Leaves at our feet
have fallen among each other
like returning to family —
short swirl of togetherness
before the serious settle
into rain and dissolution,
the dark wet phase
along the turn of life
This splendor of colors,
this profusion of soft shapes
and subtle hues, feeds us
like laughter at remembered stories,
the lift of perspective,
leaf glow like sun glow,
luminescent
against the dark sky.
©Wendy Mulhern
November 9, 2017
My facile answers have turned sour,
my tissue-paper wings
discolored and then melted in the rain,
sad framework of support now holding nothing
I should recognize this path by now —
enough times I’ve skipped blithely down it
pretending not to see the looming overcast
or how bravado sidled in
to prop up failing confidence,
coming to this place —
cold lumps of despair,
nowhere to fall to
Slim threads of light return
as I remember
this is no task for me
to shoulder on my own
Given a moment of stillness,
grace returns,
an element I never could concoct,
a lifeline I can hold to.
©Wendy Mulhern
November 4, 2017
We move off from the place of focus
like crowds dispersing when the show is done —
our thoughts linger, wander, mill,
look for some remaining meaning
There are things we take with us
like small gifts tucked in pockets
to look at later in a quiet moment
Not sure what to do next
we feel the lightness
and the layered weight
of what we witnessed,
what we learned
All the while our love
moves into the spaces
ready to show us
as we emerge
how to make sense of it all.
©Wendy Mulhern
October 28, 2017
It seems right and appropriate
to drop everything for vigil
but on the fifth day
(or the eighth, by some counts)
the waiting seems interminable
and the tasks that wait at home —
cooking beans, paying bills —
seem suddenly attractive
as does, in general,
having something to do
besides waiting
I seem to have forgotten
there is more to it —
holding space,
being doula
for the transfer of the mantle
from father to son,
peace settling on all shoulders . . .
©Wendy Mulhern
October 27, 2017
In your grief and sorrow
you will be alone,
the touch of others
felt through a caul
When you meet your maker
you will be alone —
the magnitude of that encounter
eclipsing other presence
How you choose your death
is not a thing you’d tell anyone,
even if you knew to do so.
In that narrow passage
you will be alone
In the breaking to awakening
you are not alone,
tumbles of bright choruses
fill you from within
and the reverberation of you
sings its essential harmony
in the reunion of everyone
On the other side
we are not alone anymore.
©Wendy Mulhern
August 11, 2016
We look for signs of heaven
in our cool living room
(sheltered from summer heat)
when the old man awakes from sleep
and asks, are all my sisters gone?
I lived a good life, he says.
Yes, you’ll make it in alright, I say.
I ask him what he thinks it’s like,
and if he thinks he’ll see them.
He says a little; I don’t press it
For I feel we’ve touched, perhaps,
a depth I haven’t seen in some time
(or maybe ever)
I listen, instead, to the sound of traffic
coming in the open window.
©Wendy Mulhern
July 28, 2016
Death hovers at the edges,
an uninvited guest.
We make our life decisions —
where to live, who to live with,
how to fill our days . . .
We say we never choose death
We say it’s not our choice,
it’s a clanging gong, and
you never can predict
when its dark tone
will snuff out all the plans,
will make both hopes and fears
irrelevant. (We may call it seductive,
for just that reason.)
We make our choices
as if we could manage death —
schedule it at the end
of all the other things
(Some people whisper
that you never go without a choice,
that you can remember
you always can choose life —
however strongly you are told
you must choose death, it’s never true)
Whatever. In this life, today,
I choose living. Because I am.
And life is what I Am always chooses.
©Wendy Mulhern
March 17, 2016
If I believe in death
I will see it throughout my life —
Death of friendship, death of love,
death of opportunity, of hope —
It will hang like shrouds across my eyes,
weigh down my face, lodge in my throat
and eat away at each of my endeavors,
sucking out the juice from every promise
If I believe in death
dread will hedge about my days,
purpose will seem hollow, dreams ill-fated
But if I believe in life
I will follow it through all its cycles,
I will feel the living joy
of pressing into the earth, and rising up,
will relish the adventure of each reconfiguration,
revel in the presence of enough
I will know that love, like life,
can never die,
won’t fade with time and distance,
won’t become a lie
If I flow in the abundance of my being,
I’ll keep on loving
and I’ll keep on living.
©Wendy Mulhern
October 25, 2014
Well, dying, after all, is no big deal —
People do it all the time
It is the logical conclusion
of the primal lie
that says you can’t have
that which you most want,
that says you have to suffer,
that says you have to settle,
that says you really don’t deserve
to be the essence of yourself,
which, when realized,
brings unremitting joy
It is the lie that holds us in captivity,
Captivity which always
assigns another tyrant.
keeps us struggling in servitude,
as long as we believe it,
with bouts of high stakes cat and mouse
played with despair
The slow or sudden pain of this
brings us towards death
(No living thing endures without its freedom)
We will choose to go there too
until the moment we become convinced
the lie has never owned us
And our own truth bears us witness
that life has boundless rounds of joy to give,
That it’s our true calling
to be our wild selves fully
and then we know
we shall not die, but live.
©Wendy Mulhern
October 20, 2014
rain falling like grace
falling grace
the rain can’t fall from —
as every drop falls,
grace is what stays
soft melting edges —
somewhere, the will disappears
and the form begins to meld
with what it’s pressed up against,
yielding, yielding itself —
a bleeding from form
of its essence
till form dissolves
while the essence now flows
with new purpose
and insistence
down the next fall line
into the next crack
onward with ever-seeking
curiosity
into the next adventure.
©Wendy Mulhern
July 23, 2014