Tag Archives: grief

Traction

Posted on by
Reply

You raise your cup again
to down the draft of grief
as you must drink it
every time it fills

If it provides
something that you need,
or if you need to drink
until the well is dry,
we cannot say —
this is not, it would appear,
one of those things in life
about which we have a choice

This is just the trek across the day,
any one of them, every one,
this is going through the motions or
it is the steady necessary traction
cleansing as it draws you
with the urgency of home
to your core.

©Wendy Mulhern
November 1, 2018

Bars

Posted on by
Reply

Though you may fall and fall
through the bars of memory,
hitting at moments, going back and down

Though you may feel
striped beyond redemption,
branded by the light and dark,
strobed to instability

You cannot fail.
This is not about you —
it’s about your Maker,
and your Maker knows you whole.

©Wendy Mulhern
October 31, 2018

Our Days

Posted on by
Reply

We do what we can
in the aftermath of tears,
in the relentless beauty of days
and the work that is too much for us

We will go home again
tired to the bone, and weathered,
but also saturated in song —
tree song and cricket song
and the creaking flap of raven flight

We will return, as we have
so many times. We’ll take up
the work we couldn’t finish.
We’ll struggle through the cold
of the long edges of days
and be graced by their brilliance,
and learn the meaning of work,
perhaps. And the meaning of praise.

©Wendy Mulhern
September 24, 2018

Secret Peace

Posted on by
Reply

I think not many people
want to consider
what it’s like
on the other side
of the unthinkable
— certainly I never did

And when they say
they just can’t imagine it,
that is most likely true,
though their minds have thrown up images
of the pain,
and walled it off quickly
(that is what I always did)

Yet there are also many
(more and more of them,
as we get older)
who have crossed
(or been thrown over)
the line

And of them
I’m sure many have found
the sweet secret peace,
and hold it like a small light inside
and don’t tell anyone about it
(for who would they tell?)
but you can see it there
if you know to look.

©Wendy Mulhern
September 19, 2018

Into the Allness

Posted on by
Reply

Well, peace was one thing that I asked for,
and any one of those infinities would do —
peace, joy, belovedness,
unfolding in a holy purpose —
any of those, glimpsed here, and really grasped
delivers those who hold it to the Allness

But I confess, I didn’t get there that way.
The door I went through was grief, was storm,
and it wasn’t me holding on to anything,
it was something so much vaster holding me

So I was delivered
into the Allness
where all those infinities are fully given,
where they comprise the fiber of our being
with which Love weaves us
day by day by day.

©Wendy Mulhern
August 25, 2018

Here and Hereafter

Posted on by
Reply

You’re looking for connection
in a cosmic sense,
like a lost lover in a story,
a lost father actually,
seeking his daughter
across oceans, across skies

It’s archetypal
and it opens up the portals
into other worlds —
your longing has already
crossed the bridge
so you can’t live easy here

Can’t confine yourself,
have to accept that you’ve expanded,
have to learn to move and feel
in the world where she is,
must be reunited
in the larger sphere.

©Wendy Mulhern
August 19, 2018

Aftershock

Posted on by
1

Nobody knew the right thing to do.
Lots of people would have had stuff to say,
opinions on appropriate directions

Where was my intuition?
Why had I not been honing it through many years?
How could I have thought
it was unreachable or optional?

If I had known better,
could I have done better?
If I had done better
where might we be?

This wave comes over me and passes through
and in its ebb I feel again
how I was grounded.
There will be other waves —
when they recede
the light will gleam again along the sheening sand.

©Wendy Mulhern
July 20, 2018

Interim

Posted on by
2

There’s a place for us at the table —
it’s not the raucous one, at the center of things.
It’s close enough to take in all the life
but far enough that we can move away
without a fuss, when we are done.

We circle, still, at the periphery,
and it feels good to be here
where we can observe but not be known,
where we can belong
but not be called upon.

©Wendy Mulhern
July 5, 2018

Thunderstorm

Posted on by
Reply

Wind blows through, bringing weather —
trees send the signal along the ridge,
pressure drops, flotsam falls from branches
prefiguring the coming rain

There is no stress within the mounting rush —
it comes with patience, each development
in its appointed time —
soft rolls of thunder, turkeys gobbling in response,
moving patches of darkened fields and sky

Then the showers, quick and cleansing as our tears,
here and there, sweeping through briefly,
wetting grasses, trees and roads

Then the angelic sunset
riding with us as we headed home,
touching down, reminding us of grace.

©Wendy Mulhern
June 24, 2018

Homeward

Posted on by
Reply

Sometimes the extent of
what doesn’t matter in the least —
doesn’t matter anymore or never did —
seems ready to drown me

So far removed these tracks have gone
from anything that nourishes,
any reason anyone could see
to go and do it for another day

And yet the gleams of what’s precious
shine out somehow, from every moving being —
May that light grow stronger from within
and guide them, guide us —
all along our homeward way.

©Wendy Mulhern
June 22, 2018