Author Archives: Wendy

Artifacts of our presence

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The wind through the fence
as vocal as any bird
speaks of the artifacts
of our presence –
not yet picturesque
except perhaps from some perspectives

Trees we’ve planted –
some of them rise
above their blue tubes –
others we take on faith
or on imagination,
visualizing groves

We have made mud swaths
where there was grass,
we have made piles –
of tools, of compost,
of equipment

Things are still beautiful
in varying lights of day and night.
We’ve made them less so,
but hope that’s only for a time,

©Wendy Mulhern
April 7, 2020

More on Last Days

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Well, the world may end, he said,
but it won’t be due to
End of Days –
But rather that we finally
prove too stupid
to pull ourselves together

One thing we know –
No progress comes
from waiting for it,
nor does it come from protesting,
nor can we find it
by persuading others

It is a turning
in the atmosphere of mind,
each individual
claiming sovereignty,
it is unhitching from the trolley
of the common thought,
(what no one thinks, but thinks that others do)
that let’s us find our way
to being free.

©Wendy Mulhern
April 6, 2020


Satisfied

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It was everything you ever wanted,
It was nothing you ever outlined,
It was the magic content
of all the things you thought
were most desirable,
which those things sometimes delivered
but could never guarantee

It was a thing that had no name,
for all the names had been used up
on things you thought could maybe
(if you were lucky,
or if you were smart)
give you what you wanted

When you found it,
for a long time you were speechless –
How could you talk about
something that was everything,
that satisfied your every hope?

©Wendy Mulhern
April 5, 2020

A New Thought

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Grief is a place to put stories to bed.
The slosh of waves of narrative,
conflicting stories, counter stories,
fall to stillness here. There is no answer,
no explaining away,
no alternative fact
that could gain traction here.
There is nothing to say.

Which is why, in grief,
there’s room for healing.
There’s room for the internal rages
to burn each other out.
After all that, grief resolves
to stillness.
And after a long silence,
a new thought.

©Wendy Mulhern
April 4, 2020

Spirit Essence

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We don’t need loud voices
to speak to each other,
we are so close –
close enough to whisper,
close enough to feel each other’s breath

So close, in fact,
maybe we don’t need to talk at all.
Instead, we listen together,
hearing, at the same time,
the same unfolding
of the Spirit essence
that lets us move as one.

©Wendy Mulhern
April 3, 2020

A Worthy Read

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Since your words proved able
to make me dream,
to make me dream of caring
and of caring for,
and of a desperate effort
to drink from a fountain
where the water flowed flat
along its spiky sphere,
hard to get ones mouth on,
of people trying to connect
while stories
kept putting doors between them

I dreamed all these dreams
and you were in them –
less in their depths
than in the coming out,
as I woke up, and again,
as I returned to sleep

Since your words could do this,
I deem them
an honest story,
I consider them
a worthy read.

©Wendy Mulhern
April 1, 2020

The Whole Jalopy

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From the place we ride
along the contours of the story,
high along the climax
or underneath,
fading into background,
rolling up to stark relief

The roles we think we have, the destiny,
the share of light or grief or glory,
the way that we may try to parlay
one place for another, one situation
for something we believe
will gain us more

We’ve called these things our lives
but we are learning
these are just distractions,
these are misplaced vectors
sending hopes careening
along the sides,
never getting closer
to their desires

We start to see
another gain, another goal,
standing still, letting the whole story roll
away without us. What we want
was never there.
It’s always been here.

©Wendy Mulhern
March 31, 2020

Rain Frame

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I look for what is framed
in the constancy of rain –
the trees down by the river,
the box that shelters us

We may trade it in
for a surfeit of sleep,
a slacking off of work
(on cue from the sun)

We have music
in lieu of warmth,
warmth in lieu of light.
Robins and deer and turkeys
have what they need
in the wet expanse
of the wide outside.

©Wendy Mulhern
March 30, 2020

Names

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In the ever vibrant presence of the Spirit
comes the gradual loosening of names –
names that were given roughly
to the rough shapes reflecting
our rough understanding

Spirit shakes things finer,
like motes, like ions –
we recognize so much more
than the old names could capture

We give up the arrogance
of being namers,
wait tingling and yearning
to receive our names.

©Wendy Mulhern
March 29, 2020

The Substance of Everything

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Grace grows
like moss, like grass,
between the counted milestones of a life,
the things we hoped and strived for
laid out, summed up, empty,
except the grace that fills in everywhere,
becomes the reason, becomes the joy,
becomes what overflows in memory,
the gratitude of being

Things we built may stand like ruins,
listing in the shift of time,
moss and flowers and trees
will be their counterpoint ,
as the substance of everything
turns out to be quite different –
luminous glisten of grace,

©Wendy Mulhern
March 28, 2020