If everyone could be
wrapped in the arms of family,
if they could all feel
there is a place for them to be
where they know they are
at home in each other’s homes,
known by each other’s fathers
and mothers and children,
then everyone would also know
the most important way to be —
everyone would know how to be kind.
©Wendy Mulhern
September 8, 2017
I sometimes feel
I don’t know
what things are made of anymore,
don’t understand
how people live,
what they do behind their doors,
how they afford to be there,
how they fill their days,
how they find a way
to make it all work
And then sometimes I get a chance to see
the grand complexity of someone else’s life —
the trials and hurdles,
joys and satisfaction,
with what they’ve made their lives
and what they have been given
And there I see the way
that we are all the same,
however different our paths have been —
we radiate our fervor from the same source,
we share, at heart, the same core.
©Wendy Mulhern
September 7, 2017
It is a soft space
this place where we have
folded and fallen,
where shadows soften
all around us
and our edges
blur in darkness
There are things here
I can’t talk about to anyone
though I keep trying to imagine who
There is a place where
we have breathed together
and this will have to do,
I will need to be sustained
through the long silence
by some kind of a trust moment —
at its necessary time
everything will come clear.
©Wendy Mulhern
September 3, 2017
Getting further down the line
of what I’ve called my life
I find that many things
that seemed of ponderous importance
make no difference at all
Whereas what really matters is
the times we’ve laughed —
the way they make a path
down which it’s easy
to laugh again, catching each other’s eyes
at the top of a giggle,
opening up the corridor
through which joy can bubble —
joy and belonging and some
wonderful forgiveness
for any former blaming
These places along which we’ve laughed
define the ways we know each other,
give the flavor of our family
where we come back, so eagerly, to drink.
©Wendy Mulhern
August 31, 2017
The Island wraps me
in a cocoon of gray,
warm strong wind on the ferry,
steel sparkles from a partly shrouded sun
Though my loyalties have drifted,
though I don’t boast of ownership,
won’t brag about partaking
in night swims and sunset sails
Still the pull of family is strong,
and the wind is part of it,
as is the kinship with other ferry riders,
whom I don’t know,
as are the salty swells out of the east,
rocking the boat as it docks,
splashing the waves on the rocks,
speaking the rhythms of home.
©Wendy Mulhern
August 29, 2017
Sometimes in dream
you think you stumble into it,
sometimes you glimpse it
along the vectors
of possibility
And so you yearn for,
and strive to find,
a way you belong,
a thing you know you belong to
Not as a royal heir would have it
handed down with pomp and ceremony,
not as a thing hard earned
through study and examination
But as one who knows this place
deep in the heart,
who recognizes all its crevices
and remembers
all the life that has found shelter here,
one who can predict
the breath, the sigh,
the flutter of every feather,
one who can snuggle into this place
and be home.
©Wendy Mulhern
July 1, 2017
We first relax
and then begin
to take our tentacles out
of your father’s life
We called them love
but they were something else.
We felt our love required them
but (on further thought)
our meddling does not improve his life
We take out the tentacles
so he can die if he wants,
and if what he wants to do
is ride the currents
of his own volition
wherever they may take him, well
This is what we also had to do
to free our children. So now
you’re treating him like an adult,
my daughter said. Letting him decide
what he wants to do
Oh yes. To learn again:
Love is not exerting
what we think is best for them —
love holds on
while also letting go.
©Wendy Mulhern
June 12, 2017
What satisfies?
What fails to satisfy?
What offers home,
what fails to?
What is family?
How does it meet our needs?
We’ve been tricked for so long
about all this
As things we’re told to hold to
sift like light between our fingers,
as each promise glimmers
always out of reach,
as all the coached for goals
bring rewards that echo hollow,
we turn and turn
until we cease our turning
What satisfies
like light to open eyes
opens home and fits us safely in it,
finds cords of family
that pull enduring love
down and richly down
through generations.
©Wendy Mulhern
June 1, 2017
It can snow at the end of April
and people can find meaning
in travel to distant landscapes,
and unexpected lights of recognition
can travel between eyes
We are tentative like strangers,
careful not to offend,
we keep our yearning to feel like family
tucked deep, lest we engender
discomfort at our vulnerability
We think we sense
affection and appreciation,
we hope that we convey it,
not sure how to get beyond
the stiff hugs, the watchful smiles.
But we’re hopeful —
it can snow at the end of April
and it can thaw before May.
©Wendy Mulhern
April 30, 2017
Joyful and relieved
to have abandoned
all my expectations,
I can delight in your colorful self,
your undetermined and undecided self,
the edges you have still to find,
your willingness to be
as yet unformed
I can rejoice that
none of this is up to me,
but all of it is wonderful,
masterwork of that which always
surpasses my imagination,
surprises my anticipation,
and holds it as a gift to all of us
the way you let yourself discover you.
©Wendy Mulhern
April 28, 2017