The season’s comfort
is no more suppressed
by ignoring it
than rising water
finding its way up
through grass, through stones,
to catch and reflect
the light of the day
to flow down in richness
through courses before unseen
I’ve been ignoring the season
but not its comfort –
making no efforts to celebrate,
carried along just the same.
©Wendy Mulhern
December 19, 2020
I start to feel the deep dark pools
whose surfaces may shift,
may show or hide
the fathoms underneath
The season’s lights reveal them –
they glint with their reflection,
they multiply the brightness,
illuminating memories
We’ll have no Christmas lights
this year, not even candles –
the lights that shine for me
will be the deep internal ones,
the ones made brighter
as they plumb the darkness,
the ones that walk with us
along our solitary path,
©Wendy Mulhern
December 11, 2020
I let myself float
in the golden light and sound
of Christmas — bright peace
suffuses me, everyone
is haloed. This liquid
dissolves time, at least
for a moment, and I travel
through the years, along
the glow lines,
reaching back
to all the Christmases
where this illumination
punctuates the year.
©Wendy Mulhern
December 23, 2018
One way and another,
stories vary from experience:
We may ride safely in the container of
How lovely to have the children home
while our peace lies in shards,
all the comforts of home spilled out —
a thing that’s more convenient
not to mention
Let us remember
that other people’s stories,
one way and another,
may mask what they are feeling,
emotional complexities
foiling words entirely,
their need for comfort perhaps greatest
when their stories gush with
how perfect everything is,
how enviable their lives
The young man who stood in Bellevue
with downcast eyes
and a sign proclaiming homelessness
called me an angel when I gave him five dollars.
Who knows what story was there,
and what experience,
but I feel my money
was well spent.
©Wendy Mulhern
December 27, 2014
You put out candles
to mark the advent,
You set your watch
like shepherds
for the long hours of the night
You pray, you sing,
You pause. You’ve done
everything you can.
And then Christ comes,
even before the rolling earth
embraces dawn,
before the final shiver
of the last watch,
before the time you steeled yourself
to wait
Christ comes
now as ever,
singular yet constant
glorious light —
when you most need it,
what you most longed for,
invoking your grateful surprise,
joy to your heart and your eyes.
©Wendy Mulhern
December 20, 2014
photo by Heather Mulhern