Tag Archives: story

Mountain Time

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Yeah, I’ve been here a long time
Maybe about as long as a mountain.
I’ve learned to settle in,
Deeply etched by all the watersheds
whose paths I then determine.

Weather brings on its steady drama
Sometimes stilled by me, sometimes augmented
I let things flow through me like that,
Let them change me,
Bring me ever closer to myself
(Canyons of time and tears expose my core)

Today I feel as if
I will be here a long time
Maybe as long as a mountain.
Tomorrow I may feel
ephemeral as a cloud.

©Wendy Mulhern
April 19, 2013


Light effects

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I saw this as a movie in my mind,
I heard its soundtrack in my thoughts,
I understood:
This is a picture of the way we are,
the way we move:

The medium in which we danced
seemed to be thick,
Seemed to slow our motion
and deflect our light
into many bouncing flecks —
Square-shaped, fading in and out
So it was hard to see
just where — and when — we were.

We didn’t worry that we were arrested
or restrained
or blocked
or yet dispersed
within the semi-opaque thickness.
We knew all that was just a trick of light
And that our impulse
was as strong and clear
as it had always been
and that we owned it
and the medium could never slow us down.

So we could watch it
and play with its effects
And use our undiminished vigor
to enact our purpose
And wait to see
how it would be interpreted
in this thick, slow place
wherein we seem to walk.

©Wendy Mulhern
April 18, 2013


Deep waters

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The river runs swifter
on this stretch between the high banks
And many
who have plied the currents confidently
all these years 
Still find themselves
unequal to its strength.
Their paddles catch,
Their little craft disintegrate
or founder,
They reach for other boats
Or sweep along alone
And the “I told you so”s of younger times
now sink, or echo, hollow
in their irony.
Before long, there’s no longer time
to think about the past
The river bears them onward
True to its own course.

©Wendy Mulhern
April 17, 2013


Reconsidering

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Well, actually,
I don’t want to be the one
to do the talking
(Steam still rolling off of my indignant thoughts,
which mostly, to the mercy of the peace,
were never given breath)

I’m tired already, from their
pacing around inside the cage
of my surprise,
Rattling my words, finding them
deficient

It’s not enough that I deny them voice
They need to change, to find a higher mission
Somehow these thoughts
must all return to calm

So I consider:
Do I want to choose my friends, my loves,
on grounds of shared opinions,
so we can lie together
flat along the plane that we have chosen?

Or do I want to own
all the dimensions,
To spread out free, in an embrace
that hugs us all,
Transcending any scorn or condemnation?

Thank you. Right.
I won’t be duped to carrying that baggage on the plane
So I release all this from thought
to dwell in peace again.

©Wendy Mulhern
April 15, 2013


Cloud travel

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I almost can remember
Times of cloud travel,
Being so attentive and receptive
That I could move along the currents of the air
And let myself be gathered and dispersed
And turned in languid, stretching shapes,
My will as fluid as the wind’s direction,
Learning, as I went, where I was going.

It was an easy thing, upon arrival,
To center in, to grow more dense, more focused
So that I could lightly drop
from air to ground
and into solid form.

©Wendy Mulhern
April 12, 2013


Essences

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I start to sense —
with some surprise —
the essences of which I am comprised,
And they feel more like
softly potent nebulae
than any former figure of myself

They gather forces, lift,
roll in,
like clouds, like seas —
They shape-shift as they fly,
They gravitate like spheres,
Encounter others,
Slide into their places,
Harmonizing vectors

Who am I now?
— Something far beyond
the stories, placing me
in static scripts and roles,
Something I may learn
as I unfold.

©Wendy Mulhern
April 9, 2013


An Invitation

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Change my mind —
I invite you —
For though I may resist
at first,
I welcome
the free fall that comes
when my prior suppositions
are knocked away —
That airy, floating weightlessness
in which begins to coalesce
a new perspective,
And I start to grasp:
The world is bigger than I thought.
There is more room than there was before
within my mind’s horizons
For expression,
For free flying,
For opening outward and outward,
Unfolding in new bloom. 

©Wendy Mulhern
April 7, 2013


A Fairy Tale

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He looks at her bewildered
as if to ask,
“Why are you here?”
Her look returns the same unsaid surprise:
“I came because you called me —
Called me by my ancient name,
The one I didn’t even know
but had to answer.
I came because you knew me,
And I needed, in your eyes,
to learn myself.
I came because you needed me,
And I, I needed to be needed,
just like that.”

He shakes his head. “No,
I never called you. Not like that.
Well, sure, I find you charming,
as I find many women. But no,
I don’t have time
or strength
to hold the whole of you,
to meet your offer.”

He talks like that, 
but she doesn’t believe him.
How, after all, could he reach
so deep into her soul
and still not know her?
And knowing her, how could he fail
to be entranced?

Yet no is no
And so she knows
she needs to let it go.
She makes a sail
to catch and radiate her love.
She uses it
to sail around the world.
For what is once called forth
though left unclaimed
cannot go back,
And what has been once named
must fill its place,
must rise up in its light.
She’ll use her new-found grace
to crest the night.

©Wendy Mulhern
March 22, 2013


Strategies

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I could go off into drift
I could let the sense of disconnect
condense,
fog up my sight with sadness,
close me in,
make me curl up into a small place
to collect the seeping darkness
in my body’s still,
to manufacture tears, perhaps
and soft howls.

I could wait there for you to notice.

It could be a long wait.

And it would start to seem pointless
after just a little while.
Plus if you did see me there,
what would you do?
I would be
one more unpleasant task,
another instance
of the universe’s obstinance
or bland indifference.

Better to laugh.
Better to consider
that none of this was made with me in mind
There certainly was no attempt
to cut me off
And maybe all of this was an illusion anyway —
Emotional hallucination
of an errant tooth.

©Wendy Mulhern
March 17, 2013


Homecoming: a vision

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She makes her way along familiar streets
now rendered narrow
by the broadness of her vision.
Her light-filled eyes
scan these scenes
of her recent past
which tug up tears she scarcely understands.

Her skirt snags on corners;
She tries to pull it in;
It keeps on spilling outward
Like her love,
Like her tears.
She wants to gather all these up;
She wants them to come with her,
Wants them to see her.

They are afraid
that they have lost her,
that she won’t stay home,
that in her brilliance
she has no time to see them.

She will find a way to bring them in
She will be patient
She’ll come up from behind,
Shine through them softly
So the light they see is theirs
Rising from within
to meet her own.

©Wendy Mulhern
March 13, 2013