Category Archives: Earth Whispering: Poems

It’s my discipline to write a poem a day, and I post a poem here almost every day. To find a given poem or poems on a given topic, use the search bar at the right. To receive my poems by email, please subscribe, at right.

I’d love to hear your comments on any poems. To comment, click on the little speech bubble just under this text, to the right.

Take a breath

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A sudden light revealing snakes —
twisted, tangled, convoluting —
all the things I’ve thought
about these others here
while never casting light within myself

How could I, then, have thought myself
a better model? How blind to think
that I could hold judgmental thoughts
without the mud and soot of false opinions
smearing all my windows from within!

Well, take a breath. It’s always
a good idea. And let the sunlight
reveal what has been cleansed
and what’s still needed. Let tenderness
towards both yourself and others
wash everything and show you what is true.

©Wendy Mulhern
April 7, 2019

Your mind’s delight

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Never underestimate the value
of imagining what’s possible,
never assume you can’t
have what you want,
never believe that you should settle
for less than the whole of your dream,
the whole grand many-branching
multi-plumed array of it —
it is, after all,
in your mind for a reason,
and your mind’s delight
produces clear results.

©Wendy Mulhern
April 6, 2019

The Choir of Heaven

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To bring in range the choir of heaven
consider what it means
that there be no more death —
not now or ever — that the whole veil
be drawn away, and we perceive that
no one, and nothing, has ever died

If there has been no loss
of loved ones, or of wisdom,
or of life experience,
of ancient ways of knowing,
of lessons dearly learned,
of birds and animals,
of fish, of trees,
of anyone who loved them

That whole choir of ancestors
and children, and newly resurrected hope
would fill the realm of home,
would fill infinity —
Yes, I will be there, too
and yes, I too will sing.

©Wendy Mulhern
April 5, 2019

Change of Refuge

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You have huddled so long
in that poison refuge
that you may have forgotten
how it feels to breathe deeply,
how it feels to stretch out,
to relax, to bask in the warmth
of belonging

You have been surprised
that others haven’t come to join you —
you wondered where they went —
did you suspect
that there might be a different refuge?

— One that would hold you
in a bountiful affection,
one that didn’t require venom
on your part, or anyone’s,
one that didn’t have
those soul-effacing rules,
the bitter bite exacted for admission

I’ll tell you something true:
if your refuge breaks,
or if you leave it,
you’ll find another.

©Wendy Mulhern
April 3, 2019

Another point of leaving

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I take this ride
fueled by spring —
by blossom scent and balmy air

I hit against the memories
along the road — some time it’s been
since last I traveled here

I’m brought up short
by change — holes in the tree scape,
boxy buildings where they were —

Surprised again by how a gap
can suddenly unhook the tendrils of a place
and make it mine no more.

©Wendy Mulhern
April 2, 2019

Unhooked

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I’m amazed
at the stillness
of that which refuses to argue,
refuses to engage
with any of the hooks,
which, in fact, offers
a reality that counters
even all the stridently opposing views

It silences them utterly,
presenting, as it does,
a mode of being that precludes
any of the self-promoting sides.

The arguments of
everything that’s wrong
have nothing more to say
before the simple presence
of what’s right.

©Wendy Mulhern
April 1, 2019

Today it’s good

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Today, it’s good
to greet the sun
(the unpredicted sun)
sleepy, to the sound of turkeys
and the sight of steam
from the outdoor shower
turning into a cloud as it rises
against the blue,
to feel a patch of sun between the trees
squarely on my shoulder

Today it’s good to feel
the fountain of my source,
a light, a fire, a radiance,
deep within, and deep below
all the surface fixtures of the day,
today it’s good to notice all of this.
Today, it’s good.

©Wendy Mulhern
March 31, 2019

Intersections

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We may walk together
along these paths,
along these stories,
we may share vistas
but this is not an open beach —
I am aware of holes
big enough to get lost in

Mostly
I’m not mentioning them,
I’m choosing ways
to go over or around them,
things I think you can believe,
things that won’t demand you
to walk the miles with me
through and out of darkness,
things that won’t demand you
to veer off wildly
from what you perceive.
Perhaps you also do the same for me

We only know each other
at the intersection of our known worlds,
and that’s the sector we can walk together.

©Wendy Mulhern
March 29, 2019

Parade

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Sure, the thoughts of things
I could have done differently
do parade themselves along
from time to time, still sail by
trailing their pronouncements
about how much better things could be
if only …

My policy is
to let them go by once
but not repeatedly,
and never to climb on board.
The now I have is, after all,
the only one I’ve ever had
or ever will. And so it follows
that all good things are here for me,
as they’ve always been.

©Wendy Mulhern
March 27, 2019

One Dance

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And who were you, and who was I
but lights connecting,
pulling out the filament of hope,
on and on, a constant stream
even as the loops and partnerings
within the dance
wove and rewove,
some splendid knot forming
of which we were not aware
or hardly —
the streaming light remaining
the one strong constant
till the smile that dawned in you
lit up the circle,
and as we wove that, too,
it brought us all in.

©Wendy Mulhern
March 26, 2019