Tag Archives: travel

The Road Home

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The road home was clear —
red lights streaming on ahead
but not too many,
no fog, no rain,
music to soothe
and some to keep us wide awake,
navigating traffic, hills, and bends

The road home is clear.
(We’ve learned, for now,
not to talk about it much —
it’s solo, after all,
and not negotiated)

When we arrive,
in some sense, in some aspect,
we may share with each other
what we have gained.
The road home
may not be always clear,
but we will own it,
we will persevere.

©Wendy Mulhern
November 12, 2018

Illusions

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On the train again —
rolling motion, light and landscape,
fast change of parallax
lulling and nourishing

I take in
the illusion of movement
and the fact of stillness,
of being always here
riding along in the illusion of time
where neither past nor future
has any say in the unfolding
of the gifts of now.

©Wendy Mulhern
October 2, 2018

Orange Line

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And if the train cars
pass through a shadow,
its shape rolling undisturbed
across each clump of passengers,
if the train rattles through light and darkness
clattering to a stop at the stations
and the passengers are unconcerned
by the shifting light

So may my course be,
and let me sway with the turns and the clatters,
unconcerned by what we pass through
on the way to our destination.

©Wendy Mulhern
March 11, 2018

Arriving

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Dozing into the arrival
at our land, passing between
cliffs of clouds and blue banked sky,
needed desired rain
and needed desired sun
and the question of which
would attend our arrival

Eyes closed, the landscape still rolled out,
the narration borrowed
from some other world:
“They grasped each other
by their suppositions,”
I heard, before opening my eyes

The sun shone through the rain,
mist rose up from the road
and blew across. The dream
was also worth watching
after the long trundle,
blurring the question
of where, exactly,
we were arriving.

©Wendy Mulhern
September 18, 2017

Traveling

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blue sky

Riding through worlds
in concentric bubbles —
bubble of sound,
bubble of thought,
(poetry read against
music receding as images rise)
bubble of fuselage,
bubble of sky
enclosing patchwork earth
and lakes reflecting clouds

We traverse time collectively,
each of us cocooned
in our strategies
to pass through untouched
to the other side.

©Wendy Mulhern
July 13, 2016

Night Travel

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sunup oak bluffs

In the absence of pillows
and space to stretch out,
I still traveled well,
in the company of angels,
in the comfort of belonging
wherever I was,
richly entertained
with memories and gratitude
for what I’m learning,
and eyes to see the kindness of others
and their joys,
and the freedom
that tucks me in with all the space around me,
charging all with potent portent,
setting me down at journey’s end,
perpetually home.

©Wendy Mulhern
August 11, 2015

Traveling, Arrival

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I see the day in criss-crossed lines,
plane paths and train tracks,
intersections, patterns in the carpet,
smiles of strangers, laughter, conversation
surfacing, submerging in the roar
of subway cars, their bright rectangles
gliding in and out of darkness

Absences, reunions,
moving in a blur across my mind,
enhanced by music from my headphones,
the clack clack of my rolling suitcase
over the sidewalk,
the dig of my backpack strap at my shoulder

No lines of deep thought here,
just the echo of clatter
and the city’s traffic
mellowed and now lulling
through the open windows.

©Wendy Mulhern
May 29, 2015

Chautauqua, Boulder

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Boulder leaves

The temperature shifts quickly with the wind
which now blows dry leaves,
in soft, autumn-scented rustling,
down the street

The leaves that haven’t fallen
soak sun, silent and supple,
butter-smooth against
the china sky

And in between the times
when the industrious homeowner
wields his leaf blower,
It’s quiet, and I hear crickets

When the sun goes down
behind the Flatirons
I’ll seek warmth inside,
Settle, like nestled leaves,
into the evening.

©Wendy Mulhern
October 29, 2014

Resurfacing

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Twice today I finished typing
and hit the “send” button,
and noticed that my heart was sounding
that homing drum,
that turning thump
that signified
travel to altered states,
passage through some narrow place,
(speed-squeezed along the airfoil,
pulled through the lift
of the attenuated pressure)
the re-emerging into normal day
requiring decompression,
proof that I had touched the table
of some deep-lying truth.

©Wendy Mulhern
January 10, 2014

Logan Airport — Ground Transportation

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Certain things can be written
in the roar of the airport terminal
where buses wheeze and screech
in the echoing concrete beneath the interchange.

The words are not soft,
though there’s a calmness in our waiting
and good-naturedness in others
in this slowing space
along the disparate trajectories of travel.

It’s too loud and hard
amid the engines and the beeping carts
to find an outward peace —
It is a time to patiently endure,
a din to send my focus inward.

©Wendy Mulhern
August 27, 2013