Tag Archives: relationship

Thirty years ago today

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(To Edward)

Thirty years ago today
in Philadelphia
I awoke to a quiet that told me
snow had fallen
Magic blanket that kissed the ground
and faded
in time for me to take
my one-pedaled bicycle
and ride (in my grandmother’s skirt)
to a dance I had never attended
where, in a mixer
your eyes twinkled

So I came and talked to you later
leaning against the wall,
standing by the chair where you sat.
Unpracticed and hopeful,
I asked you about yourself
Dazzled . . .

Together we had enough money
for two Dr. Peppers
which bought us a table at Carney’s
and time to talk
Our voices alive, our hands animated
Leaning towards each other —
Intentional community
Bell curves, affinity . . .

You drove me home
(my bike in the back)
Our parting kiss held a promise
“I like your ideas,” you said
thus assuring that I would take interest
The rest, well
The rest was destiny.


©Wendy Mulhern
February 9, 2012



Love is a Decision

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Feelings are so fickle
Love is much more than that
Love is a decision

You may wander
into the room of oneness
where you see the wonder
of infinite connection
You may want to match
all your points of unity
To line them up
one along another
and follow the diverging vectors
out to new dimensions
broadening the scope of who you are

You may try
to anchor down your feelings in reality
Negotiate a steady reciprocity
And if you don’t succeed
or if you do but later it becomes unsprung
Your feelings will not hold you there
They turn around, or simply float away

Love is much more than that
You may wander any day
into a room of knowing oneness
Love is the decision
to stay.


©Wendy Mulhern
February 8, 2012


Capture, Rapture

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Something in your eyes
Reached straight into me
Hurtling its course
Through my eyes, through my throat
To my heart, to my gut
To my core
Roiling a great wake
Wherever it went
And I was caught
On your hook
Because you showed me
The part that calls out desperately
To be seen, and to be hugged
And I wanted to follow that line
All the way inside you
Point for point of contact
Till I knew
All your secret landscapes.

So I have been called
Not once, not twice,
But every time
So now I think
This isn’t made of you and me
But of the light that always seeks its own
It never asks for our consent
But darts out instantly
Like electricity
And sets the current running strong
To its own ends, to serve its song
Regardless of the constructs
We’ve presented as ourselves
The light is what seduces us:
It’s our desire to be lit up
That keeps us ever coming back for more.


©Wendy Mulhern
January 30, 2012



Emptiness

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Only things that can receive
can be empty.
Consider this, O hearts, O arms —
The grand capacity of your design
How expertly you have been made
To hold, to take in
shelter and contain
To heal, embrace,
and then release again
To empty, fill, and so engage
in life, the grand enacting of creation
Exultant in its endless generation.


©Wendy Mulhern
January 27, 2012

(Picture: Jennifer McCurdy, “Gilded Vortex Vessel”; photo by Gary Mirando; background music: Max Richter, “From the Rue Villin”)

A Mystery

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Embracing you today, I felt
the tingle of the timeless touch of stars
that wheel in galaxies
across the fractal spheres of space
And send waves of awareness to each other —
A steady, stretched out dance
that celebrates the universe

So we connect
And constellations of our touch
The sudden places of awareness
Burst like starlight
in the space
of our perception
Dark gaps between the sparks
whoosh by like worlds —
What are we, anyway?

I see us each as some bright galaxy
Lit up by love
Attracted by a force we give no name
Held in its tender harmonies
While wide we rove
Connected still
through time and space the same.


©Wendy Mulhern
January 20, 2010



Soul play

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to Edward:

I’ll be the kite
You be the anchor
I’ll take flight
You hold us steady
So we feel the wind.

You be the kite
I’ll be the surfer
Leaping along the waves
Delighting in your lift
Gratefully we spin.

We’ll be the kite
Truth can be our anchor
Holding us steady
As we reach new height
Soaring again.

Love can be the kite
We’ll be the surfer
Dancing as one
Waves splashing bright
The ride never ends.


©Wendy Mulhern
January 16, 2012


The language of touch

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The language of touch
Is as broad, and as nuanced
As any language
And it can be learned
And passed from one to another
Like any language
And like many native languages
It has been forbidden
It has been almost lost
But it can be reclaimed
Pieced together and reconstructed
From the snatches of what we remember
What some gifted few
Embody
It can spread like oil
It can multiply
Till every body knows
How to speak it
And it can sing
In rich and glorious harmony
Shared, rising, rebellious
Overthrowing the long-enforced silence
That kept us boxed off from each other
We will sing this language
Of touch
Until everyone hears it
And finds their way home.


©Wendy Mulhern
January 14, 2012



Sadness

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Sadness is the need to close a loop
Something wanting to be given
Something not received
An uncompleted sequence
Brought up short

Your yearning runs
Along the broken circle
Time and again arrested by the gap
It throws its spark in stark desire
Attempts to arc across the emptiness

It tries, it waits, it paces, tries again
It falls back in exhaustion, gathers strength
You send it till it leaps
And reaches the exalting joy
Or till you give up on the trial
And turn away.


©Wendy Mulhern
January 9, 2011


No

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This may be the game
but it is not mine
This may be the game
but it is not life

So much complexity
So many things to study
So many permutations
to distract us, keep us tangled

The hand you’re dealt, we’re told,
You have to play
You may be lucky, privileged or poor
Or maybe you are brilliant but disturbed
Addicted, disadvantaged, or a rising star

It only makes a little difference, though:
As long as we’ve consented to be playing
There isn’t very far that we can go
We all remain imprisoned in the game.

Today I mouth my infant words
of no
No, I won’t play; no, this is not my game
I won’t define you by your cards or course
I won’t pick up the dice of shame and blame
I won’t be cowed by game-incurred alarms
or things the game insists I have to prove
I won’t let any game-based definition
distract me from my purpose and my love.


©Wendy Mulhern
January 3, 2012



When we came together

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We stepped into the forest of two worlds
where we could slip between the bars of light
and find each other in a separate place
where all our ions perfectly aligned
A quick magnetic jolt
an eager cleaving
synchronizing currents
swift believing
in all the signs of foreordained connection
the wonder of impossible perfection
Time slowed down, each movement magnified
Something monumental signified
in every touch.  And we were holy, sanctified
Anointed for our mission
as carriers of light
Keepers of the current
of that quickening delight
which can’t remain contained—
Its nature is to grow
till everyone is with us
caught up in its flow.


©Wendy Mulhern
December 27, 2011