Tag Archives: family

Thermal Mass

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In this shared center of ours
there is a warmth
stored from holding hands,
and all those confidences,
all the smiles and laughter
and deep recognition

It is a warmth
which, in the cool of evening
radiates a comfort
that draws us ever more together

We will use this principle
in our design —
the one that offers home
for many people,
the one that uses what we are
to generate what we can give
and multiplies what we can give away.

©Wendy Mulhern
July 13, 2013


Reflections while driving home from recovering my car after it was towed from where my children parked it

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I’m grateful that you’re here,
grateful that we could bail you out
and bring you home,
and have you in our lives,
Grateful that this, too,
is life-building,
and you will be stronger
because of it

Grateful to have learned
(though sorry that I didn’t learn it sooner)
that we only have one job
concerning you,
which is to see you —
to behold, in awe, your essence,
far more intricate and comprehensive
than we could grasp in a moment
or in years,
though we might glimpse it
in either years or moments . . .

No need to compel or criticize —
We only need (and need to only)
see and celebrate
what you bring,
what you give,
what you are.

©Wendy Mulhern
June 29, 2013


Reunion

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It was summer
and the bright, reaffirming waves
rolled down across everything
coursing through our limbs
bringing out the warm, languid affection
in which movement and laughter
flowed freely between us

It is summer again today
and we, reunited,
don’t need to work to make connection —
It’s here
in the liquid lines that join us
deeper than words,
deeper than roles,
deeper than thought.

©Wendy Mulhern
June 7, 2013


Impending Farewell

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It’s a different kind of sadness,
imagining you gone —
Not the gaping hole of
many times and talks, now missed,
But more the sense of
all we could have shared together
that we never did
and how the opportunity
will soon be lost —

A sadness bittersweeter
because lately
there have been a few times —
like pioneer species that grow in,
repairing ecosystems —
A few sweet shares,
A few bright laughs,
Some brave attempts to find again
the closeness
buried under several awkward years

And I can only hope
our separation,
like the drawn-out pauses
in a storyteller’s tale,
will pull us back together in an eager depth,
With our communication easy, broad, and clear.

©Wendy Mulhern
May 20, 2013


Sisterhood

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In this moment
We know why we are here.
We don’t know what we’ll say
Or if we’ll even talk
Or if we’ll dance, or sing, or pray
And yet we sense
We will support each other.

We each will ask
For what will feed us now.
We each will find
Within our yet unspoken wisdom
The truth that meets each other’s present need.

We each will rise
Impelled by what’s required
To know our selves as capable,
As bright providers
Of what sustains us while alone
As while together.
We are, in this shared role,
Our greatest treasure.
So we flow upwards, outwards,
Splendid wings unfurled,
A sisterhood to overcome the world.

©Wendy Mulhern
March 14, 2013


Touching Home

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You fill me:
Just this time of standing,
foreheads touching,
recharges me
like water slowly filling up
a tall bottle.
I feel the strength flow in,
still knowing that I need more —
need to stand here just a bit longer,
while each moment is exactly what I need.

And when we lie stretched out
along each other,
there are other touch points
where the inrush of your essence
feeds my core.
It’s a refreshment like
swimming in the clear, bright coves
I’m only sure I’ve swum in 
in my dreams —
impossibly perfect,
inevitably pure.

So I return,
feeling the need again
to touch home —
Home to my tender soul,
Home in you.

©Wendy Mulhern
March 2, 2013

Moments

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I find myself collecting these family times
like sunshine,
basking in the glow of evening lamps
and in the mingling sounds —
music on the radio,
dinner preparation,
the squeaking rocking chair,
and snippets from a laptop —
Drawing warmth from our collective presence.

Knowing it’s as rare
as sun is in Seattle.
calling me to cherish it the same,
Entrancing with the shimmer
of that which is ephemeral,
Gone almost before it can be named.

©Wendy Mulhern
February 25, 2013


Laundry

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Here in these world-crossings
it seems important
(though I swear, it is not!)
that one’s clothes be clean
and free of spot
and so
although I know
for this old dweller in a former time
there is no way to make him notice
make him care
I treat his clothes with stain remover
as a matter of course
so we can be more comfortable
to see him walk
in this disinfected world
that is no longer his.

©Wendy Mulhern
January 29, 2013


Episode

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Where did you go?
Was it a casual drift —
the molecules of your thought.
having lost cohesion,
dispersing
till the paths of your coherence
fell away
And you were left stranded
on a much earlier shore
where thought had long ago solidified?

We tried to pull you back
Remind you of the last ten years
The last twenty
The bridge back to the now
from what you last remembered
But the lines we tossed are tenuous —
You still seem lost, unsure
of where you are or what you’re doing here.

We hope that
once again
A night of sleep
will wash your tablet clear
And to its surface
Reset all the strands of your coherence
Retie the cords that hold you in our sphere.

©Wendy Mulhern
January 21, 2013


Sonnet

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There’s nothing new about this longing
How it rolls up, like mist across a lake
And hovers, haunting and etheric
Obscuring the horizon with its grey
This urgent need for contact and belonging
Cries out for feeding, many times a day
A quest for soft, shared heat, and mingled breathing
A constant call, that doesn’t go away
We once were weaned, or so we may have thought
To self-sufficiency, a virtue (so we’re taught)
But to remember, once, this grand connection
Sends our sufficiency to forge a new direction
To weave our lives so we can be together
In comfort and in shared support, forever.

©Wendy Mulhern
January 12, 2013