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.

Connect

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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.

Authorship

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redemption

Well, here’s the story of redemption:

You are redeemed, for you are here.
It takes attention
to choose you for a story,
to put you in,
to hedge about your life
with these meticulous details,
to give you motives,
give you a past,
give you this burning hope
that somehow
your life has worth and purpose:
It takes an overarching care
to author you. And look —
you’re here.

Know, too, that there’s no character
the author doesn’t love.
It is the way of things —
the way creation works:
The act of care that thinks you up
(pulls you, as her child,
right out of her head)
is always an act of love.

So have no fear.
You are redeemed
and always have been.
Just look inside yourself to see —
You’ll know.

©Wendy Mulhern
March 10, 2015

My Sheep Hear My Voice

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maple buds

That precious part within,
Held in a small, dark place
encompassing the infinite,
The birthing place of
all we may attain
Will hear, unerringly,
when it is called by name

It will rise up, surprised
to find itself, eager
to live what it is called to,
endlessly relieved,
intensely grateful
to have been called —

To thus be sure
of its existence
and that the promises
given it before the world was born
will be fulfilled.

©Wendy Mulhern
March 8, 2015

Refining

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mossy trees

When the fuel of our stories was spent,
when we had hurled our “perspectives”,
demanded to be heard,
burned up all our points of persuasion,
set forth our posturing
and watched it fall

We finally had to admit
What held us together
was far stronger
than what held us apart
and it felt better to find a way
to concede our points
than to win them

And our only reason
for bringing the whole thing up
was our need
to be closer together.

©Wendy Mulhern
March 7, 2015

Getting Out of the Way

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Why would I even want
any of this
to be about me?

Why would I promote
a limited identity,
weak and needy,
piteously bargaining
for some (no doubt unearned)
acceptance, recognition?

Who would not prefer
to be in service
to the bright upwelling
of delight, affection,
the overflow of wonder
and the clear intelligence
uplifting both of us
when seen in you, in me?

Why would I not give up
that which holds me chained and cramped
for this divine permission to be free?
Hence this work each day
to set my self aside
for that which glows
as you, as me.

©Wendy Mulhern
March 6, 2015

Stalking

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reeds

We imagined
our joy would come
with the conclusion
of our hard efforts,
with the attainment
of our long-strived-for prize

But in fact
our joy had been there
hiding in the bands of shadow
of our suspense,
slipping into the footsteps
of our work,
stalking us

Not waiting for the finish
but for us to notice
it was right there with us
ready to slide around
shafts of hope
into the sunlight.

©Wendy Mulhern
March 5, 2015

Old Things Are Passed Away

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splayed

We leave our notions
of ourselves, our lives,
splayed and empty
like abandoned puppets
(How is it possible
we thought they were alive?)

We start inhabiting
(with this expansive breathing
and each breath’s surprise)
the place in the dynamic
cause and effect,
impulse and follow-through
where all we fiercely hoped we’d be
is, indeed, ourselves

And the command we wield
of our existence
brings dazzling forms,
eternal, iridescent,
into view.

©Wendy Mulhern
March 4, 2015

Light and Heat

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carkeek6

Light answers light —
the brightness multiplies

Heat is not the same:
heat flows towards cold —
the same desire perhaps
but different mode

Heat spreads its blanket out
towards all who seek it,
cooling down with distance,
still too generous to hoard

We make heat inside —
we make it from our substance,
from our thoughts.
We feel and feed the small fire
that warms like coals
somewhere behind our hearts

So we come to know
the essence of this gift,
the little inner furnace
by which we recognize the sun.

©Wendy Mulhern
March 3, 2015

photo by Eric Mulhern

Riding the Beast

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We’ll keep on holding
the tail of this beast
though it lashes
and the beast bounds through mountains
and low limbs threaten
to wipe us off

We’ll keep on holding,
our arms just barely strong enough —
We’ll brace each other,
our clasp together
strengthening our grasp

We’ll have no time to notice
all the little things that otherwise
might take up our attention
but in some brief moments
as we catch our breath
we may notice
that we’re flying.

©Wendy Mulhern
February 28. 2015