At the failed hive
I see these bees like dreams,
small thoughts, their busy purpose
forgotten with the queen’s loss,
what remains of their being
clinging to each other in last companionship
as they drift off into whatever consciousness
greets them on waking.
©Wendy Mulhern
May 22, 2023
In this time, to my mind, I summon
a truth more comprehensive
than the little cause effect chains I’ve constructed
I need something
to rise above the sadness my conclusions would evoke,
some vision that won’t run aground
from shallowness of hope
I summon
the very substance from which arise
our most profound desires,
the substance that entails their sure fulfillment,
I summon
that which knows us all so well,
and which we know,
to make the circle round, restore it whole.
©Wendy Mulhern
September 12, 2022
This is something else – a river of regret,
something we all swim in, however we held ourselves,
whether superior, privileged, clean,
or rebellious, devious, naughty,
justified, victimized,
thoughtless, or cruel,
or having missed out on the party
The river carries us all –
I may notice
who comes up next to me –
how we might never have
been within arm’s length
in our former life
But the tears we flow in
are just the same, and the cleansing
does its work on all of us,
and it takes us to somewhere
much farther down the bank,
somewhere we can’t yet imagine.
©Wendy Mulhern
November 20, 2021
I’m thinking about
all the sorrows of the world –
the big and little heartbreaks,
chasms of loss, and trauma
walled up and sealed away, hidden
deep within the mazes of forgetting,
leaking out at unexpected times,
fluids of shame, embarrassment,
spumes of rage and helplessness
I’m thinking about
all the sorrows of the world,
all the tears that strive to cleanse,
all the keening, calling for connection …
and thinking what it could mean
if everything can be turned,
like a page, like a dream,
if everyone could be released,
allowed to flow home
to their native wholeness,
more than forgiven – rendered innocent –
ultimately untouched by any story,
fully seen, delighted to be known.
©Wendy Mulhern
November 19, 2021
I ask myself, why should I be tempted
with sorrow? – as light rain joins with dusk
to dim the sky, and I walk down to cook supper
while I can still see a little,
and before everything gets fully wet
Why should I let this unnamed mesh
put up a catchment for impending tears?
– while I hold back reasons, noticing
that one or several
could launch me into self-indulgent sadness
It is written
that sorrow has its reward,
that if kept honest
(free of self pity’s stories)
it makes a basin to receive comfort –
comfort flowing in, cascading
all over the rims,
filling me up with acknowledgement –
how infinite its source!
©Wendy Mulhern
May 3, 2021
Behind the wisps of sorrow
that came drifting up
from memories released
by an offhand reminder
Behind my being sorry
for being too inept
to offer you the wisdom
that you looked for,
behind the sense
that I had let you down
Comes, like the light that prompts the mist to lift,
to float above the ground before dispersing,
the fact that love was, even then,
the only force impelling me,
the only message I could give
and all that you could really hear
And love, I know, can do no harm,
and nothing I advised,
could interfere with who you are
and how you shine,
could hold you back from coming to your own.
©Wendy Mulhern
November 2, 2020
Sorrow has its season,
not as master, but as shadow,
a reminder of emptiness
and the song that fills it
Sorrow brings us
down through the wet passage
of echoes, dark shiny walls
and the sound of dripping
We will know how deep we are
as sorrow plumbs us.
We’ll come out richer
on the other side.
©Wendy Mulhern
December 30, 2019