Tag Archives: dance

Joy’s Return

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My father-in-law says to the empty room
(his hand gesticulating)
“That’s the place where all the people
yesterday and before came,
they were dancing,
they started a dance there”

While the clear tones of Appalachian Spring
soar from the radio
and I did just dance
here in the next room
because I couldn’t help it

Outside, blossom petals
carpet the streets with grace,
not caring if it’s sun or rain

It feels like it’s been
a long and tenuous time
but here I am,
where I belong,
hoping to take with me
next time I go
something like the memory of birds wheeling
to help me find my way back.

©Wendy Mulhern
April 26, 2017

The Dance

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Hand to hand
and gaze to gaze
we look to find our truest ways

We try on clothes,
we try on moves,
we try to find a self that grooves,
we want to lift and float and fly,
break through the stiff and staid and dry

We want the space to give consent,
we want to be uniquely met,
not image to image
but soul to soul —
so shall we see each other whole.

©Wendy Mulhern
February 21, 2017

Moments

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canal through leaves

Those moments
wanted to translate themselves
into dreams, wanted to be
buoyant floating in delicious water
and amazed soaring
through suddenly supportive air

They wanted to be
the supreme comfort of offering solace,
for indeed they were that —
they were the clarity seen through tears,
the contact point wherein
our eyes receive each other

The sense of being held
fully as long as is needed,
the fact that people can sometimes be symbols
for something much deeper,
much more desired,
than their circumscribed lives
can offer. They can represent
the truth — the one thing someone
just at that time
most needed to know.

©Wendy Mulhern
August 16, 2016

Simple Science

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outfall

Lack of a stream bed
will not stop water
from flowing down

Lack of a plan
will not stop love
from carving its way
through and around
every obstacle

Lack of lessons
will not stop dance
from cleaving to the music,
moving bodies in ways they hadn’t thought of,
hadn’t known they could

And no tale
of loss, of separation
can stop the full expression,
intricate and bold,
of everything you are
from shining forth.

©Wendy Mulhern
November 12, 2015

Song Waves

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hands together

When I started to sing
(my voice pulled up by the enticing
echoes of the underpass)
I found the sound was bound
to the memory
of how last night
it entwined with others,
rich tones rising from us,
curling around and drawing forth harmony,
long lush locks of song
like dark, smoky-incense scented hair,
like arms embracing, foreheads touching
and the primal coil
that rose up through our centers,
feeding us from the earth.

©Wendy Mulhern
August 4, 2015

photo by Edward Mulhern

Spring Comes

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spring comes

It may seem chaotic
but there is one force pulling us all
And the intelligence
with which we’re all connected
can accommodate
every single need

This grand dance goes on
in every scale of size —
within the galaxies of molecules
and in the tensile tug of stars

And we can feel it
in the way we slide together
and the kinetic transfer
of exhilaration

We can feel it in the stillness
where the interlocking circles
find perfect balance
all along the endless chain of life.

©Wendy Mulhern
February 17, 2015

Body of Movement

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Wendy in tree2

Consider my body
and how it moves —
the reach and balance points,
the arcs extended
through my spine, my limbs —
consider how it spins
and how it leans and stretches

There is no moment
when it is not made of motion.
Even at its most still,
the counterpoints of rise and fall,
of soft and taut
are what define it

It’s not a mass of matter
waiting to be activated.
It’s not comprised of elements
that might move.

It is the actual movement
as clearly defined by my thought
as the vortex form
is governed by its rippling imperative —
cohesion of the liquid
and the gravity that draws it
and the honored channels
through which it flows

My body is like that —
transparent, wave formed,
kinetic,
whirling through the dance
of present tense.

©Wendy Mulhern
February 11, 2015

photo by Edward Mulhern

How to Fly

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land north

I hold the curiosity
of what is —
what is you, in this moment,
what is me,
what is the vibrant space between us
with its tensile pull
we follow onward
through the dips and surges
of our eyes, our smiles, our dance

It’s not my thoughts so much
as my heart’s swift pulse
and the rush behind it
that my body cleaves to
as I hold the channel open
and go further in
where the whole counsel of myself
encounters you

It finds you on your land,
It finds your feet at home,
It finds you ranging
through the rhythm of your days,
your shadow easy in its arc
and in its evening slide
back into the velvet of the hills

I find you
to my surprise
beyond the stretch of my resistance
where I find I’ve settled in,
close and content,
to the comfort of your eyes.

©Wendy Mulhern
January 29, 2015

Sands of Change

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beach

I will flow into my sensing
of what is true,
I will not wait for others to go first.
I will pour like sand,
no grain delaying,
with the full commitment
of all my weight,
aware that gravity is here
and my surrender
moves me with calmness
through the changes,
and the weight of others
will be eased
into the leaning
of my willingness
to go down,
to settle
all the way in.

©Wendy Mulhern
November 26, 2014