Children emerge from the library
paired with parents
and two steps out the door
they invariably
break into running or dancing or singing,
bouncing against their parent’s staider gait
like leaves caught by the autumn breeze,
pent up from stillness
now released —
as rich a gift to me
as the tall oak trees,
resplendent red above,
speaking of community,
a place that cares for them.
©Wendy Mulhern
November 13, 2019
Though I talk about
techniques for survival,
I really mean
ways to maintain joy —
there is a level
where it amounts to the same thing
And it’s easy to find uplift
in the faces of young fathers
and their children,
in reachings out for connection,
in all these things that
right now
are of utmost importance to people,
however fleetingly they catch
the light-elixir that sustains us all.
©Wendy Mulhern
November 12, 2019
With just a couple wrong turns,
I found myself in sorrow,
but sensed that every story
to present itself as cause
must be a lie
I will not grasp at them —
they are not even straws —
their only function
would be to tie me up in knots
It’s better to just let the sorrow
be its color of wet charcoal,
of eyes clamped shut,
the brown green of sobs
providing variegation
Better to walk through long grass
and give some little willows
a second chance to grow
beside the pond,
better to breathe
and look up at the day
and let the darkness be unnamed
and let the light in.
©Wendy Mulhern
November 11, 2019
I find myself suddenly hungry
for fiction, for magic,
for peppermint mochas
in well-lighted places,
for time to get lost in a book
At the end of my dream
I found myself flying,
flapping huge wings
that started as arms,
down the dirt and gravel road
through the woods,
back to the cabin
I stayed up late last night
reading and tending the fire
till I was too sleepy to continue.
The sleepiness returned today
before the work was over,
and the book was also calling me
We’ll go home soon,
and dreams will be my friends,
giving me story while they also
give me rest.
©Wendy Mulhern
November 10, 2019
This wilderness was prepared
especially for me,
like the belly of a fish
but not so dark and slimy
This wilderness
holds me cocooned
in the place that best promotes
my growth. No room to squiggle,
no chance to be distracted,
to opt out. No way to go
but forward, upward
along the tough but bracing trail
This wilderness
leaves no space for complaint,
Its beauty overwhelms me,
its demands
make me strong. I will stay here
for as long as is required.
I will stay until directed to the city.
©Wendy Mulhern
November 9, 2019
Everybody’s life
is just … their life —
the places where they fell,
and where they failed,
the losses of their hopes,
the pooling grief
There’s no comparison of lives —
not one person’s with another’s,
not one person’s, with what it might have been,
no one gets to have
the biggest joy, the deepest grief,
a story more worth telling than another
No one is cursed,
each one is blessed,
and underneath all the questions
is that simple fact,
the place everyone’s life
is trying to get to,
where nothing that happened matters,
and everything that is, does.
©Wendy Mulhern
November 8, 2019
There is a place for tears,
there is a place
for turning around three times
and lying down,
there is a place for curling up
and waiting for the inner heave to stop
The comfort rises up around me
like soft flames from the coals,
cradles me, reminds me
this warmth is always at hand
Maybe we’re allowed
to have a soft day sometimes,
to go back to bed, for a while,
in the afternoon,
to do about as much work
as the sun did today,
showing up for about an hour
between fog and day’s end.
©Wendy Mulhern
November 6, 2019
Today I imagined us silver,
silver and luminous,
growing more so
in the passage of years,
glowing more deeply
with that flowing liquid
that more and more fully
powers our being
This is the way to age —
as a tree ages —
this is the way to grow into ourselves,
dropping, with daily grace,
that which obstructs us,
comprised, more each moment,
of light.
©Wendy Mulhern
November 5, 2019
Long we have imagined being done
(not even comprehensively, but with a phase)
Long we have imagined going home.
But there’s a truth about the process
we didn’t know to picture —
how we don’t go back the way we’ve come
We have been honed, we have been humbled,
and the things we’ve learned
are more about perspective points than anything —
not that we know more things
but that our lenses
have somehow shifted everything we see
And being done — I now don’t know
what that would look like,
and going home — I’m not sure
where that is,
but in the learning and the leaning
I can say
I’m more myself than I have ever been.
©Wendy Mulhern
November 4, 2019
The softness of the day at three
is a fine gift — softness of wind,
warmth from the sun,
a softening of urgency
to get things done,
a sense of progress,
a sense that our release,
while not in sight as yet,
could come some day.
©Wendy Mulhern
November 3, 2019