Tag Archives: family

Tough Redemption

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This poison
has brewed a long time
and it has been spewed
on us before
but the concentration
of bitterness at its target
still surprises

Is there healing for this, even this?
Is there a way to grant permission
for the righteous spite
that eats away, finally, at itself,
to simply be set aside?
— A hold so tight, a sea so deep
that even this one
would be compelled to let go,
to let Love take over?

And what of me?
Can I find a safe harbor to offer
in my thought,
for this one’s homecoming?

©Wendy Mulhern
August 6, 2015

Simply

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2012-07-14 river

This love was always
such a simple thing —
love of your bones, your limbs,
your snuggle, your warm, heavy head

How could I fail so utterly
to know my only duty
was to pass that love still gleaming,
my bone to yours, shiny and smooth,
clear, unequivocal,
holy and pure?

Here is my prayer —
in your presence to see
that this crucial transmission
has always been given,
with joy to perceive
that you’ve always received it,
it never depended on me.

©Wendy Mulhern
June 23, 2015

Mourning Time

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Oak Bluffs sunrise

I need the blessing
for those that mourn.
I mourn for something nameless
that cries in you
but won’t explain itself

I mourn for the chasm,
for the absent bridge,
I mourn for anything
I might have done or failed to do
to close the gap or span it,
I mourn the self-fulfillment
of a persistent dread

This healing is not
something I can do by sleight of thought.
This healing requires something ancient, timeless‚
the truth about you and me
that existed
before the world was framed,
the love that asserts itself,
flooding out the lie of pain.

©Wendy Mulhern
June 16, 2015

Traveling, Arrival

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I see the day in criss-crossed lines,
plane paths and train tracks,
intersections, patterns in the carpet,
smiles of strangers, laughter, conversation
surfacing, submerging in the roar
of subway cars, their bright rectangles
gliding in and out of darkness

Absences, reunions,
moving in a blur across my mind,
enhanced by music from my headphones,
the clack clack of my rolling suitcase
over the sidewalk,
the dig of my backpack strap at my shoulder

No lines of deep thought here,
just the echo of clatter
and the city’s traffic
mellowed and now lulling
through the open windows.

©Wendy Mulhern
May 29, 2015

Request

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madronas touching

I want you here
not for the tasks you do
so much as for the way your presence
settles me, gives me something
to lean into
lets the flurry of my worries
start to find
some resting place,
precipitates
some kind of peace

I want you here
not to possess you,
not to clip your wings,
but so the weight
of our shared intention
can focus, gather power
so together, we’ll have enough strength
to persevere.

©Wendy Mulhern
January 21, 2015

Family Ties

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frosty leaf

We want to dissolve
all the knots we made,
all the contortions
we put you through,
all the habits we forced on you
in the twistings of our ignorant demands

We see the marks upon your posture
of all the places that we failed
to let you stand tall, and breathe free
and claim the breadth and depth
of your own being

We wish, more than all else,
to set you free —
Is there a way?
Can we simply release you
from the tyranny of our early vision?
Is there a key in giving you
what you always knew that you deserved —
the full acknowledgement of everything you are,
of your infinity, your brilliant destiny?

Or maybe
it doesn’t hinge on us at all.
Maybe you have already flown,
and the enduring truth of your nature
guides you clear and pure
and all that’s left for us
is to forgive ourselves.

©Wendy Mulhern
December 28, 2014

Post-Christmas Musings

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Christmas Tree

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

What Speaks to Us

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grass and flatirons

There are so many channels
through which the message speaks —
It can seep through the proximity
of parallel poses, bodies stretched in sun,
the rhythm of repose,
the undertone
of the quiet breathing of afternoon
as shadows slowly lengthen
on the grass

It can dance along the synesthetic glance
of light on sun stroked grass stalks,
wave in the instant shimmer
of seed heads,
dart like sudden song
into the senses

It can rumble kindly
in the connection of laughs and hugs
and the quick kindling of love-light
in the eyes of family

So many channels through which it speaks,
The message still the same.

©Wendy Mulhern
November 1, 2014

Solo

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soloa

Draw a picture for me, I said,
Take me on a mind trip,
tell me how it was for you

He said there wasn’t anything to say,
He grew impatient, for my questions
were so obvious —
Of course he had a backpack,
of course he had no trouble
finding his way

That’s OK. I have my own wilderness.
I have my own T-shirt-with-no-sweatshirt
journey through the mountains
and the cold of night

I have my own clearing
of the shrouded thoughts
I didn’t know I had,
my own exploration

of my power to hold the true sight
of all that brightness
streaming from his being,
all that trippy
flowing of his mind

and all the gifts of rare vision
offered by each singular
reflection of the light.

©Wendy Mulhern
August 20, 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