Author Archives: Wendy

Pretty

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brackett's trees

There’s something striking
in straight lines merged with bendy —
Tree limbs framed in window panes,
Images of houses
ruffled in the river’s ripples

I came here along the braided curves —
River, bike trail, highway rising
into overpasses, thinking
“Everything about today is pretty”

For I also thought so earlier,
Watching the rolling arc of waves,
small and glistening on the glassy water,
curling to a small break
just before the curving shore,
almost too bright to bear

We bounced small rocks off driftwood,
We spoke of things arcane and lofty,
Didn’t need to seek
the places we might disagree

(so I didn’t mention watching
dragon-headed clouds with intelligent eyes
drifting in brilliant blue
framed by my arm crooked over my face
to block eye-searing sun.)

©Wendy Mulhern
June 16, 2014

We find our way back

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benighted

We find our way back
Not by craft, not by clever planning,
Not with compasses or maps
or trails of breadcrumbs

We find our way back
Not by skill, not by knowledge,
Not with an ever burning torch
to light our way

We find our way back
by falling,
Falling into the well-honed patterns,
the steps we have invested in,
the ways we fit,
grown together day by day
over many years

So that after we have spun out,
There’s a truth we sink back into
and in our surrender
we find our way back.

©Wendy Mulhern
June 15, 2014

Benighted

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benighted3

What I figure out in my head
makes so little difference —
tenuous story
hung by flimsy threads
between the bounds of
things I don’t know anyway,
nothing more solid than
conjectures that I form
by flattening reality
to see it from my narrow point of view

See? I don’t know anything —
Nothing, anyway,
about these figurines, these tokens, this
archaic game board, with its
esoteric rules of play

I don’t know anything
so I’ll await the return
of some deeper context,
some more inclusive dimension,
some hitherto uncharted way.

©Wendy Mulhern
June 14, 2014

Weave

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weave

Flying down the warp of life
past the constant shuttle
of many colored wefts,
there is no one of them
you can take with you —
Nothing that you swiftly cross
can satisfy you
in your speeding course

Take satisfaction
in the silken strength
wherewith you are designed
and in the splendid order
of the loom
and in the dance that opens ways
to make room
for endless looping brightness

And feel yourself enfolded in the colors,
each one reliant on your clear integrity
that doesn’t waver in its steady place
within the cosmic frame
that holds your life.

©Wendy Mulhern
June 13, 2014

Early Morning Smile

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I cherish your
early morning smile,
rare as days when we can wake
to sunbeams,
hope-igniting as robin song.
We blink and face each other
and fill with light

We are here
and though chains of the day
await your donning,
we can almost see
the way they must dissolve,
We can almost taste the freedom
to live into that smile,
to let it lead us through the hours
released, at peace.

©Wendy Mulhern
June 11, 2014

The Implicate Order

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implicate order

The implicate order unfolds
in the waxing moon
and the track of shadows
across the day
and the tender individuation
of petals in their buds
and the steady resolution
in which my thoughts
come clear

And all the things I don’t yet know
remain still safe, enfolded
in the eternal order of the infinite
to come to my awareness
in the rolling presentation,
in its perfect time,
of all that’s implicate.

©Wendy Mulhern
June 10, 2014

Stability

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stability

 

Spirit, save me
from the side-wards slide,
the sense of dissonance,
the double vision —
Give me a sense of me
in which I can abide,
some clear stability,
purpose and mission

I can’t bear to be beholden
to whims of chemicals,
to be side-swiped
by chained reactions
trundling through me
like freight trains
bearing cargoes of speculation

I can’t bear to see
my sweet confidence
shriveled like unwatered seedlings,
laid out along the soil,
fast disappearing

Spirit, I need your breath
to steady me, remind me
of your presence
and the anchored truth
that holds me ever more —
the centered touch
that frees my life to soar.

©Wendy Mulhern
June 9, 2014

Missed Signals

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missed signals

None of these tokens mean a thing.
They are a currency —
Sometimes they can be used,
Sometimes, also, they can be
misconstrued

A kiss, a smile, a hug,
a showing up to work,
a glance, a sigh, a comment,
the taking time
to sync up with your breathing . . .

You may want one
and I may give another,
so it would seem
our signal had been lost

But I am sure
These tokens are just toeholds
to help us gain the higher understanding —
what I am, who you are
and the bedrock fact
of our deep caring,
and the finally unerring
harmonics
in which our souls conjoin.

©Wendy Mulhern
June 8, 2014

Safety

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safety

Where can we seek safety?
Not in numbers,
not in nameless crowds,
Not in being one of many,
herded, sheeplike, following the rules —
Not everything that claims to lead
is kind
And clearly, there’s no kind of safety
in following blind

How can we seek safety?
Not in more guns,
Not in more locks and keys,
Not in protection from so-called Security
Not in turning our faces
away from strangers,
Not in buying insurance
against all dangers

Not in conformity,
Not from policemen,
Not from reliance on logic and reasons,
Only by building
through small trusts, by hand
a net of acceptance that covers the land —
a weaving us in with no outside for anyone,
no one cast off, left afar —
Then we’ll be safe where we are.

©Wendy Mulhern
June 6, 2014

What I Observed While Trying to Write a Different Poem

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At Matthew’s Beach
the toddlers in their bright clothing
converge along the water’s edge.
Constellations of families
intersect orbits

Two small girls and one mom
have pink broad-rimmed hats
And the larger girl reaches her arms
in the water again and again
making circular splashes.
The smaller one
sits in the shallows —
they both have sodden skirts

A small boy cries unconsolably
because there’s a scratch
through the picture on his bucket
And his mother won’t stop
using it to get water
to wash her children’s feet

A young man with green sunglasses
and two small boys
and a wife
addresses me as lifeguard
and I have to tell him
(as I told the boy with the scratched pail)
that it’s not lifeguard season yet,
that I’m just here.

©Wendy Mulhern
June 5, 2014