Tag Archives: relationships

Unawakened

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We rely on each other
and we let each other down
in small ways and in big ways
every day

We feel the crush of disappointment
but we keep on reaching out
because we think we have no choice.
Sometimes our efforts are rewarded,
if briefly

Our words and our intentions
go out like threads. They tangle,
they fall away. We try again
but often with the same results

We think we need each other
and we feel our need
is seldom satisfied.
We fall together unawakened
through the dream.

©Wendy Mulhern
December 17, 2018

Spaces

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A big part of us
is the space we make for others,
the shape of them
we hold in our hearts,
large enough to encompass
all their potential,
cozy enough to hold them close

We enlarge ourselves
the more we understand —
the more of others we take in
and hold dear.
We become what we love
and so we love what we become.

©Wendy Mulhern
October 20, 2018

The day we live in

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The day we live in
as we walk side by side —
is it the same day? Or is each day,
for each of us, the color mixing of
our outlook and our observation?

The land we walk on —
does it speak the same,
up through your shoes —
do you feel the message
in its ancient language,
the calming reassurance of belonging,
the fleetingness of time
and its irrelevance?

Certainly we both feel
the uplift of the crickets’ tireless chorus
and that exhilarating quality
of sun-warmed air through fir trees

The day we move through
may not be the same
but there are signs
that both of us receive.

©Wendy Mulhern
October 15, 2018

Kindling

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Kindness kindles us,
catches us up in the merry
rush of flames
running eagerly down the lines
of what we sensed we might be,
igniting inspiration, engendering
great leaps of joy

Kindness will spread
and in its warmth
each of us will know what we’re here for,
each of us will bring heat.

©Wendy Mulhern
December 14, 2017

Bone

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Down close to the bone
the things that so distracted us
are gone — the posturing,
the quid pro quo, the stature earned,
the balance due

And the essential fluids —
the love, the tears, the blood connection,
run near the surface. We forget
what we were thinking about,
caught up in the current,
dopplered in the moments
as time stretches out,
the silence at end of day
echoing back,
drawing us
into its close circle.

©Wendy Mulhern
October 25, 2017

Honey

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In the turn of time
I come around to notice
how much I am like my husband,
how much he is like my father,
how much all the pointless
moments of annoyance in my past
have been just that

I picture the extraction of honey,
the breaking of the wax capsules,
the sweet liquid
flowing out reluctantly

I am as unsure
how this is well accomplished
as I am how to release
the bright life light
from the capsules
of all these constructs

Yet I know
there are ways, both gentle
and heat-filled,
in which this happens,
and even right now my life
with all that is sealed away
and all that’s messy
still drips sweetness.

©Wendy Mulhern
October 21, 2017

On the sidewalk benches at the local pub

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At my first impression she was
fragile as paper, and I wondered
how she could settle in
to any kind of a life
like that, with so little
to be solid in

But then my husband
asked her a question
and we broke through the bubble
to find someone eager to connect
someone we might see again
and wave, and maybe even talk with

And maybe most people
are hard to know deeply
and maybe most of us have
our quirks that make us
hard to live with. But maybe
what matters is less
what we might be, and more
what we might be together.

©Wendy Mulhern
July 30, 2017

Honest

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Behind the drama and the worrying,
Beneath the calculations and the scheming,
Beyond the many layered paths,
the inter-tangling loops of things
that people try to be and do,

In that same place but separate
from all projected causal chains
Is found the honest heart of every you.

Honest, it beats through nights of sleeping,
Keeps vigil through the waking day,
Honest in its hope for worth and justice,
Honest in its deep desire to bless

In this we are the same — let us remember
Each one of these has infinite weight,
and their being matters
and their dignity matters

And you can’t take shortcuts with them —
They deserve their place in time
and their time in this place.

©Wendy Mulhern
June 21, 2017