I came up from where
it was raining inside my ears,
I came out from where
everything was melting,
I closed that scene like a book,
the characters no longer marching
their abject stories
through my halls of mind
There is a truth
that nothing can be written on –
no ink, no etch, can mar its face –
it fills all consciousness,
so nothing more or less
is seen or felt or thought,
and everything abides with it in grace.
©Wendy Mulhern
November 27, 2022
Let me fall back
into very basic gratitude –
gratitude of fingers
for life’s movement within,
gratitude of breath
for its participation –
these things aren’t fooled
by high-minded ennui –
they know in every moment
that life is a gift
From here, my gratitude
can branch out, for there is much to love
in all the people, in all the days –
I can settle back into my purpose
and finding much to praise.
©Wendy Mulhern
November 4, 2022
Where’s the tsunami when you need it? –
when you want to give up on everything,
when you want a quiet box to hide in,
when at least, some thought inside you
makes a case for all of that,
says that you’re sad,
says you’re discouraged,
says you deserve to feel bad
(so go ahead, indulge)
and what you’ve undertaken
is very, very hard – who wouldn’t feel the same in your condition?
So it insults me, in its wager
that I won’t get the insult,
won’t notice that by saying this is hard,
it calls me weak, won’t notice
these are not my thoughts at all
But I will overcome –
there is no gain for me in going down,
there is no win in naming myself lost,
there is no reason to listen to these lies –
Enough – I say, begone!
©Wendy Mulhern
November 2, 2022
Well, I’d rather tell of light that reaches through
than poignantly delineate depression
(sustain of all my strings
muted to a dull gray “thub”)
A light that reaches, rather than piercing,
a lifting off of fog, frequent as dawn
And in the same way as I can’t
make it light outside before the morning,
I can be patient now
and wait the coming day.
©Wendy Mulhern
October 28, 2022
I seek solace in tears
but they are way below the surface,
an aquifer that needs to be replenished
I have stood against the opaque rock,
prayed that it become crystal,
yearned to see the light refracting through
And I don’t know what messenger to send
down the coves, down the caves,
to reach the still point, bring things out right
So I’m called to a deeper surrender,
an ocean, perhaps, or something vaster,
a power so far stronger than words or reason
that can enclose us all and bring us home.
©Wendy Mulhern
October 24, 2022
I’m forced to remember
I can’t do this alone,
can’t toss my thoughts high enough
to scale the peak,
can’t get the answer
from random imprints of emotions
I’m forced to remember
answers have nothing for me –
I need the deep suffusing
of what knows me.
I need to give up my projections
and let myself be shown.
©Wendy Mulhern
November 25, 2020
There’s a hollow, today, in the place
where I expected to find a poem –
perhaps dug out by yesterday’s torrents,
or the mice that decimated my melons,
or the larger rodent
who did in my brussels sprouts
And though the day has had its good things,
they haven’t, apparently, filled the gap entirely.
Twilight flows into its emptiness
and settles like a pool.
©Wendy Mulhern
August 24, 2020
Remembering that the roads of melancholy
are optional, the prompts
nudging me in that direction
really offering no reason
I would want to go there
(hoping I won’t notice I have a choice)
Remembering that,
I take a step back –
no need to commit to any path
and especially one that leads
where I don’t want to go.
©Wendy Mulhern
May 1, 2020
Left once again
in the detritus of dysphoria,
ripped, deflated,
rendered helpless by its flat words
(give up, you can’t do it
and you don’t want to anyway
(take that palliative, don’t complain)
you don’t have whatever it may take
and don’t deserve to either)
You are not alone,
and though you feel
no one could approach you,
look again
As you let the stillness sweep you
as the ebbing wave subsides,
you will sense, inside, a tiny seed,
its threadlike roots extending,
pulling you together
till the sprout can lift its head
It will tell you
nothing overcomes you —
you will blossom, and your voice will soar,
you’re made of life —
that old voice isn’t —
it falls to dust, but you,
you still shine clear.
©Wendy Mulhern
March 7, 2020
The lady I stayed with
(long time ago)
had little notes to herself
on her dresser —
reminders to keep going,
to look again for the joy of life,
to hold herself
against the drift of sadness
This I took note of,
though I had no place to put it
and no way to even relate,
various chasms
(at that time)
rendering it impossible
for us to know each other
I might know more now,
be able and willing
to bridge the gap
into which fell
all referents of recognition,
and also the knowledge
which we didn’t mention but probably shared
that I was the same age
her dead son would have been.
©Wendy Mulhern
January 19, 2020