We will give up
trying to be good
and trying to look good
and trying to justify
relative worth
We will give up
the anxious glances,
the frenzied measurements,
the sad assessments
of us and the world
For we will know
that this good of us
is not of our doing
or our undoing —
It is held immutable,
unsullied,
and will glow triumphant
and enlightening
through all our days.
©Wendy Mulhern
June 8, 2015
The veil has been rent —
the illusion that plagued us
is gone, like the face of a burst balloon,
and even the reflexive repugnance
that trickled bitter down our throats
has disappeared
So we are no longer willing to accept
wheels ever-spinning in mud,
and the dragon no longer gets to
sweep away a third of the stars
from heaven
All the things we were struggling for
are lost from view —
we see the remaining distorted image
now two-dimensional
on the scrap of discarded balloon
And day rises, dew jeweled,
before our grateful eyes.
©Wendy Mulhern
June 6, 2015
Beneath the sky
my phone reports as cloudy,
my love darts up
to the soft curved body
of the gull flying low overhead,
pale morning color
glowing around its belly
And I feel sure
that it receives the love
as all bodies are designed to do —
receptors and transmitters
of what shines
brighter than light.
So I begin my prayer:
“Our.”
©Wendy Mulhern
June 5, 2015
Today my pleasure was
weeds and a shovel,
and a job that required
that I keep on working
long past my usual
sense of endurance,
past being tired,
past making choices —
at the command
of the process at hand,
focus and repetition,
into the place of
not thinking anything
I have certainly earned
the rise and fall of my breathing,
the languor of abandon,
this feeling of being stretched out
like long winter grass
pressing into the earth.
©Wendy Mulhern
June 4, 2015
photo by Edward Mulhern
When all the masks dissolve
(as well they must, against the potency
of our being)
We’ll see each other, and we’ll know
that nothing we have fretted over
ever mattered at all
The person each of us has always been,
the one we’ve always known,
turns out to never have been sullied
by failures or by fears
That deeply lovable, delightful being
we each so valiantly
have striven to defend
is who, now that the mask is down,
appears,
never faded, never fallen,
never broken, never marred by years,
ever shining, radiant and clear.
©Wendy Mulhern
June 3, 2015
Let my spirit
be generous enough
to offer soft landing
to the hard points,
the ragged edges,
the bony joints that come jabbing,
the blunt words that fall graceless
Let my spirit be deep enough
to see beneath the mask of self-seeking,
beyond temptation
to let stridency annoy me —
After all, we all are asking
for the same thing
We all are hoping
to find someone who will
give us what we need,
to fill the hollow hunger for
deserving approbation
Let my spirit be a rich bed,
moist and warm enough to nourish
all those worthy seeds
till the burr becomes irrelevant
in the new green.
©Wendy Mulhern
June 2, 2015
Gulls glide like boats
up along the bluff,
their wings unmoving
Their eyes look like they’re riding
instead of flying
They come along in ones and twos
appearing between the tops of trees
They fly mostly
into the prevailing wind —
some up-close eddy must aid their flight —
their casual purpose
no more obvious
than any effort on their part,
their presence too common
for comment.
©Wendy Mulhern
May 31, 2015
In surprise moments
stepping out from a room
or coming around a corner
I breathe home
There is a kind of home I take with me —
a comfort on the bus, and walking unknown streets,
There is the home of outlook,
the flavor with which my eyes frame everything
But this kind of home
jumps into me,
a complete surprise,
gift from the land, the air:
the scent of belonging —
not me claiming it,
it claiming me,
gathering me
calling me its own.
©Wendy Mulhern
May 30, 2015
I see the day in criss-crossed lines,
plane paths and train tracks,
intersections, patterns in the carpet,
smiles of strangers, laughter, conversation
surfacing, submerging in the roar
of subway cars, their bright rectangles
gliding in and out of darkness
Absences, reunions,
moving in a blur across my mind,
enhanced by music from my headphones,
the clack clack of my rolling suitcase
over the sidewalk,
the dig of my backpack strap at my shoulder
No lines of deep thought here,
just the echo of clatter
and the city’s traffic
mellowed and now lulling
through the open windows.
©Wendy Mulhern
May 29, 2015
The poetry of today
is in the gentle wind
and in the feathered shadows
cast by cedars on the house wall
The view from the cool shade
is lush, made brighter
by the slow closing of the sun’s window
as the tall trees
stretch their long influence
across the afternoon.
©Wendy Mulhern
May 28, 2015