What we collectively
don’t understand about love
has filled volumes

We keep trying
one person’s map or another,
we feel so sure at times
and then so doubtful,
and much of what we’re sure about
is false, and as for what we doubt,
who knows if it is true?

And yet we keep on seeking it,
and somewhere deep inside we know
that something in us always loves
and so is always worthy

And any love we know
is real
and it will shine out
through our misconceptions —
every love will purify itself
until, with deep relief, we understand.

©Wendy Mulhern
August 7, 2019

Though I may not know
in the eternal scheme of things
just what you are to me,
I can say
you are more than my calculus problem,
more than my ongoing test,
more than the mirror
it’s taken me too many years
to recognize as such

We hold each other up
in undetected ways —
perhaps we each receive
direction, motivation,
perhaps we are encouraged
and in our different vectors, strengthened
by each other.
I may be vine
to your trellis,
you may be
bird to my tree.

©Wendy Mulhern
July 2, 2019