Tag Archives: grief

Trying

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My tears keep trying
to dissolve the contours
leading to the sad stories  –
deep and innocent desires
and how they’re dashed
by nothing but the surge of seas
of crossed intentions, missed perceptions,
and the desperate reaching
for glinting lights
within the tips and furrows of the waves

My tears keep trying
to settle all this out,
not just for me, but for every one of us,
everyone whose story makes me cry.
We are all striving for the same thing –
we just don’t know it –
my tears are trying
to make it clear.

©Wendy Mulhern
October 31, 2022

Deeper

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I seek solace in tears
but they are way below the surface,
an aquifer that needs to be replenished

I have stood against the opaque rock,
prayed that it become crystal,
yearned to see the light refracting through

And I don’t know what messenger to send
down the coves, down the caves,
to reach the still point, bring things out right

So I’m called to a deeper surrender,
an ocean, perhaps, or something vaster,
a power so far stronger than words or reason
that can enclose us all and bring us home.

©Wendy Mulhern
October 24, 2022

Sky Desire

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This is not quite an attraction
to those that are broken,
not quite attachment
to being broken,
liquid viscous, puddling out

This focus on the dark thick quick
and the way light shines bright
on the slick of black
is not the crux of the thing.
The pull is to go through,
the bubble closing back behind me,
space stretching huge, opening ever out

The desire is to bring back
the essence of sky
and the way to find it lofting out inside,
lifting up the prospects
from where they had been caged,
shining them out,
as sky is always vast,
releasing them into their freedom.

©Wendy Mulhern
January 31, 2022

Three of swords

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It’s no surprise to me actually
that my life look like this
from the outside,
such that a card could call it.
It has been my inside secret,
it has been my cross,
it has been the nature of my search
these past years,
my solitary travel

And why should I not expect
it to continue
till I reach its end,
till I learn what meets it,
what heals its wounds?

©Wendy Mulhern
January 16, 2022

Press

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Tears can cleanse
and tears can mend –
waterfalls cascading down,
smoothing rocks beneath,
filling in the crevices,
rendering me meek

Lord knows I need something  –
I am willing to cry and cry
and cry and cry,
but will it be enough?

Not in the depths of my own chasm,
not in the shallows of my conclusions.
Let me press myself
up against the infinite
so that its light shines through.

©Wendy Mulhern
September 7,  2021

Summer Storms

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The house catches the beauty of the evening sun
only for a moment – a cloud at the hilltop
snatches it up, uses it for a lining

Tears can gather on anything,
easy as raindrops, easy as a squall
appearing at the hilltops, then rushing through

There is beauty in the streaked view
after many tears, the way the landscape
multiplies emotions, the way the thistle
embodies such elegance,
such confident self-knowing,
how its elongating leaves point up
with a symmetry recalling snowflakes

I can go through a storm, I can do it
as often as I need to. When I come out,
the land will be here,
offering its tender lessons.

©Wendy Mulhern
June 15, 2021

To the bereaved father whose image I saw on Facebook

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In the yearning to do more for you
than cry and cry,
I asked my angel daughter
to go to you,
to deliver you to the large place
she showed me,
where you can meet your daughter,
and she can laugh with you,
and your tears will change,
in the alchemy that changes everything,
in the equation that cancels out pain and death,
and they will be like sweet morning dew
at the dawn of eternal day.

©Wendy Mulhern
May 19, 2021

On this day

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On the one hand,
I’m not interested
in being snagged
in emotions of days,
or being tricked into feeling things
I think people think I must feel

On the other hand,
I don’t want to paper over
anything that might lead
to deeper understanding,
anything that, by being healed,
would  bring me closer
to the light of truth

So I let myself cry
but don’t make up reasons  –
bring this like a tithe
to where it might do the most good.

©Wendy Mulhern
April 14, 2021

After All

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When I feel like curling up into a small ball,
when all I want are arms that will envelop me,
when tears are peering out my windows
edging for a place they can release

When I have cried until I stopped
and feel I might again,
and my outlook is too small
to take a long view,
and I have given up on stories,
so I have none,
and there’s no reason, nothing I can ask for

Let me remember
I can keep at this as long as I still want to,
I can let whatever triggers this
give all it has.
When it is all done,
I’ll feel the arms around me
and the steady, constant comfort
that they always give.

©Wendy Mulhern
April 5, 2021