Tag Archives: relationship

Whether or not you already know:

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I love you.
These are powerful words
Not to be said lightly
They have consequences

The man I spoke with yesterday said
People have no idea what love is
They have no point of reference
They say “I love you, I love you,”
But they just want
To be nurtured, to be supported, to be accepted
They will leave when their need changes.

I know what love is
And I love you
I’m not saying it lightly
These words have consequences
And I know what they are

I hold you in my heart
Yes, I nurture you
Yes, I support you
Yes, I accept you
And I welcome your infinity.

I love you, and so
I willingly enter
The space where our boundaries dissolve
And we float, weightless and unformed
So at the impulse from the infinite
We can respond as one.

©Wendy Mulhern
April 11, 2012



Wedding Poem II

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This was my first attempt at a wedding poem for Casey and David.  She felt it was a bit too complicated for people to get in one oral reading, which was why I wrote the one that I posted on March 23rd (and read at their wedding.)  Sharing the first one just as a point of interest . . .

For Casey and David

In this land of your shared story
You live
like two trees
Your roots have found each other underground
And through their paths of growth
have intertwined
and clasped each other tightly in support
and travel now together, where they find
the sustenance of secret aquifers

The rising surge of life propels you upwards
To stretch your branches splendid in the sun
And there you dance —
The lyrics of your blended song
reflect the ancient rhythms
You each learned when you were seeds
and the shared harmonics
of the present breeze

So will you meet each sun-filled hour
each wind-sent storm, each drenching shower
in graceful strength, in steady power
And grounded there, your souls will soar
as you embrace your precious destiny:
enduring growth in sacred unity.

©Wendy Mulhern
March 17, 2012





Wedding Poem

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For Casey and David

March 24, 2012

Two trees
Stand side by side
Each one has grown according to its species —
followed the demands of its own essence —
Yet over time the trees have grown together
Their branches making room for one another

And underneath the ground
Their roots are intertwined
So they support each other
and they find
a common sustenance within the deep ground
and shared appreciation for the rich land

You two are like those trees
You blend your sweet graces
You draw a common sustenance
from deep places
and send your leafy blessings towards the sun
You revel in life’s breeze
and sway as one

And may your lives, like trees
be rich and strong
And may your branches join the wind in song
May you enjoy companionship together
and shelter all the places you belong.

©Wendy Mulhern
March 17, 2012



Time In

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Let me give you a “time in” —
A time of contact,
of enough cuddle
to be an answer to your lost cries
A time in
Like time before time
when everyone knew
what to do about cries
that cry meant cuddle me
Bring me in
Let me know home
Oh yes
Now is the time
for time in
for everyone:
The hothead
The curmudgeon
The one who cringes inside his shell
darting in alarm at each approach
The one who sits alone
The one who sits with all her so-called friends
hiding isolation under loud words
The ones who make their dogged resolutions
with no idea what would earn the in ticket
The ones who hide their keening under sharp motion
The ones who try all day but can’t fix it
Oh World!
Let us give each other time in
Let us come home to connection
until we have the circuits to unite
in tender understanding and affection.
©Wendy Mulhern
March 22, 2012


Basic Needs – A Checklist

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For someone to find you magnificent
in the peculiar, unvaunted ways you are yourself;
For you to feel the same about another;
To freely give the world that whole magnificence
in ways that make it multiply;
For your magnificence to blend with that of others
creating one grand splendid harmony
a seamless shining fabric made of life;
A center still point and a way to get there;
A way to see grace, and the habit of noticing.

If we commit to meeting basic needs
What greatness we shall know!  What joy,
What peace!

©Wendy Mulhern
March 20, 2012


Celestial Bodies

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In the wide domain of space
ungoverned by an overarching gravity
You fly along a path perhaps not knowing
what force has launched you,
where you may be going
what bodies you may meet
and what attraction
may draw you into one another’s orbit

Once there, you may not know what gesture
might pull the circle closer,
spin you tighter, faster
Or which off-handed move
may loose the orbit
and send you drifting off
on pathways fast diverging

Where you may wonder afterwards
what it was you did
or who it was — if it was even you
or if you had a choice, or it was destiny
Until some other gravity
attracts your interest
Or in the depth of distance
you forget.

©Wendy Mulhern
March 6, 2012



Walking Wordless

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Your smile is full of light
And isn’t this enough?
Do I even need to know the words—
The actual traces of your conscious thought?
If I asked you, would the things you said
Lead us away from this pure shining
Back along the worn out paths of stress?

In case it would, perhaps it’s best
For us to walk in silence
The smile light still is real
Whatever words line up behind it
And maybe we can find this layer of light
And live our lives along it, never leaving
Never dipping down into the blight
Of all the things we used to think had meaning
Perhaps it’s here that we unite
Not in opinion, not in words agreeing
But in the brightness of our shared delight
The source towards which we all are leaning
I may ask what you’re thinking in a little while
But in this moment, let me keep your smile.


©Wendy Mulhern
February 20, 2012



The need to be witnessed

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It is not too much to ask
to have someone to take
by the hand
To lead down corridors
of memory, experience, imagination
To say to: look—here’s a picture of me
as a child
And here’s the song that still reminds me
of that summer back in ’78
full of sun and angst and wild escape
And here’s a thing I learned in Italy
along the streets of Florence

It’s not too much to ask
to have someone who keeps
a special box for treasures
tucked in an honored place
inside their mind
to put the things you share
and take them out
and look at them sometimes

And yes, you’ll keep a treasured box
for all the things your friend has shared
You’ll take them out in gratitude
You’ll love them, since you care

No need to strive for some
prescribed degree of fitness
It’s not too much to ask 
to have a witness.


©Wendy Mulhern
February 18, 2012



Convergence

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As words come to me,
my receptivity
rises up to meet them

As my seeking for a way to bless
ranges out across my consciousness
Your arms extend a place for it to rest

Such bliss! To meet in the convergence
My need to give, your willingness
now, to receive
In this, your hunger blesses me
and meets my need

The figure loops, we spin around again
This time you give, and I receive
But then
Perhaps as current flows
dynamic, into one
Our pulse, too, unifies
and every boundary
becomes undone.


©Wendy Mulhern
February 17, 2012



Chasing love

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After much pursuit
(sun through trees rendered strobe-like
by my frenzied pace)
Desire made wild by the elusive flitting
of something always held
just out of reach,
I wake—
Jolt of awareness:
That which I’ve been chasing
is right here
and it has never been withheld —
By nature, it is infinitely present
Though I may miss the rush
I also like the flood of peace
that comes from knowing I will always
have enough.


©Wendy Mulhern
February 16, 2012