Tag Archives: communication

Solace

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solace

What can I give
to comfort you
when you are hurting?

I know through trial and failure
there’s no help
in sharing implications of my world view,
the fine-tuned systems
of my mental geometry

And there’s no help
in psychological analysis
or offering the latest theory
or the hottest healing fad

But I can stand with you
in the quiet of my own thoughts
and I can hold
my vision of your wholeness,
I can witness
the hidden strength within you
that knows how to lead you
to what you need.

©Wendy Mulhern
July 25, 2014

Missed Signals

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missed signals

None of these tokens mean a thing.
They are a currency —
Sometimes they can be used,
Sometimes, also, they can be
misconstrued

A kiss, a smile, a hug,
a showing up to work,
a glance, a sigh, a comment,
the taking time
to sync up with your breathing . . .

You may want one
and I may give another,
so it would seem
our signal had been lost

But I am sure
These tokens are just toeholds
to help us gain the higher understanding —
what I am, who you are
and the bedrock fact
of our deep caring,
and the finally unerring
harmonics
in which our souls conjoin.

©Wendy Mulhern
June 8, 2014

Pictures — A Triptych

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I.
Someone should take a picture of this,
my grandmother would say.
Here, stand just here, and look:
The square of sunlight from the window,
That bar of shadow from the doorframe
And the cat, alight with color
from the warmth of afternoon,
sheen on fur, luxuriating

II.
My mom takes her iphone, Wink,
and trains it almost daily
on the same scene,
aiming to capture
the light that fills her
and all the subtle energizing changes
in the seasons’ life

mom pic

III.
I, who for so long have said
that photographing stints my other senses
and even cramps my vision,
have this small camera
(the one we got in Costa Rica so it speaks Spanish,
the one wherein I scarcely see what fills the frame)
Because I want for you to see
the poem I’ve written,
I take my camera,
I point and click.

green lake2

©Wendy Mulhern
May 27, 2014

photos by Pam Cassel, Wendy Mulhern

No more answers

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no answers

Well, there may be answers
but they’re not pre-packaged,
not catalogued, not stored away
to be pulled out when mildly relevant,
slapped into self-congratulating use

The only answers
must rise integrally from the brew,
kambucha mothers to the moment’s process —
They are not for solving things
but for savoring
the slow, unlabored turn toward resolution,
the feeding and the growth
of what is formed when we’re together
when our seeking hunger
is answer to each other

We live here —
Not in the artifact
but in our living thought —
the new, the quick,
the nourishment
of what we each have brought.

©Wendy Mulhern
April 4, 2014

A Place to Begin

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This holy starting place
is like mist dancing in bright sun rays,
like soft light sifting through eyelashes,
a meeting of our hopes, our shaggy edges.

Here’s where we give ourselves,
Surrender to the mercy of
the grace that listens,
that finds the first fit,
the clasp with which 
we slide into the dance
of deepening reverberation,
plunging into fathoms of our souls.

This is the immersion
that we came here for,
This is the draft that satisfies
our fullest essence,
This is the blessing
we have longed to give,
shining the perfection of our presence.

©Wendy Mulhern
December 14, 2013


Transfiguration

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It is good for us to be here,
and whatever we have brought —
our child fears, our defenses,
our adult masks, our opinions,
the scaffolding on which we’ve propped
our wobbly sense of worth —

Whatever we have brought
can sit here in this light
of what we’ve glimpsed within each other.
It can sit in that warmth,
bask in the slowly suffusing fact
that it’s forgiven. All of it.
We will fill with light till that’s all
we can see in each other,
and we will be whole.

©Wendy Mulhern
December 4, 2013


Mental Housekeeping

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I.
Well,
I can’t argue
with someone I don’t know,
(as ground shifts beneath me like water)
who clearly wants to set forth
a strong opinion,
and who hasn’t heard me
and doesn’t want to.
Let it go —
There may be common ground
with that person —
Just not here.

II.
No need to identify
with proffered bargains
for something less
than my whole being.
No need to settle for pain,
or for complaint,
or for a muddied, stagnant
view of life.
Right here in this day
are seeds from eons back
waiting for this perfect moment
to spring forth.

III.
When no excuse
can really cover
a stupid oversight,
and nothing in my makeup
can explain it,
and its implications
arraign me in a wrinkle of character
that time won’t smooth,
it’s OK to go back
and ask for a redo.

©Wendy Mulhern
November 29, 2013


Keeping

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I will keep
what’s been committed
to my trust —
each precious soul-glimpse,
each secret shared
(or spilled, in the earnest, bumbling
sloshing of a heart,) 

each gift that’s given me
of hard-won ease,
each doubt-enfolded impulse
that fights its way through all those layers
and emerges
in some quick moment I may chance to see —

These are priceless —
I will give them all the honor they deserve.
I will keep them,
I will not forget.

©Wendy Mulhern
November 21, 2013


Atomization

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Each of them felt alone
but maybe it wasn’t true.
Each felt the others were against them
but maybe it wasn’t true.
Each one felt caught up in a seesaw
where others put them down
out of a need to be the upper one
but maybe it wasn’t true.

Maybe the conflict 
really was a screen between them,
distortions in the filters,
which none of them owned.
Maybe if they felt betrayed,
or framed, or misconstrued
it wasn’t others, but a general fear
that fogged their view.

And maybe any one of them could pause,
Just stop.
Breathe.
Wait.
Long enough to let the dust fall away.
And keep on watching till they glimpsed
the other as a mirror,
shining, multiplying back their light.
It might astonish everyone
and maybe it’s true.

©Wendy Mulhern
November 18, 2013


Prickly

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No need to engage
with the shrill and brittle
sticklike visage you present,
no need to be taken in
by the rasping preconditions
you establish for connection,
no need to feel grated.

Though these words won’t reach you,
I can tell
this isn’t you —
the image you propose
is not the one you want,
you aren’t enamored
with the harsh and petty rules
that you espouse.

There’s no need for you to be impoverished.
Reflexive words, repeated fast and often,
don’t need to be a substitute for faith.
Nor do you need convincing —
no use in any thoughts I might be baited to express.
You just need time —
quiet time, still time,
calm embracing space
and lots of tenderness.

©Wendy Mulhern
November 12, 2013