Tag Archives: family

The hand of Love

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Yesterday I was looking over my old blog, Splash of Spirit, and saw two poems that I had written under the titles “The Hand of Love”, and “The Hand of Love II,” which I wrote in 2008 and 2009 respectively, before I knew I was a poet. The first one I wrote in a writing group that I was leading for homeless women; I think the first line, in the middle of the night, was inspired by something one of the women suggested. In the second poem, I think I was consciously echoing the first one, though probably not looking at it. Anyway, I thought it might be worthwhile to reproduce them here:


The hand of Love

I.
In the middle of the night
the mother comes and strokes the child’s hair
running her fingers through
gently smoothing the strands

In the middle of the night
the currents of dreams softly realign thought
disentangling the questions
deftly smoothing the strands

Soft as water
strong as currents
lifting the mermaid hair 
up from the rocks
smoothing it and holding it 
in disentangled ripples
The hand of Love lifts all tangled things
smoothes them
sets them right and holds them 
in shimmering order.


II.
In the dawning of the morning
Rays of light stream like combs through the trees
Freeing each branch from its background
Lifting sight
Inspiring the chorus of the birds

In the dawning of the morning
The fingers of Love reach every dreaming thought
Warming each molecule
Enlivening joy
Tuning the chorus of the Word.

©Wendy Mulhern
January 8, 2013

End of Christmas

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Day is done
What mark remains?
How was it distinguished —
What has changed?
Yes, we were happy
Relaxed in sweet togetherness of family
But have we yet gone deep enough
into the holy dawn?
Can any day contain the essence
of what must come?
Perhaps I’m called, each day
to lift the latch and enter
Abandon surface chatter
for the sacred center.

©Wendy Mulhern
December 25, 2012


Freshman

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It is not fathomable 
to imagine you gone
though we see you little enough
in the small crossings of orbits
when we are all awake
and all here
and not sequestered
in our respective caves

When I think of you
out on your own
I wonder about your laundry
and your innocence
I want to wrap you in a cloak
that’s been too small for several years
Protect you
from a world I’m sure you think 
you know much more about than I do

I want you to soar free and far
I want your mask of self-assurance
to be filled out, from within
with trial-tested confidence
I don’t want the world to prove you wrong
I want the world to prove you strong

It’s not fathomable
to imagine you gone
So I will think of you
Somewhere, next year
Exploring some as yet uncharted here.

©Wendy Mulhern
November 29, 2012


Application Deadlines

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Actually,
You can’t make things be
what they’re not
You can’t make a stream
run faster down its course
rapid or languid as the fall line designates
You can’t make the clouds
configure themselves
into neat, ordered little puffs

And we can’t make our son
hop to, conform, align
when all his atoms stretch
along some still-unmarked direction
as he charts the constellations
of his singular universe

Obligatorily,
there will be hoops to jump through
See how he bends his lanky form
to condescending depths
and somehow manages to find some grace
complying with the needed tasks

Some things fall behind
and yet we can be sure
Everything that’s really part of him
will find a way to flourish,
to endure.

©Wendy Mulhern
November 27, 2012


Kin

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Kin fits in skin
Within my ken
With what I can
Those of my home
My folk, my clan
It’s what I know
It’s what I am

Kin kindles kindliness
My kind, like-mindedness
Conscious connectedness
Seeking and finding

So may my circle
Contain all the cosmos
Its sphere as my realm
And its oneness my center
As large as awareness
As cozy as kinship
Here in sweet presence
Skin-intimate
Soul.

©Wendy Mulhern
September 26, 2012


Thirty Years

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(To Edward)

Thirty years
and we are like
the newlyweds we seemed to be
back then
when hope stretched out across the span
of inexperience

Excitement for the joining 
and the journey
fueled those early times
Propelled us through 
the doubts and disappointments

In some ways
our love has grown quietly
like the pine beside our front door
from its sapling start to where
it towers above the house
It didn’t happen in one day
but after time
it stood as if it always had been there
Inimitable sign of long duration

In other ways
our life has brought our love 
through metamorphosis
The eager feeding of those early years
replaced by quiet inwardness
(though still the growth continued)

Till now
when in these bright monarch days
Our love has re-emerged
its colors shimmering
We feel it flexing
strong brilliant wings to lift us
to new vision.

©Wendy Mulhern
September 25, 2012


Heather’s birthday beach walk

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Laughing on the beach
Leaning against a log
Laughing at almost anything
(A couple, comical with their dog)
It really doesn’t matter what
It feels so good to be here

Our daughter, stunning in her colors
and her smile
Our son, subtly connected
Our family, now grown,
no longer needing tight control by parents,
can laugh as equals

Walking down the beach
we stop to play
on a see-saw log
The four of us
enacting our collective balance
(me, weighting and unweighting
making the log tip
feeling the delight of flying
my shadow doing a seagull dance)

Low tide, sea wall
Stone stairs washed to slopes,
engulfed by barnacles
Rare rock crazed with cracks
with crystals growing in them
Seagull cries, and human seagull imitations
Climbing the concrete tower that says “keep out”
Walking together in magical languor
No where we’re needing to be
except here.

©Wendy Mulhern
July 7, 2012



Release

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No one needs to be defined
by failings, or ancestral line,
habitual smallnesses passed down
through fathers’ tone-deaf, caustic snide remarks
or denigrating tone of voice
or wordless attributions 
that would put them in a box

Each one is free
Each father free to grow
beyond the frame his father put him in
Each son to rise to fill the call
of his internal plan
Each father can release his son
from every tiresome lie that held him down
Each son can find the truth
of his I Am.

©Wendy Mulhern
June 25, 2012



On the decision to choose our daughter’s birthday over a large social gathering

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We will stay with you
These things cannot be weighed in the same scale:
The sense of social inroads
against steady family presence
What we are trumps what we think we want
And we are here for you
Even if you end up doing something with your friends
And we figure very little in your plans
We’ll still hold the day
Just like that one twenty years ago
Where nothing else was happening
And it was mind boggling 
to imagine anyone could think 
that this was any day
A dawn like no other
The start of parenthood
The birth of our family
A thing no one could train me how to do
A world that suddenly grew tiny
in the constriction of the moment
And I said, if something has to break for this to happen
Let it break
And it did
And you arrived 
Sapient miracle
Blinking with wise and quiet eyes
Yes, we will stay with you 
We’ll mark this day
With all our lights commemorate
your shining way.

©Wendy Mulhern 
June 6, 2012



Family time

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Rain closes in around the house
Constrains our orbits
Sends our energy in inward circles
If we were alone, perhaps we’d sleep
But gentle interface keeps us awake
And moves our projects forward

We practice homestead arts —
Cooking without recipes, 
Designing clothing without patterns
Minds and hands together in support
Elsewhere in the house
The sound of music composition
Or something playing on a video
The rocking of a chair, a rustled paper
Doors that squeak as people come and go

We’re family here
The cycles of our movement
flow alone, then intersect
pass by deftly, sometimes interact
So weaving in our days a quiet ease
and subtly feeding us with needed peace.

©Wendy Mulhern
June 5, 2012