This kind of silence

Silence is allowed  –
it is the bed that all sound falls to –
stream bed, dream bed,
forest seep, leaf sleep

Silence lets things spread and sink,
sift and thin, ever in

It sounds like time,
and everything that can be lost and found,
it sounds like possibility,
it is the backdrop
for the first emergence
of what will grow,
the last breath
of what has gone to rest

This kind of silence
gives birth to music,
and remains its fast companion,
its dearest friend.

©Wendy Mulhern
January 15, 2023

After effects

After the audiobook,
the cadence of the author’s voice
still echoes through my mind,
asserting its abstract imagery,
braids of sound like water
or like flame

I think her voice was speeded up
a little, and traces of the on-edge sense
her speed induced
still spike my mind,
though I am sleepy,
and I want my own room back,
the gentle rhythms of my own thought,
my own words –
I want my dreams to run clear
so I can  nestle once again
into my own peace.

©Wendy Mulhern
February 11, 2022

Conversation

This evening features
the soft conversation
between the stove and the roof,
their metals interacting respectively
with fire and rain,
a series of clicks and taps

I was thinking this morning
how little is random,
how hard it is, for instance,
to generate random numbers  –
in this case the sounds
are not random either,
though they defy prediction
as they lead me, pitter pattering,
towards sleep.

©Wendy Mulhern
March 14, 2021

Sights and Sounds at the Early Lake

gray morning lake

The morning’s gray whisper,
the limpid rays of reflected light
straying across the quiet water,
soft folds against the shore

The puncture of dog bark,
the rip of plane engines,
the glide of gulls and ducks,
scrishing footsteps of walkers,
rising of ripples, a chance of rain.

©Wendy Mulhern
August 10, 2016

Connect

Boulder boulders

Consider “connect” —
the way it feels,
how your tongue cleaves
to the roof of your mouth,
pushes against it,
accentuating contact
in its release,
the color dark and nameless
but very smooth
like the way we felt together
after we crossed the bridge of distance —

That color was in our touching hands
and along our touching sides,
soft as fulfilled desire,
ripe as a womb.

©Wendy Mulhern
March 11, 2015

An important facet of this poem is the way it feels in your mouth to speak it. For best results, taste fully.