The trees are faithful,
the trees and water,
the trees and water and the moving air,
and the embracing sky
So when I wander into fiction,
another’s or my own concoction,
their steadfastness in what they are
will guide me back to truth.
©Wendy Mulhern
October 17, 2023
I left myself in the story,
so when I follow my day back,
I find myself there, thoughts clinging,
like sticky vines of cucumber,
to a place I never was,
and the plants that I wrapped carefully
around the strings I trained them to
aren’t even in the picture
except for their texture
and the gentleness I needed
to learn their habit
so I could bend it
And the beauty of the day,
its clarity unveiled
after a morning of clouds
is only reflected
in the contentment I rested in,
letting myself revisit
the story’s storied world.
©Wendy Mulhern
July 8, 2023
Life doesn’t end. Stories do,
and so their endings can be happy,
tied up at their full circle, a flouncy bow
showing
all these arcs had meaning –
that which drew us forth
intended that we find
what we are seeking
Life is always starting up the next thing.
Stories satisfy because they give us
endings we can rest in
And so you know – I learned
I didn’t kill those bees –
just sent them home
to the neighbors’ waiting hive,
where they seem happy.
©Wendy Mulhern
May 24, 2023
Something like a phrase I don’t quite hear,
distorted by a phase shift, fog, or dream,
sidles up against my waiting thought –
could I be your poem? but says no more
It’s gray, and has some drape or flounce of fabric,
holes that could be lace, or rags,
a shuffle and a flutter –
if I’m still, maybe it will come closer
This could be the price of reading all day
yesterday, and even for some hours today
(though I did dredge up some discipline
to do some chores)
Sunset came anyway,
colors mirroring the fire,
even its shapes echoing the logs,
while fog crept up beneath it …
granting grace in giving me the sight
before it swiftly rolled off into night.
©Wendy Mulhern
November 23, 2022
My tears keep trying
to dissolve the contours
leading to the sad stories –
deep and innocent desires
and how they’re dashed
by nothing but the surge of seas
of crossed intentions, missed perceptions,
and the desperate reaching
for glinting lights
within the tips and furrows of the waves
My tears keep trying
to settle all this out,
not just for me, but for every one of us,
everyone whose story makes me cry.
We are all striving for the same thing –
we just don’t know it –
my tears are trying
to make it clear.
©Wendy Mulhern
October 31, 2022
Every pen must dip into the gold,
whatever truth it wishes to elucidate –
somewhere it must gather light
through which the elements are seen,
the power to propel the story
Every life is understood by light –
they can’t be seen in any other way.
Then let me judge them true
and let me tell them as they are,
and dip into the gold to share their story.
©Wendy Mulhern
March 25, 2022
I summon words to talk about
the place where words have crashed,
where I abandoned them
(a wing wrenched off, the fuselage burnt out)
and the entire arena (every place constructed
for the words to play)
now proven contrary to natural law
I summon words to hunt for hope,
and notice hope, in fact, springs eager
from the massive failure of what crashed
Everyone is so thirsty
for the sight of that small green shoot
and the taste of the water offered
in the place without words, without judgment,
where everything starts over with the truth.
©Wendy Mulhern
January 22, 2022
(From the virtual biking philosophers’ notebook)
My feet step down each day on earth
but don’t define my story.
My story leaps in looping arcs,
bounces down the street
like children tethered to a parent’s hand,
their darting jumps forever anchored back,
encouraged by security
My story leaps for meaning
and will connect sometimes
to consequences that light it up,
closing all the circuits down the line,
illuminating bridges, tracks, and tunnels
Showing what was relevant
from all those steps throughout my time,
showing what was destiny,
or thus defining it,
the future giving meaning to the past,
the place I land creating my past path.
©Wendy Mulhern
December 17, 2021
Though I had imagined an epic story,
it turned out to be a very quiet thing,
though I had pictured myself
coming home in hero’s robes,
there was nothing, really, to show –
nothing I could say about it
So hard it is to describe
the inner transformation,
the little shift in thought
that changed everything
That showed my adversaries
innocent, after all,
that showed my premises mistaken,
but let in so much light
that I was glad to be shown wrong,
glad to be illumined from now on.
©Wendy Mulhern
August 30, 2021
Why am I always the bad guy
in your stories? I said
Who else do you see around?
you said
But why can’t I be the good guy
sometimes? Oh, I see – you’re
the good guy …
In the still space, after the laughter,
I considered – I will only ever
see played out
what I believe to be the story –
if the story doesn’t change,
the reason’s obvious
If I want a different story,
I must first believe it’s possible,
and then see it pre-existing,
a thing already true.
©Wendy Mulhern
July 2, 2021