These asymmetries
must have their reasons,
a needed distinction
between upper and lower edge,
a way to account
for a difference in pressure, or drag
They must be balanced
by a corresponding weighting
on the other side —
the existence of one reveals
necessities of others
Nature doesn’t deal
in imprecision,
doesn’t throw any shape
carelessly about
Any distortion reveals the influence
of other forces,
the partnering in patterns
greater than oneself.
©Wendy Mulhern
January 18, 2020
In this dimension
there are no lines, really,
only curves that move
as you approach them,
only planes that sport
the spreading shadow of their angle
So don’t think you need
to draw the line —
this understanding is really
about inhabiting the form,
glowing the light from the inside,
feeling the curve and fullness of it —
how that always makes it seem to shift
as the perspective moves.
©Wendy Mulhern
January 17, 2020
From my window
I keep watching the snow —
it’s falling fast now,
large flakes swirling
forcefully from the south,
waves of it rushing
to catch up with itself,
covering footprints
as if it could fall fast enough
to outrun the coming rains
which will wash it all away
swift as it came
(I went out for long enough
to get my face wet
catching snowflakes in my mouth and hair —
I felt like I owed it
a longer homage
but I was also drawn
to the hearth fire.)
©Wendy Mulhern
January 15, 2020
Day dawns slow and pretty
in the sifting, wistful snow —
sky dark, snow light,
air held in windless stasis
These days, our sense of purpose
can easily drift, though we walk
in the cold air and the snow crunch
and ground ourselves, as best we can,
among the winter trees
We will hold hands and remind each other
our work is not in things
we can tick off lists,
and our gain, from each day,
is somewhere deeper than here,
something we may see again sometime.
©Wendy Mulhern
January 14, 2020
You wake and seek the life elixir
but the sap of trees is sleeping
and yours — perhaps it’s crusted over
in the stress of things you tell yourself
and the press of boxes you’ve taken in —
cold steel against the softness of your inner parts,
dull ache from where you try
to bend around them
But still there’s something —
the touch of air, or movement
against the blankets,
a feather breath of light, or of another,
and the warm liquid stirs, finds strength,
begins to run the lengths
up and down along the inside of your hopes —
you stretch yourself, you move,
you feel alive.
©Wendy Mulhern
January 13, 2020
though you may feel the tug
into the small box of sadness
though you may curl up there
though you may feel
in all honesty
it’s your only choice
the only thing that’s true and real
though you have no desire to fight
and from that standpoint
you see no reason why you’d want to,
this is not the story for you to choose
Consider life, after all.
Then your despair, or if you quibble
with the term, your nihilism,
could not exist except as foil
to all you’ve ever loved —
to love itself — and yet that love
has no need of an opposite
to be itself
By which you see
the love alone is real,
and so you might as well relax
and let it shine.
©Wendy Mulhern
January 11, 2020
Today I thought about how
silence could be an option
in the early fading away
of light from the windows,
in the random lamplit reading
of books most often looked at but untouched
upon my shelves — basketry, house design,
Anglo-Welsh poetry, mushrooms —
I could stay silent
for this, another night like any,
not try to add any insights to the world
(as if that were what I do anyway)
I could have stayed silent,
but then there was this.
©Wendy Mulhern
January 10, 2020
After this, I’m hoping
to remember to surrender daily,
or more often, as needed,
to give up all the small accumulations
trying to accrete,
to make themselves be something
and to fool me into thinking they are me
Ach — let them all dissolve,
may their lurid blooms float up
and dissipate
in the springing forth of what sustains me,
in the burble lift of purification,
the constant renewing of my place
in the unity of being.
©Wendy Mulhern
January 9, 2020
Let me construct a thought blanket —
it’s light as lace, and made of stars,
it’s stretchy and it’s huggy
and infinitely soft
I will throw it over
my thought of you —
I hope you will feel it
snuggling in. I hope you will find
the stars nourishing,
and that the net of it
will pull things together for you
and make you feel at peace
I hope it will hold you
steady like the moon
through all the hours of night,
that it will help you sleep
and make your dreams be sweet and bright,
I hope it will cancel all your worries
and deliver you refreshed
into the morning light.
©Wendy Mulhern
January 6, 2020
Just now, walking back from next door,
(five days in and none too soon)
it felt like the new year. Something about
the cold air, maybe,
or the gibbous moon,
something about the clarity of the dark sky
Quick as the steps through the dark,
well known enough that I wouldn’t trip
on the rough ground,
I felt a sort of whirring,
a clicking in of hope, of stamina —
I looked up — something inside said
OK, I’m ready,
ready to launch.
©Wendy Mulhern
January 5, 2020