Tag Archives: friendship

Goodbye, Baby Bird

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For Audrey, Bill, Jeremy and Nicholas


Such a little life form
But the connection runs deep —
When you follow its roots down
You are submerged in memories:
Friendships made, wild choices,
Fights and struggles, friends 
standing by —

Bonds of love made stronger,
Affection running often silent,
subterranean,
Emerging when it’s needed
for support, in grief,
for every death and every helpless pain,
Holding you until you raise your head
to bravely live another day.

Laughter and tears flow 
quickly, close together.
Spirit flits down brightly,
Brought by many angels
To help us remember
We will meet these loves again
And we will all be wiser.

Our friends who went before
Will have let their suffering go,
Will have forgiven us our failings,
Will deeply understand,
Will welcome us with their assurance
That all is well.

And this little bird will be there
Singing his human-whistle song,
the one you taught him.
He will fly around your heads
and sing you home.

©Wendy Mulhern
April 8, 2013


Solitude

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I can be like solitude
if that is what you need
I can walk beside you
And our breath can sink
as deep as it needs to 
into the roots of being
And there can be time
for the whole silence to rise up
as far as it needs to
to meet the embrace of the day
And for each wind-touched frond
to offer
and accept
the invitation to dance.

There is enough space
for me in you,
and for you in me,
that we can walk
in this shared solitude
however far the journey leads our feet.

©Wendy Mulhern
March 30, 2013


A Place of Need

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How convenient it is
for me to croon about
holding angel presence
and moving out beyond a place of need
to a place where I can stand and give and heal!

How cherry-picked the role
of one whose challenges
have all been overcome,
who then can share her wisdom
to the good of all the world!

How bogus to imagine
I could somehow cease to need,
when Life has set us 
in this web of caring,
where every strand 
is tied up with the others,
so that we breathe and rise and fall together.

And I, I’ve fallen prey
to this same trap before
and laughed about it afterwards,
as if that time I’d finally
outgrown the childish tendency
and wouldn’t be so foolish anymore.

Ah! Have mercy! 
Please forgive me, be my friend —
Hold me up precisely when I’m laughable,
Keep your vision of me
based on what your wisdom holds,
Now and when I tumble here again.

©Wendy Mulhern
February 27, 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


Acceptance

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In your gaze today, I felt
the difference it makes
How well we know each other
How deeply we connect
How thorough the acceptance
in our embrace,
The fractal path affection travels
in its love of every surface, every pore,
Making us impervious
to any judgement, any condemnation

How comfortable we rest
in the sweet cradle
of being wholly held —
So soundly integrated
So at one
with the vast, eternal orbit
that swings us charmingly
So we unerringly 
reverberate in tune.

©Wendy Mulhern
December 30, 2012


For Carol

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on her 80th birthday

It isn’t veneration 
But bright delight that you inspire
For how you step forth, new
Taking in each day
with readiness
to grow, to learn, to shine
to let yourself, repeatedly
be re-imagined
New-formed like every wave that greets the shore

And for the ageless, trusting innocence
with which you ride that wave
(of you)
Coursing down the crest
of all that you’re becoming

In the surging, swift aliveness 
that affirms you
You remind us
We can jump into that life
and surf with you.

©Wendy Mulhern
December 12, 2012


Jacob’s Ladder

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(Notes from the fifth seasonal five women gathering)

We fold and unfold and refold
Constant surprises of new faces
appearing and then hidden
reemerging later somewhere else
We see each other
We see ourselves
Faces that we recognize from now, 
and, too, from other times
We mirror, and are mirrored
And in the grand revealing of our paths —
our being, spread across a stretch of time —
Great gardens spring to life, to light
their fragrant blossoms sweetening the air

We are a circle
A circle of love and caring
A circle of women
Holding the safe net
we all jump into
Feeling the tug at the sides
as we hold each other up
Feeling our cords strengthen
in the stretch of the give and take
Feeling the ties of our intersections
hugging us close

We are angels
Ascending and descending
Bringing ourselves messages
and the dear assurance
that this land, this place
has been prepared for us
and we will inhabit it
and bring forth our fruits.

©Wendy Mulhern
November 24, 2012


Night Walk

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In the space between our palms
(our fingers clasped,
 our slightly swinging arms
familiar and enchanting as we walk along)

In the space between our palms
there is a world
Contained, enclosed, but infinite
in its scale
Planets glide around small stars
Warm energy converges in the center

And messages can be conveyed
across the sphere
Not words, not anecdotes
not concepts and conclusions
not tasks or resolutions
but something better
The simple joy of being here.

©Wendy Mulhern
November 3, 2012


Arrival

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How did I get so lucky
as to have these friends?
— These ones that I can sit with
in a late night cafe bar
(jukebox playing loud beside us)
This one who is an angel
This one who is so brave
And I can be here on this rainy night
embraced in brightness 
feeling so at home

How am I so blessed?
— To feel so known and loved
after all these years
To be no longer hiding
No longer silent
in voice or body
No longer separated by those awkward masks
But here and now
to be just me, with them, at last.

©Wendy Mulhern
October 27, 2012


Thanks

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To my dear friends
who together
have lifted up
the blanket of my sky
Freed my feet
from its tight tangles
Opened out my sight:

My gratitude
for this expanded view,
this new freedom to move,
and all I see
Fills me full
Fuels my fire
Feeds my fresh joy —
So many sparkles in these days!
Thank you for your light, your shine,
Your ways.

©Wendy Mulhern
August 26, 2012