Tag Archives: Heather

Beyond the curse

Posted on by
Reply

The love I had for you
was so much bigger
than the tiny locus
through which the story said
it had to come,
so much bigger than our forms

It started teaching me,
though I was slow to learn,
to cast my sense of you and me
much wider than the noose that claimed
it must contain us,
contain, constrain, with time and space,
and all the things we knew we didn’t understand

I look up now to contemplate
how we might be to each other
beyond the myth of human birth and death,
beyond possession and responsibility,
and hidden terror at the thought of failure

We would be loosed from those constricting ties,
and wouldn’t love each other any less –
it wouldn’t be proprietary,
but knowing you, I’d still be blessed.

©Wendy Mulhern
November 4, 2023

Ah, Heather

Posted on by
Reply

You shine so bright in me,
and have, since I first met you.
Is it fair to say
your wisdom walks beside me,
that this measured calm
which holds inside it
great infinitudes of hope
is indication
of your continued presence here?

You who taught me more of love
than I had ever known  –
I’m still needing to learn this practice.
Can I say that you are with me?
Can I say that what I’m learning
is something that we share?
If you will be my partner in this quest,
I’m sure we’ll scale huge mountains.
I’ll be going forward anyway,
but it sure is sweet to think that maybe
you are helping me along the way.

©Wendy Mulhern
July 7, 2023

Heather again

Posted on by
Reply

Various choruses
are not surprised
at my thought coming round to you –
the time of year, they say,
the necessary reckoning …
I don’t know. Could be …

I could choose to be
an old woman, sitting among my shards,
flickers of memories, glints of past light,

Or I could join you here in heart warmth  –
what you have always given me,
what you give me still,
helping my ground to new, abundant, life.

©Wendy Mulhern
April 7, 2023

Always

Posted on by
Reply

I suddenly saw
the events in our lives
like the curve of the smoke of a candle –
no need to remember exactly,
no need to pin down its shape

For we have been here forever  –
before the mountains, before the earth,
and if we’ve ever known each other,
it follows that we always have,
and always will,
in the timeless mindfulness of being

This is the only field vast enough
to hold my love for you who I called daughter,
and you who I’ve called Mom –
think of us all together in boundlessness  –
what laughter! and what power!

©Wendy Mulhern
March 29, 2023

Cuddle

Posted on by
Reply

Today I remembered cuddling you
inside my fleece pullover
to get you warm –
it took a long time,
and it was sweet

But now I wish I’d known a sweeter cuddle –
the one that has no armor
to shield you from the world outside,
because there is no outside
to the Love that heals you,
that stays within and all around you always,
that knows you through and through
and is delighted,
that knows this love is yours
and always able
to warm whoever comes within your sphere.

©Wendy Mulhern
October 14, 2022

To Heather – thinking of you

Posted on by
Reply

I think of meeting you hereafter
(though hereafter’s not a time that I believe in)
I ask myself:
in my regimen where only now exists,
is there a place, a state, where we can meet again?
I consider:
what rare and rich awareness
can encompass fully all of me and you –
a way more solid than imagination
where you can truly tell me what is new?

It seems far off, but also within reach
along this journey of my steady climbing  –
I can prepare myself by being
always more of who I am
and seeing clearly
who you’ve always been.

©Wendy Mulhern
July 17, 2022

Heather’s birthday, 2021

Posted on by
1

I know that time means nothing to you now,
though in your time you did enjoy your sevens,
as you enjoyed the gifts that others offered,
as you received each offering with grace

Such a fine trait it was,
how much you valued everything  –
each kindness, each expression,
the talents and the tastes of every friend –
I somehow wish
that everyone had noticed it,
that we had celebrated you
more than we did

But now that doesn’t matter either  –
I feel your generosity
grand enough to cover all of that,
grand enough, as always, to make us shine,
embrace us all and leave us feeling fine.

©Wendy Mulhern
July 7, 2021

On this day

Posted on by
2

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

Heavenly

Posted on by
2

Softly and suddenly
images of heavenly
filled me up
with gratitude, with joy

A scene from memory played back
but with an overlay of richness
overwhelming me with sweetness
of your being, of our being then, together

And it wasn’t sad – it wasn’t
as if those memories lived in the past –
they were not gone –
they radiated present tense,
they give me more
right in my here and now, and more –
they give me you.

©Wendy Mulhern
February 25, 2021

Still Untold

Posted on by
Reply

You wanted to stand up and speak,
you wanted your story
to be told,
you wanted them all to know
how much she meant to you

But all your words kept being swallowed
in second guessing and regret,
and by the knowledge that your anguish
wasn’t something you could convey, anyway,
wasn’t something that people
had the capacity to hear.

©Wendy Mulhern
February 14, 2021