So I tell myself,
this distraction might even be
the tune, the backdrop
on which my inspiration will roll out
I listen to the chair squeaks —
high pitched and persistent,
scraping out an almost-steady rhythm,
each squeal slightly different,
though not enough to make a difference
Every now and then there is a pause,
but not quite long enough
for the silence to settle in
and spread out its
welcoming open page.
©Wendy Mulhern
February 22, 2014
What your hands have learned,
they can take with them:
If you can weave a basket,
you can also weave
the springing boughs
of many people’s stories,
coax them all together into one
If you can start a fire,
you can also start a movement,
Find the soft, dried fiber
that is ready to ignite,
Gather it, bring it close,
Work up the fervency
that makes the heat,
Shelter and tend your tinder bundle,
Breathe your spark into it
and it will take off.
©Wendy Mulhern
February 21, 2014
Close your eyes,
feel the water rushing down your face,
taste its stream,
let it speak for your tears,
let it take them down.
Its roar can stand in for your grief,
even overwhelm it
for a while
Blink your eyes
and feel the weight of rivulets
through your eyelashes,
blurring droplets stretching out
the silvered light
that’s rolling in,
taste the promise —
there will be renewal
in its time
No need to dry your eyes —
that will happen
when you’re ready
and you’ll feel the coolness
around your eyelids
and the steadying
of your deep, shuddering breath
and you will feel alive,
strangely nourished by your tears.
Morning will come
and you’ll look up.
©Wendy Mulhern
February 20, 2014
There were rustlings
between the prayers,
stirrings, agitation,
There were pretensions
among some players,
twitching efforts
to effect distraction
Yet there was no assailing
the potent truth
and its unfurling
like great wings, like huge
flocks of birds
launched by an unerring impulse,
following a necessary wave,
creating dynamic calm —
a sky-full of it,
large enough to welcome
even all the chatterers,
strong enough eventually
to bring them peace.
©Wendy Mulhern
February 19, 2014
Things may be much larger
or much smaller
than we assume —
Maybe it’s a galaxy,
maybe a quark,
maybe the shake of a squirrel’s tail
among the boughs
Some instruments of knowing
are less foolproof
than we have been led to believe,
and indeed
we have been fooled for generations —
We have been duped
into throwing out
all ways of knowing,
all ways of measuring,
all ways of valuing
except the dollar
(and that, we’re told,
is out of our control)
And yet
We are not fools,
We do have ways of knowing
of our own
And we can use them
to understand
each one’s true value
and why we’re here
and what we now can do
to save the world.
©Wendy Mulhern
February 18, 2014
Oh, you have been good
You have been so, so good,
fighting through for all those deadlines,
pluckily plugging on . . .
But even more than that,
You are good —
Good in the way that makes the wind
want to help you, the sky
want to halo you, the sun
count you as kin,
even when you’re sleeping,
even before
you’ve turned everything in.
©Wendy Mulhern
February 17, 2014
The rain is flung against the windows
in periodic splatters —
the glass holds the cold at bay,
as does the heat,
indulgently set high
to try to hold back, too,
the hard-flung shafts
of doubt, of indecision,
and the slow seep
of suspected missed connections
that I imagine
would warm me to my core
There is a shelter
that has harbored me before
and I will find it
after my introspection
and my letting go
when I reach out
with my empty hands
and let what holds me
bear me up
from underneath.
©Wendy Mulhern
February 16, 2014
We find ourselves
in the presence of
— this —
which we do have power
to understand
(despite assertions,
hard and furious,
dogged and insistent,
that we do not)
We feel this
like an elixir
that pours into us
continually
filling us up and flowing over,
constantly glowing
in unexpected light
And we don’t need to say
if it comes from us
or from another —
Yes it wells up within
(more full and sudden
than we would imagine) —
and yes, it is response
to something we have seen
outside ourselves —
We can move in this,
we can live it —
And we must,
(as we always have,
though often in rebellion
or in guilt or in confusion)
Through all the obfuscation
we still will find it
for nothing can deprive us
of our truth.
©Wendy Mulhern
February 14, 2014
After a while she realized
it didn’t take endurance
to keep on loving,
nor was it heroic, really —
It was more like breathing —
something she must do
to be alive
And if she felt wrung out
and dry and hollow,
it wasn’t due to lack of loving
so much as lack of noticing
her love was insurmountable
There might be sorrow
and frustration
and righteous voices
shouting down the value of her love
but love would win
for she could never cease
and so her love would always be enough.
©Wendy Mulhern
February 12, 2014
I’m willing to go
whatever way I’m led,
to move forward
without forecast —
no projections of the path,
no resolutions
I’m willing to let
the weight of truth
bear me towards my source,
ever following the fall line,
ever unpredicted,
often winding,
always exactly right
In this place,
at this time
held in the poise
of the law
that makes me
what I am.
©Wendy Mulhern
February 11, 2014