Feeling sorry for myself
is not a good plan,
especially when the day has held
so much beauty, and some accomplishment, too
Little one, no one holds you back
from being what you are,
no one takes your avenues away,
and five a.m. may be as dark as two,
but light is coming, very soon.
©Wendy Mulhern
October 7, 2022
When sadness comes to the table
(though I had laid the feast for joy)
when sadness comes,
hungry, no doubt, and tired,
who am I to turn it away?
No, I will give it a place at the table,
I will let it have
whatever it desires –
the feast of joy may yet find grace
in letting sadness sit
as long as it needs to,
letting it eat and be filled,
and maybe comforted,
maybe satisfied,
maybe even changed.
©Wendy Mulhern
August 23, 2021
For a moment I forgot
that joy is unconditional —
I looked around, and saw,
then felt, the sadness
everywhere it lay along
the tragic and the casual
occurrences of unfulfilled conditions
The sighs arising
slip like wisps above them,
hover haunted, sink on down —
it’s easy to believe
no answer can be found for anyone
But joy is unconditional —
it cracks like a smile,
bounds up like a bubble,
flows, light filled,
through all the places
where things seemed so sad.
This is not a big problem, actually —
it’s just time to claim our heritage.
©Wendy Mulhern
December 29, 2019
No sadness, large or small,
no let down, present or imagined,
has any right to cast a pall
on your exuberant existence
There may be things you need to learn—
this doesn’t make you bad.
The fires of transformation, as they burn,
will bring you, clear and brightened,
far beyond
anything you may have thought you had
Each of us gets to go there,
each of us has to —
each of us, emerging from the flames,
will be new-formed, holy,
and yet the very essence
of what we’ve always known we are.
©Wendy Mulhern
June 28, 2017
Here’s what you need to know:
You can stop fretting,
stop playing back the pain,
stop trying to corral it in a story,
assign it causes, seek solutions for it
There is a refuge from
the tug of sadness
that circles and strains
behind your eyes
and tenses like a sea urchin
in your throat
There is another place within,
and the liquid weight of you
always pulls toward it,
the gleaming quicksilver of you
slips through your structures
but is not lost
Be still — this essence of you
delivers you shining
to yourself.
©Wendy Mulhern
May 27, 2015