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.

Taste of Heaven

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winter color

We start to look away
from all the things we thought
we cared about —
mementos, milestones, celebrations,
everything we thought would mark success

The taste of heaven
tingling on our tongues
drives us, hungry,
toward something we’re not finding
in the old pursuits

We seek it
in every place we’ve seen it —
smiles of strangers, twinkling eyes of friends,
wild abandon of winter colors in the land
and the promise of souls touching
hinted in those
inexplicable
sudden moments
when the uncountable
Importance of Everything
gleams clear.

©Wendy Mulhern
December 16, 2014

Snuggle Me

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snuggle me

Snuggle me
for I’ve been playing the grown-up
for too long —
heaviness tugging me down,
hard knots in my forehead

Playing the grown-up
with all of its hang-ups,
studying contracts,
haggling with language

Snuggle me —
Somewhere within
is the timeless and ageless
core of my being
where wisdom runs totally clear

Let your heart reach me there
where the sweet currents
wash away every care,
smooth out the tangles,
free me from worries,
free me from anguish,
from those conundrums
offer release,
rest me serenely
in snuggle-deep peace.

©Wendy Mulhern
December 14, 2014

Madre Terra

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Hileman Oak

We are made to speak with the earth,
Soles to press to loam,
Skin to sing the pure vibrations,
Tongue to taste the curling air
that bears the tale of everything alive

We are made to speak with the earth,
Eyes as emissaries, catching shafts of light,
relaying truth of all that lies within —
blue cast in the scent of oceans,
red in sun-warmed soils,
green and russet wetland grasses,
silvers aromatic in pine and sage,
rosemary

This has long been hidden
under roads and floors,
the pictures all presented
through small and separate windows
so we haven’t known
what they all mean together,
haven’t known how they comprise a whole

But still the earth will call us,
pull us out from where
the dry pursuits have trapped us,
Lead us by some image, by some zephyr
to the place that owns us,
to our land.

©Wendy Mulhern
December 13, 2014

Coming Home

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sunset home

Everybody’s coming home.
What looked like long and rocky trails,
what looked like walls, what looked like jails,
what looked like horrid snarls
of debt and obligation
are all the same

We set out on our journey
with strong resolve,
desperately determined
to give all it takes,
This time to finally leap free
of all those loops that snagged us,
dragged us back
so many times

We’re coming home.
It may be our resolve
or just the truth of our belonging:
The hard travails begin to fade
as we engage them —
We wake,
We wake to find ourselves
home.

©Wendy Mulhern
December 11, 2014

Current Events

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trees at mill creek1

I tear myself away from the pictures
so many times a day,
sickening and sad,
grief hanging with the edge of rain
on my windshield,
on the ledge behind my eyes —
Where can we turn now,
How did we drift so close to checkmate?

I look for solace in the colors —
winter reds of shrubs against storm gray,
dark trees against the sky,
I look for comfort
in the words of friends

These send me where I need to go,
down to the depths of my roots
to find the place where life
is ever coiling
to rise in its own strength,
to claim its truth.

©Wendy Mulhern
December 10, 2014

Strength

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rb tree trunks

Realizing today
(balancing along on a curb,
wind blowing through the city,
clouds clearing)
that strength is in cohesion,
capacity to spread the load
along a span, to share
the impact

Sensitized
in the unity that sends
the darting signal coursing,
wing tip to wing tip, humming
down the bow-taut curves,
every inch in tune,
harmonized, alive

Strength is not in isolation,
not in hardness, not in standing out
amidst a crowd —
It’s in the giving of one’s currents
to the whole, the glad surrender
of one’s atoms
to the grand red rover
of oneness with the team.

©Wendy Mulhern
December 9, 2014

Rome Falling

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seeds_0012-004

How does it feel
to be Rome falling?
— This is something
we can now know

Might have the same urgency
as how we cast our hopes
on what we pray will float
free of the massive
crumbling sham
that called itself
our great society

It’s strange how short a time we’ve known,
It’s strange how obvious it seems —
The utter emptiness of
all we’re told to strive for,
The spirit-hunger in our dreams

Rome falls
and there is much it takes with it
in the roaring vacuum it sucks down,
But if we hold each other
and hold what’s true
we will emerge
ready to begin again,
tender, new.

©Wendy Mulhern
December 7, 2014

The Textures of Waiting

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beach log

We find ourselves
in the many textures of waiting —
the swirling, floating one,
the calm and solid one,
the one in which, within its span,
time stretches endlessly,
the one where weeks nip up
against each other’s heels

We wait for the next action in the sequence,
We wait for our clear focus to return,
We watch for coalescences, events and seasons
to find the perfect moment to jump in

We wait, we move, we wait
and maybe find our steps
lined up with wisdom,
maybe find the ever active peace
maybe find the rhythm and the joy
that marks our presence here,
that sets our place.

©Wendy Mulhern
December 6, 2014

I Start to Learn

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Calipoioa river

I start to learn
to give up my positions,
start to learn to be the stream
flowing in the knowing
that nothing stationary
has any staying power —
nothing static is true
for more than maybe just a moment

And everything delightful
that endures, that excites,
that lends a constant presence to rely upon
is moving in the current,
being life, being dynamic,
defined in interactions and in vectors,
harmonizing forces,
stable in the action of engagement,
relevant because it’s here, alive.

©Wendy Mulhern
December 5, 2014

Life Raft

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mill creek

Wake up. Wake up,
but do it carefully —
for where, within your dream
you thought you were on solid ground,
you’re not. The place we are
is sort of like a life raft,
one that depends on you,
and all of us, to keep the balance.

We need each other,
and if you call someone an enemy,
that image, in your thought,
is like a hole. From which
the air that floats us
can seep out.

We all need
to keep our minds free
from those leaks. And we need
to learn to move
in concert with each other
so we can guide our craft safely
though the sea may try to swamp us,
hold together through the storm
and reach the shore.

©Wendy Mulhern
December 4, 2014