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.

Setting Sail

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With great effort, I practice
what I don’t even try for with dreams —
that waking up and seconds later
forgetting everything, feeling the shift
into the day’s perspective,
deep sigh of steadying, reset,
to feel the flush of energy
take hold, like well filled sails,
to launch me forward in pursuits at hand

I take the effort, thus,
to reset my impressions,
my conclusions, my opinions —
on noticing the ways
they’ve boxed me in, and bent me down,
to let them go, forget them all,
and set my sails for winds of truth to fill.

©Wendy Mulhern
March 25, 2019

The closest thing to a night without a poem

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Days like this
it’s a good thing
it’s not up to me
to keep myself going

I would shrivel up, no doubt,
or wander aimlessly
toward the next thing
to put in my mouth,
would stumble around
from armchair to couch

I would be hopeless according to
all standards of achievement.
But here is the marvel:
it’s not up to me. And here
is the moral: there’s no need
to hound myself (or anyone).
Our presence and goodness
are assured. Just not by us.

©Wendy Mulhern
March 24, 2019

Tending Kindness

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We hope our kindness
will be felt by the land,
the trees we plant,
the soil we tend,
we hope it will respond
with life that springs forth bountiful

We hope the land will teach us
the kind of kindness
that makes things grow —
fledgling efforts strengthened,
courage built, endurance lengthened,
everything that had been tentative
standing forth to claim its place
in the blessed rhythm of the day.

©Wendy Mulhern
March 23, 2019

Temple

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Can my prayer
be anything but constant?
Are there other things to think about
than Mind’s omniscient action?
or other things to feel
than Soul’s uplifting?
Are there other things to do
than Life’s unfolding,
or any other place I’d want to be?

I used to think it sounded dull
to never leave the temple,
but now I’ve been there
and glimpsed the size of it.
It’s everything, really,
and everywhere there is,
and I am happy
to go no more out.

©Wendy Mulhern
March 21, 2019

Tree Planting

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When you talk to the baby trees
before and as you plant them,
I hear your boy heart
pure and clear as blackbird song,
unmasked and frank,
strong in its innocence

I know its power in you
is like a tree core —
able to root down deep
and send shoots soaring
higher than anyone ever thought was possible,
high as hope, as love, as sky.

©Wendy Mulhern
March 20, 2019

Gentle, tender, centered

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Here is my gentle surrender:
release of the constant instructions,
permission to trust that my being
doesn’t depend on my getting it right

Here is my tender surrender:
escape from the concept of consequence,
knowing my hope and my joy to be held
safe in the fact of my Love

Here is my centered surrender,
faithfully placed in the hands of my Truth,
flying in effortless calm,
borne by the infinite cause.

©Wendy Mulhern
March 18, 2019

Illusions of Refuge

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And if your refuge fails you
or if it says you’ve failed
and thus cannot avail yourself of safety

Or if your refuge
is put in question
by someone else’s sense of truth

Or if the solace it provides
has grayed, has faded,
has been rendered hollow

Don’t be afraid.
For even as your demons rage
and push you towards the center,
as the edges crumble
and your space grows smaller

You are already redeemed.
You were delivered
even before the dawning of your first day.
Your substance is secure,
your realm is infinite —
you need no refuge,
for you own your grace.

©Wendy Mulhern
March 15, 2019

In good company

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We find the day
right back here where we left it —
it has opened out while we were gone,
the fulness of its breath lifting us
into the company of other days,
expansive and broadening,
rich with experience and memory

We are ushered, thus,
into the company of
all that lives in rhythm with the land —
trees and ravens,
grass and ladybugs,
water and all its courses
and that songbird
whose music so instantly
fills our hearts.

©Wendy Mulhern
March 14, 2019

To my inspiration

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I will trust you to be there
in the morning, after the washing clear
of all the wear lines of the day,
after dreams have danced in water-like dimension
through the fluidity that wipes it all away

Somewhere in that time
well before sunrise,
when we awake and start
our pre-departure gatherings,
I trust that you will tuck yourself
like hope, into some pocket,
to lift me, later on,
to be my dawn.

©Wendy Mulhern
March 13, 2019