it’s done with gentle hearts and hands.

©Wendy Mulhern
June 9, 2023

The innocence of the world

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Streaks of light
and the fact of innocence
shine clear when all the lies are gone

And people find it’s not too late
for trading in their hard bought worldly views,
the savvy of the turning cogs of wickedness,
and rolling with them to come out on top

Far better the transparency
of simple justice, seeing the worth
of every living being,
the recognition
of how we’re blessed by each of us,
the loss to all of throwing anyone away

It isn’t a hard sell, for everyone
has longed for this. Each one who takes a stand
helps bring it forth –
the innocence defining each of us,
truth that’s been waiting for us all along.

©Wendy Mulhern
June 8, 2023

Hope’s waters

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Hope’s waters rising,
and there is no need
that anyone stay stranded on the banks

Hope’s waters rising,
and their flow,
imperative, yet tranquil,
gathers all who were afraid to move

Sweeping them down,
compelling yet buoyant,
hope’s waters redefine the channel

Those who were dry,
and those who decried a wrong direction
are folded in –
no need to fight in this battle  –
hope’s waters bear us all home.

©Wendy Mulhern
June 6, 2023

Singularity

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It’s not surprising
to eagerly await the singularity,
because the way we have been going
has to change. It hasn’t managed
to solve anything, or even give
a plausible reason
for wanting to be

Yet that desire, which, even still,
cannot be quenched
(by boredom, or oppression,
or senseless self destruction)
– that desire demands a matrix
in which it thrives

It will provide it,
made of its own essence, and consistent
with the web that ties
all these things together,
the Mind that thinks them,
the Love that calls them forth.

©Wendy Mulhern
June 5, 2023

One who heals

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And so being one who heals
may not be as far away as I thought  –
it could be as close as
standing aside enough to
not be in the way of
the rushing acclamation,
the repeated affirmation of being,
the present wholeness that would never
let itself be hidden

Could be that
being one who heals is simply
being one who sees
the manifestly obvious,
the presence of the Spirit
that ever breathes us all.

©Wendy Mulhern
June 4, 2023

Kindling

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The pretensions don’t matter.
All of us may show them –
the defensive or proud propping up
of what we think we should be,
the hapless implications of these constructs
on what we think of others
what we think of ourselves

We don’t need to deal in these things,
don’t need to buy and sell, compare,
determine, tally –
these things do not pertain to us at all –
one glimpse of truth,
and it doesn’t matter
what any of us have been propping up –
we fall like kindling flames
upon the truth of our pure selves

We light up the place,
we warm to what we’ve always longed to share –
nothing we thought we were
has anything to do with it –
we burn, and are reborn.

©Wendy Mulhern
June 3, 2023

Shadows

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And in the realm of thought,
fables pool beneath the peaks
like shadows, and the way we see ourselves,
and the way we see others,
seems to be defined by them –
they rest, weighty, on the north sides,
they cover more than half of us

And I imagine
pulling the plug of my perception,
letting the darkness
drain out like water,
I imagine us all redefined  –
what seemed intractable
suddenly shown to never have been here at all,
our innocence newly illumined,
our brightness refreshing us all.

©Wendy Mulhern
June 2, 2023