Tag Archives: relationship

Connect

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Boulder boulders

Consider “connect” —
the way it feels,
how your tongue cleaves
to the roof of your mouth,
pushes against it,
accentuating contact
in its release,
the color dark and nameless
but very smooth
like the way we felt together
after we crossed the bridge of distance —

That color was in our touching hands
and along our touching sides,
soft as fulfilled desire,
ripe as a womb.

©Wendy Mulhern
March 11, 2015

An important facet of this poem is the way it feels in your mouth to speak it. For best results, taste fully.

Refining

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mossy trees

When the fuel of our stories was spent,
when we had hurled our “perspectives”,
demanded to be heard,
burned up all our points of persuasion,
set forth our posturing
and watched it fall

We finally had to admit
What held us together
was far stronger
than what held us apart
and it felt better to find a way
to concede our points
than to win them

And our only reason
for bringing the whole thing up
was our need
to be closer together.

©Wendy Mulhern
March 7, 2015

Solace and Comfort

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lower stream

Ah, we pin our hopes on each other,
we reach out our hands
as if two bodies in free fall
could hold each other up

We will give solace
and we will receive comfort
but not from here —

Not where we set up the slate of conditions,
the changes required, the needs to be met,
Not in the stories that cast us so poignantly
into the dramas that make people cry

We will give solace
and receive comfort
here in the consciousness
deeper than stories,
where everyone wants the same thing —
A thing whose abundance
is never diminished,
a source whose beneficence
comforts us all.

©Wendy Mulhern
February 15, 2015

Wooden Nickels

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Bracketts winter

A friend remembers, as a child,
she once tried to give a wooden nickel
to a blind girl.
She doesn’t know why she thought
it would be fun to fool her

The blind girl was indignant,
for of course she knew,
as would we all be,
as do we all

And yet it seems so often
we try to give them to each other —
smiles without light behind them,
words without truth,
touch without
reverberation, overlap of waves,
and the profound fulfillment
of harmonic tones

We’ve been taught to pretend to be fooled
but no one ever really is:
We all sense,
at least a little,
what it is we want,
what we need to give.

©Wendy Mulhern
February 12, 2015

How to Fly

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land north

I hold the curiosity
of what is —
what is you, in this moment,
what is me,
what is the vibrant space between us
with its tensile pull
we follow onward
through the dips and surges
of our eyes, our smiles, our dance

It’s not my thoughts so much
as my heart’s swift pulse
and the rush behind it
that my body cleaves to
as I hold the channel open
and go further in
where the whole counsel of myself
encounters you

It finds you on your land,
It finds your feet at home,
It finds you ranging
through the rhythm of your days,
your shadow easy in its arc
and in its evening slide
back into the velvet of the hills

I find you
to my surprise
beyond the stretch of my resistance
where I find I’ve settled in,
close and content,
to the comfort of your eyes.

©Wendy Mulhern
January 29, 2015

Consent

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consent

So gently wooed we are
by quiet songs that thrum
against our bones,
through urgings, ocean deep,
that, irresistible, sweep us
into the slowly rising current

We can pretend we haven’t heard,
pretend we aren’t moving,
pretend we don’t notice
how our yearning now
has gained a little courage,
how it senses itself part of something grand
which never is delayed
and cannot be ignored

We are wooed gently
so we won’t resist
until it’s too late —
Too late because we’ve thrown our whole consent —
our hearts, our hopes, our will —
into the thronging force
that bears us on.

©Wendy Mulhern
January 22, 2015

Request

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madronas touching

I want you here
not for the tasks you do
so much as for the way your presence
settles me, gives me something
to lean into
lets the flurry of my worries
start to find
some resting place,
precipitates
some kind of peace

I want you here
not to possess you,
not to clip your wings,
but so the weight
of our shared intention
can focus, gather power
so together, we’ll have enough strength
to persevere.

©Wendy Mulhern
January 21, 2015

Everything We Need

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carkeek7

Everything you need is here.

This is not something to talk about —
Come here:

Your eyes are half the amulet,
My eyes can be the other,
Your heart, your hands,
are half the story —
Joined, we will complete the arc:

Everything we need is here.

It takes no more than willingness,
No more than the desire
inherent in living,
No more than open presence
to ignite the ever waiting spark
that sets the current surging
on and on in affirmation
of what we’re here for,
everything we need.

©Wendy Mulhern
January 13, 2015

photo by Eric Mulhern

Indelible

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richmond beach sunset

Love is a persistent thing —
The marks it leaves
don’t wash off.

Though they may be masked
by conversation
or the lack thereof,
by things said and not said,
done and not done,

When the alchemic fumes clear
and the film of time burns off,
Love is still there

In the end, its indelible etching
replaces all the old forms
with its insistent truth.

©Wendy Mulhern
January 5, 2014

Family Ties

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frosty leaf

We want to dissolve
all the knots we made,
all the contortions
we put you through,
all the habits we forced on you
in the twistings of our ignorant demands

We see the marks upon your posture
of all the places that we failed
to let you stand tall, and breathe free
and claim the breadth and depth
of your own being

We wish, more than all else,
to set you free —
Is there a way?
Can we simply release you
from the tyranny of our early vision?
Is there a key in giving you
what you always knew that you deserved —
the full acknowledgement of everything you are,
of your infinity, your brilliant destiny?

Or maybe
it doesn’t hinge on us at all.
Maybe you have already flown,
and the enduring truth of your nature
guides you clear and pure
and all that’s left for us
is to forgive ourselves.

©Wendy Mulhern
December 28, 2014