The pool of regrets
is a deep one. You can be washed
in many colors of sorrow.
You can feel your whole past
roll over you like a wave,
pulling all linearity out of time
Even if you don’t wallow,
don’t steep yourself in story,
it will color your view. It’s OK –
refracting light waves
bring depth and beauty to your days,
and to your character.
You will be prism and pool
to those who find you.
©Wendy Mulhern
August 15, 2022
I won’t quibble over whether
the way you’ve parsed things out
matches mine
What matters to me is that somehow
you’ve made space for joy to bubble up
within your structures,
and you’ve made a place
to honor enduring value,
to make people feel at home
and also seen, and also loved,
and so encouraged
to stretch into their greatest being
When you do that I can see
that paths you make for others
are ones that you can also use,
and so you stride forth free
bringing glory into all your days.
©Wendy Mulhern
March 29, 2022
I can purify myself
without making myself wrong
at any time – not in my past,
not in my dreams
It’s just like cleaning house – the shelves
are not wrong for the dust upon them –
quick swipe of cloth affirming their substance
and they are clear
I can purify myself
without making others wrong
or extra right – it’s like cleaning my glasses
so I can better see
the nuance of people’s hearts,
the colors of their souls.
©Wendy Mulhern
March 27, 2022
These days I see the light everywhere –
in the glow of wood grain,
in between the ribs
of all these living vessels of hope
(however much they cover it)
I see it along the shafts of rain,
and in compassion
that rises between the stories
of untold pain. I see it
in how much
everything alive desires to live,
and how the sky
hugs us all around
and holds us in.
©Wendy Mulhern
December 6, 2021
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