Reality
sets up like paint —
things are blocked in,
they change,
refinements are added
in color and shadow
and things dimly glimpsed
become clearer,
remote possibilities
suddenly seen
as the way things are
and had to be
(wasn’t it obvious?)
We walk by turns
entranced, bemused, euphoric,
through the colors of becoming
Reality
sets up like paint
beneath the artist’s hand.
©Wendy Mulhern
February 6, 2015
I was wrestling my mind —
Oh, it was stubborn
and tenacious and strong.
It fought like something wild
struggling for its life.
I pried a finger up
but it grabbed back again,
harder, in another place —
It didn’t want surrender
I let it run awhile,
pacing like a caged cougar
along the old trails,
assuming, soon, the steady
disconnected trot
of one who must keep moving
but has no place to go
I challenged it: This is not
what you want, I said.
It turned to cling to me —
It would not listen
or let go
Till finally I saw
neither of us could win this battle
(so equally matched we were)
We had to give it up
for something higher,
Let ourselves, together,
be embraced,
be washed,
be tickled,
be home.
©Wendy Mulhern
February 2, 2015
photo by Jennifer Lopez-Santillana
The large stone head moved its
gaping eyes and mouth and sang,
“I’m so sad, I’m so sad,”
while oceans of sorrow washed
over me, through me
I cried for the lost boy
who went down, so rapidly,
into the clear blue water,
faster than I could dive after —
another one gone —
“I’m so sad,” sang his remaining brothers
(he hadn’t been the first)
I woke up remembering
the story pieces that had tried
to weave themselves into me
as I tried to escape them in sleep —
kept me awake trying to catch me
while I tried to sink away
into the precise colors of winter grasses
and windswept trees
I woke again, and saw
my mind had solved it:
I told myself a sad story, that’s all.
Told myself a sad story, and believed it.
That’s all, nothing I need to fix,
nothing that my earnest living
won’t put right.
©Wendy Mulhern
January 27, 2015
In the gestation
of any new idea,
there is a time for silence —
a time when the currents of words
would warp the fragile budding,
when the stream of story
would make it something other
than it otherwise could be,
when blessed stillness
lets it unfold
from its own impulse
till it’s strong enough
to hold its own.
©Wendy Mulhern
January 6, 2015
photos by Eric Mulhern
One way and another,
stories vary from experience:
We may ride safely in the container of
How lovely to have the children home
while our peace lies in shards,
all the comforts of home spilled out —
a thing that’s more convenient
not to mention
Let us remember
that other people’s stories,
one way and another,
may mask what they are feeling,
emotional complexities
foiling words entirely,
their need for comfort perhaps greatest
when their stories gush with
how perfect everything is,
how enviable their lives
The young man who stood in Bellevue
with downcast eyes
and a sign proclaiming homelessness
called me an angel when I gave him five dollars.
Who knows what story was there,
and what experience,
but I feel my money
was well spent.
©Wendy Mulhern
December 27, 2014
Against manifest mass insanity
There’s no way to struggle,
No way to even begin a vast journey
across football fields,
across big box malls,
across miles and miles
of thickly sprayed synthetic crops
(whole towns decimated, desiccated)
Against the broadcast lies,
There is no mouthpiece big enough
to even formulate the counter-facts —
I’m rendered speechless
by having too much to say
and such a little voice
All I can do
is turn away from the whole story,
All I can do
is learn how to be real,
All I can do
is forge a new truth
from shared vision
and shared breath
and shared time.
©Wendy Mulhern
November 27, 2014
I tried to mend the space
my knife eyes had slashed to ribbons
in their tense sweeping arcs
across the room
I soaked it in the russet soup
that floats behind closed eyes,
gave it permission to dissolve
and then re-form
The traffic ribbon cut,
in torturous red
through my psyche,
slow, intractable. I couldn’t
leave it
I tied a bow around my hopes and plans
and left them, only too aware
that any conscious effort on my part
to bring them to fruition
would have to fail.
I left them to be met
by some life force
larger and more precise
than my fumbling hands.
©Wendy Mulhern
November 21, 2014
In the riddle there are two knights —
One can only lie, and the other
only tell the truth,
In the riddle you don’t know
which is which
but in real life, you do
So stop conversing with the lying knight!
He won’t, at any given time,
decide to guide you right.
He’ll keep you rammed against the same brick wall
facing disappointment, facing blight
In the daily choice for joy or misery,
the misery will tell you you don’t care,
that nothing matters much, and death comes anyway
and nothing is worth trying hard for here
But joy waits too, in every moment
steadily affirming life’s sweet worth —
If you don’t want it for yourself,
choose it for others —
It will rescue you and bless the earth.
©Wendy Mulhern
November 4, 2014
Don’t touch the lie —
It will grab you,
sweep you into its vortex,
get all mixed up with you
like oil contaminating water —
You’ll think it’s the primal objective,
the thing you need to solve,
what should, and must,
take all your time
until it’s conquered
Don’t touch the lie —
It doesn’t own you
and you don’t owe it anything,
and if you simply turn toward truth,
you’ll find yourself as pure
as you have always been,
as free as you had dreamed
but didn’t dare to hope,
as joy-infused as you can sometimes
almost remember
from the time before the lie.
That truth of you is here,
sure as the seasons, sure
as the cosmos. Which is plenty big
to draw your whole attention
and be your whole fulfillment
without the lie
Don’t touch the lie.
for you don’t need it —
Your truth has always been enough:
Your truth defines you wholly
and can be your guide.
©Wendy Mulhern
October 30, 2014
The chaff is not nothing
— nothing is nothing —
It has a history
It has a future
It follows the dispersing energy
along the edge of wind
It lands against a fence
and gives its final nutrients
back to the ground
Or it ignites
in one last sparking,
its light and heat
a parting gift
before it burns to ash
becoming even more diffuse
The wheat is weighty,
concentrated in,
It holds the seed of life
It holds the focused plan
It is prepared for next year’s season
to drink the draft of life and thrive
And those first blades it sends
in vibrant springing green
to take in sun
to make the next year’s seed
will then at season’s end grow dry,
becoming chaff
So goes the cycle
with nothing wasted
Nothing is nothing —
All that has loved
still has a value here,
still has a place.
©Wendy Mulhern
September 12, 2014