Tag Archives: story

The Calculus of Love

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waves-at-magnuson

There are things about the calculus of love
which are meticulously hidden
from the common story

The equations of care and of giving
are set forth as a balance, with a tally
as if love should be judiciously bestowed
on those who prove their worthiness,
who earn it

But this arithmetic cannot account
for the infinity of life released by loving,
the boundless joy that courses through a lover
when love is simply wholly freely given

We’re made to think that if we love,
we’re owed something,
but in the calculus of love
we learn we’re not.
The lessons are not easy
but Love will tutor us,
if we show up in love each day and practice.

©Wendy Mulhern
December 5, 2016

Remedy

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carkeek-sound-view

Beyond the whole charade of shame and fear
and the confusing counsel to atone,
the place of being where your name is clear
awaits the understanding that will bring you home

Above the clamor of the inner voices
that trace the stories, tally all the fault,
you’ve always sensed there might be other choices —
within the clutter, something to exalt

And so it’s only partially surprising
to find no need to settle all the scores,
not even need to stage a great uprising
to overthrow what held you down before.
Your remedy is simple but extreme —
you wake to find the whole thing was a dream.

©Wendy Mulhern
November 21, 2016

The Narrative

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waterlightsand

There may be many false starts
to the story. It’s said the place you enter
forms the pattern, the narrative determined
by the angles and perspectives
of the starting view.

That’s why, maybe,
we have to make so many tries.
Finally we find the launch point
where all the story lines align,
we find the motivation, we find the cause.

So it’s important to look again
when viewing a life. To look again
and again until the cause comes clear,
to not settle for a story
of misalignment

Each life after all
is here to bring a grand influx of light,
like heaven, like dawn,
illumining collective understanding,
showing us each, showing us all
why we are here.

©Wendy Mulhern
November 6, 2016

In Peace

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carkeek-maple-with-sound

A line on paper, after all,
is not worth getting riled about —
it didn’t cost money, it can easily
be erased or moved

A gesture, too, is just a movement
of a frame, just an expression
of a construct of internal stories
which, themselves (though it might
not seem quite so easy) can be changed

A tone of voice, a whole visceral uprising,
a set of back and jaw, a reaction —
these things are not the person,
they can be released,
for each of us has the right
to grow in peace.

©Wendy Mulhern
October 26, 2016

Ribbons

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carkeek-maple

I’m gonna lay these ribbons down,
gonna line them up along the ground,
gonna set them straight
though the wind will turn them
over and away

I’m gonna lay down all these threads,
all the stories weaving through my head,
all their conclusions,
all my illusions,
the things I thought and said —
they had no truth, they cannot stay

I’m gonna find my patch of light,
gonna home on in with all my might,
gonna bask where I am bright
through the ever glowing day.

©Wendy Mulhern
October 22, 2016

Characters

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sunbreak-with-road

We found ourselves in someone else’s story
and the characters we were cast as,
we didn’t know them, didn’t know
what words and actions, on their part,
would put us in good graces,
or let us even know where we stood

Then we remembered: this is our story.
We own the tale in which these people
think we’re something other than what we are,
and may harbor expectations
that we act in ways to please them,
ways about which we have no clue

And grace — the only way we’ll really find it
is to float up free from story altogether,
to hold their words and gestures
in the kindest light
and count on Spirit —
the universal breath that we all share —
to braid our lives together in its course.

©Wendy Mulhern
October 18, 2016

Back

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rainy-windshield

What inadvertent loop
brought me back to the place
where all the stories of ancient fears
had congregated,
where they sat in cold knots
feeling forgotten but wielding
their influence, oozing their stain
onto my outlook?

How was it not enough
to remember
the warm expansiveness
of my liberation? How could I
fit myself, cramped as ever,
back into those constrictions?
And how do I get back to free?

Since trying has failed,
I try not trying.
I look for the stillness
of not doing.
I may find myself back here again —
I’ll gain from learning to escape.

©Wendy Mulhern
October 16, 2016

History

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evening-sun-outside-cabin

You can’t even begin
to sort through the layers
of hurt, mistakes,
attempts at compensation,
of slights and their reactions,
things taken and the gaping holes they leave

But maybe you can put in a little seed
and let the rain seep down
and let mycelium colonize,
and perhaps a little plant
will grow up through it all,
strong and clean and straight
and none of the past will matter
as life asserts itself once again,
perfect as ever,
conquering all.

©Wendy Mulhern
September 27, 2016

My Life

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nantucket-sound-summer-2015

The sigh of waves that reach
but fall back down
again and again,
the washing back
that comes to seem devoid of hope,
the pointlessness of swells that never crest,
that never swoop and crash —
this is just a story, just a metaphor

The roll of water circles satisfied
underneath the surface,
the wave proceeds across the whole ocean.
The catch along the shallow bottom
that trips them, makes them fly forward
is just another phase of what they do

So rolls my life,
fuller, surely, than I’ve ever known,
the power of this moment
still more or less unharnessed,
not waiting for the vagaries
of bottom depth, of ship’s wake,
but drawing from a purpose of its own
to round out all the edges of what rises from within,
to fill the waiting hollows with its song.

©Wendy Mulhern
September 16, 2016

Heritage

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baxter-wetlands

They were lost for a long time
because the invader
had taken away the name of their land,
the name that had placed them,
right as moss,
in the order of everything

It had taken away their rivers,
straightened them, dredged them, drained them
to make way for logs and motors,
so they couldn’t look at them
and know their way home

Years passed. Cities rose, and generations
followed, one after another,
none of them knowing
how they were led by the neck,
how little what was offered
could touch the hidden caverns
of their need, of their potential

It was a revelation how a whisper
could resonate so loudly, could crash
so many stories, unearth so many
roots and bones and memories.
Something secret in plain sight, a code
of DNA, which all those layers of tales
couldn’t bury

It was the power for a revolution
how it spread from soul to soul
until the truth of it
rose like the dawn:
This is our name, our name
and the name of our land.
It can’t be taken from us now
for we are one
and we are whole.

©Wendy Mulhern
September 15, 2016