Tag Archives: transition

Letting Him Go

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We first relax
and then begin
to take our tentacles out
of your father’s life

We called them love
but they were something else.
We felt our love required them
but (on further thought)
our meddling does not improve his life

We take out the tentacles
so he can die if he wants,
and if what he wants to do
is ride the currents
of his own volition
wherever they may take him, well

This is what we also had to do
to free our children. So now
you’re treating him like an adult,
my daughter said. Letting him decide
what he wants to do

Oh yes. To learn again:
Love is not exerting
what we think is best for them —
love holds on
while also letting go.

©Wendy Mulhern
June 12, 2017

Mementos

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The box labeled
parental sentimentalities
is small
and the things in it
were not carefully vetted

They were just what got caught
at moments when the momentum
of moving on
flagged a little
and these were dropped like sediment
from the slower flow

Or when a stick snags something
near the river’s bank
and other things, arrested, gather behind it

Somehow I couldn’t throw out
the paper cut out figure smiling benignly,
curling at the edges
or the fimo depiction
of a sink with snow in it

Many years hence
I may look at them again.
For now, this box is ark
among the flags.

©Wendy Mulhern
May 21, 2017

Leaving

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Life is always knitting things together —
pick up an old mat, and you’ll find
many things have taken up shop,
habitats of dark and moist
created in the hidden spaces,
roots and mycelium, pill bugs, spiders,
the smell of earth

Pick up anything that’s been in place awhile
and you’ll find unexpected emotions,
sticky at your throat and maybe
behind your eyes —
your caring has set up shop
under your awareness
because life is like that

You will still leave
(life is like that, too)
but not without feeling
the many ways you were connected
but never knew.

©Wendy Mulhern
April 27, 2017

Softly

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The task of these days
is the gentle release,
not so much a prying of fingers
as becoming water-like,
slipping through
like current through seaweed,
the lack of thrashing
leaving my ankles free

A kindly goodbye
to the ghosts of unfruitful hopes,
directions untaken, positions outgrown
and a soft reaching forward
towards what is not solid yet,
whisper embrace of what isn’t yet known.

©Wendy Mulhern
April 19, 2017

Look Up

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Walking with a box of stuff —
it’s awkward and it’s heavy,
and now I notice
that the bottom is giving way
and the box sagging misshapen
as my knees try to catch the falling items.
They are slipping out anyway,
tripping up my feet

Let it go. Let it all go —
There’s nothing here you really need,
your new life will have no place for this,
no time, and no allowance
for all this dusty mustiness.
Let it go, look up —
the sun is shining through plum blossoms.

©Wendy Mulhern
April 13, 2017

Impending Departure

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How can we leave? you said,
How can we let this all go?

We let it go because it never held us —
We held it, just as we hold ourselves.
We contain each feeling we’ve imbued this place with,
we take the substance with us
when we go

After all, we always have been travelers —
before our birth, and through this time
and onward,
we move, to our delight,
in waves of constant newness,
explorers of infinity,
our never ending home.

©Wendy Mulhern
April 11, 2017

Lightening the Load

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What can you make out of
old connections, letters from people
long lost track of? Is there value
in the warmth of their tone, the obvious
love they shared?

Is there a reason to hold on to words
whose context is long gone?
And is this related to hunger
that keeps coming back
however much I eat?

The past may be remembered or forgotten,
I can think of it with fondness or regret,
and maybe truly, all there is of it
is what I carry in my daily steps and breath.

©Wendy Mulhern
April 10, 2017

Purging

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I will clear out
all that doesn’t serve me,
books I never read,
shelves of past regrets,
all the inner stories that stunted my unfoldment,
wily and continual betrayers

I do not need
memories of weakness,
dire affirmations of historical shortcomings,
don’t need all those old complaints
or that dusty disapproval,
don’t need those assumptions or constraints

I’m getting rid of
anything that’s broken,
anything that’s worn out or outgrown,
I’ll let the spring shoots
fill in all around me,
I’ll let fresh new views
become my own.

©Wendy Mulhern
April 3, 2017

The Same Stream

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Feel the spreading distance,
my arms no longer reaching,
feel the melancholy seeping
as fingertips stretch empty

Feel the joining current
that holds each of us,
feel the way we’re flowing
in the same direction,
feel the sweet way our connection
is assured by simply coursing
in the same stream

Though the constellations of our friendships
may shift like clouds, may wander and disperse,
we’ll share the resonance
of what is filling us,
we’ll be the rushing song that fills our ears.

©Wendy Mulhern
April 1, 2017

Hourglass

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A little shift starts the sand moving,
and with the second shift,
the channel opens
and everything is heading down,
small dimple on the top surface
and one by one, the grains dropping

We will streamline ourselves
so we can slide on through,
we will let go of
extraneous appendages,
we will not panic
at unstoppable momentum —
it is what we have been asking for

There is joy here
in the gathering of focus,
satisfaction
in the end of aimless waiting,
there is time for us
in the curve’s acceleration,
there’s a place for us,
and there is time.

©Wendy Mulhern
March 28, 2017