We will draw you in
to the circle of laughter,
we will draw this robe of memory
around you. We will draw
a picture of your life,
we will draw compassionate conclusions
In this act of celebrating you
we celebrate our own humanity.
We celebrate the unseen ties
that hold us up, and hold us, thus, together
We have done well
for we have reaped the opportunity
to lift your life
so golden rays of sun
would shine on it
and light us all.
©Wendy Mulhern
November 30, 2017
It was a light task
picking up the ashes
though they are heavier
than they look like they’d be
It’s not so surprising, however,
that a lifetime of stories
would be ponderous
and besides
There are roots that go down
that must be still connected
where we can’t see them
that would also render
a package like this
hard to lift.
©Wendy Mulhern
November 14, 2017
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
And in the evening
I find myself desiring
the close-winged flutter
of gathering —
families and clans
home to roost,
home to the weighted warmth
of bodies who belong together,
long flights notwithstanding,
distances of years and thought
falling off
with the shrug of feathers
and the nestling in,
warm throughout the night.
©Wendy Mulhern
November 5, 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
We might have wished our children
no pain, but each emotion is a gift
and the fact that they can feel
is testament to who they are
If they can cry
the garden of their life will bloom,
they will have
bright shining after rain,
they will have
deep canyons where their love
carved out spaces
for winds of compassion
to sing through
They will have birds nesting
and creeks running,
frogs and fish and mayflies —
they will have true life,
they will know joy.
©Wendy Mulhern
October 26, 2017
Down close to the bone
the things that so distracted us
are gone — the posturing,
the quid pro quo, the stature earned,
the balance due
And the essential fluids —
the love, the tears, the blood connection,
run near the surface. We forget
what we were thinking about,
caught up in the current,
dopplered in the moments
as time stretches out,
the silence at end of day
echoing back,
drawing us
into its close circle.
©Wendy Mulhern
October 25, 2017
As suddenly as the turn of a day
the things we used to see in you
are gone — you are
an egg, an infant,
a night sky,
the things we think of you
no longer filtered
through the lens of our perceptions,
no longer judged
in the tally of the game
In this transparency
we see you pure,
untouched by all we knew of you
and all you knew of you as well —
you roll out of your form like liquid
ready to collect
in a new chalice.
©Wendy Mulhern
October 23, 2017
In the turn of time
I come around to notice
how much I am like my husband,
how much he is like my father,
how much all the pointless
moments of annoyance in my past
have been just that
I picture the extraction of honey,
the breaking of the wax capsules,
the sweet liquid
flowing out reluctantly
I am as unsure
how this is well accomplished
as I am how to release
the bright life light
from the capsules
of all these constructs
Yet I know
there are ways, both gentle
and heat-filled,
in which this happens,
and even right now my life
with all that is sealed away
and all that’s messy
still drips sweetness.
©Wendy Mulhern
October 21, 2017
And after the effort
we notice the lift of synergy,
the filling out and up
of so many unfolding layers
of expressiveness
with momentum like
white foam after the wave breaks
rushing up the beach
and bathing everything
in its soft fizz,
like flowers unfurling in time lapse,
like stars unendingly appearing
along the zoom toward infinity
We put so much in
but what we got out is even more.
©Wendy Mulhern
September 9, 2017