It’s understandable if you decide
to step into the box offered,
draw your feet in, curl up
to find the comfort of a safe place
The daily roads have many boxes,
different places, different shapes and sizes,
some for you, some not,
(the choices fewer when you look closer)
But you could also choose
to be defined by where you walk,
and how you open out each day,
and how your deep hope carries you
to broader, ever unconfining, views.
©Wendy Mulhern
December 21, 2022
As I notice myself
keeping a wary distance
from people being nice
in an L.A. kind of way
and people wearing urban liberal
like trendy clothes,
and people easy in their answers —
any kind of answers —
for why the world is wrong
in so many errant places
I see it’s all the same —
my wariness, their certainty,
the self-approving niceness,
none of which have the virtue
of simple, heartfelt keening
for the world
No matter. We’ll bring our husks,
our empty shells, our broken explanations,
we’ll set them down
where Truth’s tide will take them.
We’ll let ourselves be washed and lifted
in the embracing waves.
©Wendy Mulhern
August 6, 2017
None of these arrays,
none of these enemies
make any difference
There’s no need to analyze,
no need to have a contest
to see which ill is most egregious
One group’s pleasure
is another group’s primal, causal bane —
that which, if once snuffed out
would let the touted virtue save the day
No matter,
for we’re all just trying
to find the same thing —
the same mother’s milk,
the same father’s smile,
the same certainty that
our being is worthwhile
There will be many
with whom we don’t connect
but that’s OK —
They, too, will lift a load
in the great rising
in which we bear each other up
into the new day.
©Wendy Mulhern
January 23, 2015