Tag Archives: family

Martha’s Vineyard, Labor Day

Posted on by
Reply

It’s still hot and muggy,
windy and cloudy,
but now, baptized by salt spray,
I move through the air
as one who belongs here,
easing into the familiar lightness 
of bone, expansiveness of breath.

Crickets and small birds
sing songs of evening.
Masts of moored boats clank,
engines of boats and planes
stretch out loud against the quiet of the land,
the rain and thunderstorms
still pent, unspent,
but I’m no longer waiting,
now fully here.

©Wendy Mulhern
September 2, 2013


Guidance

Posted on by
Reply

I am thankful your desire
is stronger than your will,
stronger than your resolutions,
stronger than anything that I,
in my foolish teaching,
may have installed.
Your desire is a persistent weight
that always, in the end, plumbs true.
It will lead you
to just what you need.
It will feed you
all that completes you,
all that delivers you
to the life-filling purpose
that is you, that is your home.

©Wendy Mulhern
August 31, 2013


Symphony Road, Boston

Posted on by
Reply

Through the city windows throb
music and voices from a life
that is not mine,
though the tendrils of connection
from my past
still reach deep into my psyche,
and the allure
of living that life
with the skills I have now
tickles my dreams.

But my face in the mirror shows me
this life is as far removed from me
as those voices,
close across the narrow street,
stories and walls away.

©Wendy Mulhern
August 30, 2013


Doing Things Together

Posted on by
Reply

We did not sail in the rain
though we came right to the edge of it
in the sweet game of willingness
to enter the space of shared experience,
to find the delight 
in each other’s pleasure,
to join in at something 
that all of us love.

Anyone’s strong intent
would have brought the others along
but we all decided
in the grey mist and wind on the shore
that we’d be better served
going home
to hang out together and bake things
in the cozy kitchen,
letting the wind outside
wrap us in a soft cocoon.

©Wendy Mulhern
August 29, 2013


Napping

Posted on by
Reply

While we nap
wind blows through the house,
doors slam,
rain patters outside.
Your hand twitches —
you’re already under.
I hear the cars roar by.
A jay squawks, and a flicker.
A little dog is yapping
and we are here in a sweet space
connected by the rise and fall of our breathing
and this short span of time
before I go.

©Wendy Mulhern
August 26, 2013


Release

Posted on by
Reply

I release you
to the greater parent,
the source of your I Am,
the equilibrium that guides you
from the center of the earth,
the inner light that grounds you to the stars.
What you are has always been
so much greater
than any sense of you I tried to manage.

I release me
to the greater parent,
who will not hold me to my failings
but ever lifts me up
with awe inspiring joy —
tosses me, laughing, towards the sky,
catches me, surely,
in arms that know me as their very own —
sends me out on splendid paths to roam,
brings me to an ever wider home.

©Wendy Mulhern
August 18, 2013


Let Go

Posted on by
Reply

Every child of Life
if free to move
will home unerringly —
some in a direct line,
some with wild and bouncing flailing,
ranging off in many far directions,
needing to stretch out, to try
the whole span of the force —
needing to feel the centering pull
assert itself against their surging motion.

Let them free —
They all will come home,
though you can’t know their course,
and maybe they won’t either.
The law that constitutes them,
the force that animates their core,
the Love that owns them
will guide their way.

©Wendy Mulhern
August 5, 2013


Summer Snapshot

Posted on by
Reply

It’s spider season
which may not help against aphids.
It’s a time when beauty pushes
against the back side of my eyes,
suggesting tears —
Beauty of guitar sound through the open window,
cloaked enough by outside noise
to only come in snatches
that remind me of the boy inside,
bittersweetly soon to leave for college;
Beauty of slightly drought-stressed flowers
heading towards seed.
It all looks rather wild,
and the yield is less than perfect
but the bees don’t care.
Lazy beauty of summer
leaves me with some scarcely defined longing —
Maybe the plants can understand it more than I,
Maybe the crows know.

©Wendy Mulhern
August 3, 2013


To Chris: Angel Wizard

Posted on by
Reply

It took coming together
to know
the gift of your questions —
to see how broadly they were cast
and how we each,
from our deep longing to be heard,
were so enchanted —
sweet that you should ask,
sweet that you should listen
with such articulate and cogent interest —
the light so thrown on us
that (what now seems surprising)
we never thought to ask about the source —
that unassuming shining
that reached out to hold us up
and make a structure
in which we held the love
to keep you safe.

©Wendy Mulhern
July 29, 2013


Good Times

Posted on by
1

We came riding down
chutes of laughter
like kids on a water slide —
great swoops of bright sound
cascading and splashing
and we felt renewed,
and we set each other off
again and again,
perhaps less for amusement
than for how it made us feel —
ready to scamper around
and up the ladder again.

©Wendy Mulhern
July 15, 2013