Tag Archives: relationship

Relativity

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Everything changes
No one’s sense of self is static
Each one grows
Things you were so sure
would be impossible for them
become their norm
And things you thought you’d never do
You learn 
(That’s why it makes no sense
to hold on to a past offense)

Nothing changes
The primal pattern reasserts itself forever
The track of every orbit orchestrated
The cords of union hold us fast together
However far we think we may have skated
(That’s why we recognize ourselves
in everybody else)

Never too far from home
Never too far
from where we can close our eyes
And let the scene reframe
In that bright centered place
From whence we always came
(The way of being that we always hoped to learn
And where, in soft precision, we return.)

©Wendy Mulhern
June 29, 2012


Light Maintenance and Rescue Work

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I will be there for you
for I need
the bright gold liquid currents
made of truth and confidences
that flow between us when the channel’s open
I will tend that channel
since it’s such a source of life
nourishing, illuminating 
me and you

Yesterday I saw a stoppage
Saw my light
rolling off you and not going in
Saw the block of burden
and the hooded sadness
and the drifting starting up, the downward spin
So I reached out — no
I would not let you go there
Would not let you feel I didn’t
need your light
Or that I wouldn’t stop everything
Everything else
to get the channel flowing free again

Thank you for responding
Thank you for receiving my insistent light
For coming here to where the current
can continue bright
Thank you for reaching back in trust
For we both know
it rescued both of us.

©Wendy Mulhern
June 14, 2012



The ones I want

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These are people who I want to be with
How do I decide that?
What are the components
of the equation
that make me look upon our gathering
with eager openness, anticipation?

These are people I want to be with
Can I say it to myself about anyone?
Can I just choose to so regard them
and then feel that glow?
— I don’t know.

This is how I am drawn:
When I think of them, I light up inside
As I approach them, coming from a distance
New layers of aliveness
keep waking up
As I get closer
I start running

What qualifies them so?
I didn’t make a judgement
Didn’t pass them through a screen
Conducted no tests
I don’t know exactly why my heart
just said yes

These are people I want to be with
I didn’t engineer it so
It isn’t something I deduced from calculations
I just know.

©Wendy Mulhern
June 8, 2012



Perspective

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He sits there with his dirty hands
And rocks and rocks, and squeaks and squeaks
He has gone vacant
You can’t trust anything he says about his day
You know he doesn’t have a clue what happened.
When he gets up you’ll see
the whitish marks his hands left on the chair


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He sits there with his gnarled hands
still full of all the memories of having worked
still capable beneath the wrinkled skin
They tap against the chair arm keeping time
to some remembered song
Or to the band he marched in once
so many years ago

He rocks and rocks, remembering
The times he won, the times
He proved himself to be uniquely clever
The times when he was master
The times when he was kind
He plays them back, for they affirm him
Repetitious pleasure signals
Looping through his mind

When he gets up to eat the food that I’ve prepared
He’s always grateful: for the food, but more
He’s grateful for the time we share
Companionable repast nurturing
His sense of being wanted, and belonging


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No facts that I observe can stand alone
I’ll always bind them up in explanation
Then let my story here
be one I’m glad to own
that holds my thought in nurturing relation.

©Wendy Mulhern
May 21, 2012



Approaching You

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The way to your open heart
and the way to mine
may be the same:
When I care more
than any calculated consequence
And I listen
not to words 
but to the cry beneath them
And I hear
not what I’ve thought before 
but that which calls right now
And I ask myself:
What does it feel like behind those eyes?
I may approach you
And if I see 
that flicker of a kindled hope
And if I feel
its resonance within
And if I shine
that flicker back in affirmation
I may arrive.

©Wendy Mulhern
May 17, 2012



Thought Channels II

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Don’t have much to say

I must sit and wait
till my internal waters settle down
The turbid sediment, roiled up
from stream beds used to quiet flow
from banks above where waters mostly run
Must make its way
as far as it must go
till it can clear.

Then I’ll see
just how the course has changed
What views will stay the same
What places where my thoughts and hopes once dwelt
will be no longer fed
and so dry out
What unexpected new course I might find
of love to feed and occupy my mind.

©Wendy Mulhern
May 14, 2012



Chain of Lights

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It’s an unexpected gift
to be seen
and to find myself to be
part of a chain
A chain of shining lights
pulled along in awe and joy
on through the rolling wave of time
The pulse of undulation
and the centrifuge of spinning
augmenting our connection
to each other
Leading us enchanted
to the place of no beginning
The place from which we came and now return
knowing it has always been our home.

©Wendy Mulhern
May 3, 2012



Reconciliation

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Consider reconciliation:
It seems a miracle
to have a change so radical
not just the filling of a black hole
but actual radiance
a star that burns 
with joy as precious treasure
in the place of former pain

This shows the fact that love
though misdirected, sent out
clothed with barbs that tear —
expectations, disappointment
exercise of will, manipulation —
in the end, will do no harm
for in the time of reconciliation
all the hurt dissolves
and what is left is love

This at least is what I hope
in light of all the harm I may have done
I hope my love will still remain
and all the hurt be gone.

©Wendy Mulhern
May 1, 2012


Soul holding

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And when he leaves his home each day

Embarks upon his sea of consciousness
Alone along the arc he travels
through crowds and conversations, correspondences
Who holds him, stands beside him, with him, guards him?

And when she hugs her cat
and leaves for work
in shoes she chose to play the part
along the corridor down which she walks
so far from any touch or recognition
Who holds her? In whose heart resides her image?
Who keeps a constant cord of close connection
belays her, holds the strong affection
to draw her home, remind her who she is?

How is it that we spend
the vast part of our day alone
tossed in the waves of our perceptions?
So dear it is to hold in thought the anchor
of someone who is holding us within

Then, friends, let us each lift up a soul
For something so intense
it is astonishing
how light they are
And that’s because they’re held already
Glistening as strings on Spirit’s harp
Suspended intricate and steady
Still grateful for our touch
that wakes them up.

©Wendy Mulhern
April 18, 2012

Picture: Jennifer McCurdy, Gilded Wind Nest. Photo by Gary Mirando.  Background music: Max Richter “Andras”

The calculus of need

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In the old assessment
To speak of need is to confess a lack
Admitting need is weakness
And to ask for what you need
entails a sacrifice
of dignity, of power, of position —
a painful act of desperate submission

In another way of seeing
Needing is the interlock of love —
The contact that inspires our hearts
to gratitude
I need you as I need the air I breathe
Not contemplating lack
but just acknowledging
how sweetly and how deeply we’re connected
Not bound, but bonded —
in our unity perfected

Performing once again
the calculus of need
where we consider what to claim
what to concede
To leave the old assessment for the new will be
the algorithm that will set us free.

©Wendy Mulhern
April 15, 2012