Tag Archives: relationships

Settle

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It’s not possible, I remind myself.
It’s not possible that these fine beings,
these expressions of elemental intelligence,
could crash in interaction with each other

My communication, and yours,
cannot implode, you cannot be annoyed
by the links I draw, my innocent
observations. And it’s not possible
for me to feel cut, dismissed, unheard.
These are not things I need to defend.
I don’t need to take you to task

I can be still and listen.
I can be still and let your innocence
rise in my thought like the climbing moon,
settle in my heart like dew.

©Wendy Mulhern
June 30, 2023

Wisdom comes

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Wisdom comes from anywhere we ask for it –
every relationship
where we line ourselves up,
line for line, along the lines of any being
for whom we have the most profound respect

Whether it’s a plant, or is an animal,
an elder or and infant,
an angel or a colony of bees

We find it in the willingness to take the journey,
however it expands us,
the willingness to be untethered
from any given point,
to let the change unfold
wherever the connection moves us

Wisdom comes in the surprise
of never having thought that way before,
but knowing, certainly, that it is true.

©Wendy Mulhern
June 21, 2023

Take me back

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Take me back,
when I wander down
the old, rutted paths,
finding words in my mouth
that I’ve discarded so many times,
finding myself tripping
in the same old ways

Take me back
to where my steps surprise me
and my words are new
and my presence
is a revelation
for me and others at the same time
as we all see ourselves
magnified in our epiphanies
about each other
and ourselves, too.
Take me back
to where my sight is true.

©Wendy Mulhern
June 20, 2023

Reckoning

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After many intervening years, I pretend
that stings of isolation from my early days
didn’t mark me,
didn’t set my mind on long and searching struggles,
didn’t define, in any way, my sense of self

Not to say there is no sense
in which that pretense counts as true,
for did I not work hard
to overcome the stigma?
Did I not form bonds that proved me
worthy of connection?
And did I not carry these – what I had gained –
back as proof? And wasn’t I gratified
to find myself graciously received?

Yes, and …
Yes, but …
Some part of me cries out for truth.
Some part of me wants to be reckoned with

I may have overcome the sense of not deserving,
along with social gaps that put me
in the line of shunning,
but this is not a smooth sea.
I have worked hard for this, my innocence.
I have worked hard for yours, as well.

©Wendy Mulhern
June 11, 2023

At the memorial

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It’s very strange, she said,
All these people going into the past tense.
Yes, I said, and when I look around
to see the people I knew,
it’s their children who are at the ages I remember

So many people we knew once,
but don’t recognize  –
it doesn’t feel like the march of time
so much as having suddenly
passed through a curtain,
being on the other side
continually surprised
to find myself here

Generations slide together.
Grandchildren occupy the place
where children were.
Children move into the full and swift passage
where time doesn’t seem to move –
careers are built, own children raised,
unexpected lurches
send lives on different courses

And we come together here.
The formerly absolute gates
of inclusion and exclusion
are gone,
their specter just a shadow
I can step over …

We all are drenched
in the moment’s richness,
the layered colors of foreshortened time.

©Wendy Mulhern
June 10, 2023

Arrivals

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The plane rolls in, the door opens,
a woman’s hair blows out like a flag

*

Each in the still point of our thoughts,
we plumb surrender, structure, sovereignty,
we share our common threads,
their startling similarity

*

Rain gathers around us,
bringing us along,
closing us into our dome
as we flow down the road
toward home

*

Gratitude flashes iridescent
like hummingbird feathers,
multiplies between us,
fills the room
like warming fire.

©Wendy Mulhern
March 13, 2023

No Worry

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You’ll be happy to know
I’ve figured it out  –
it’s not my job
to worry about you

As you often tried to tell me
but I was slow to hear,
worry about you
is none of my business

I’m sorry – it was insulting, now I see,
to worry about you, as if you didn’t have
your own way, your own wings,
your own destiny to wield
with your own hands.

©Wendy Mulhern
October 10, 2022

In our hands

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All the history of our lives together
comes down to this –
we hold the pieces in our hands,
and as we’re ready,
we can place them together,
puzzle out the picture,
observe the linking patterns

It’s not so much the pieces
as the way our hands will touch
while we’re putting them together  –
they know each other so well,
and they will remind us.

©Wendy Mulhern
September 22, 2022

Latch

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What is it all made of? –
these thoughts, these colors,
this shimmer of wind-touched trees and water,
these family ties,
presence of others I feel,
like air through my fingers while riding no-handed
after they’ve gone  –
a latch remains open
and a door swings somewhere in my mind.

©Wendy Mulhern
August 28, 2022