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.

Lean

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leaning shadows

Give me the energy
of the steep lean,
enough of an angle
that we feel supported by each other,
held up, creating in our leaning
a deep rest

Give me the weight
of a strong spin —
enough of us committed
that our gravity
will grant acceleration
and the swift exhilaration
of the way it feels
to be pulled continually in

We might think it’s enough
to walk through our days
shoulder to shoulder,
a light rub reassuring us
of each other’s presence,
But sometimes we also need
the nourishment of leaning
into the strength that rises on its own
from the bond between us.

©Wendy Mulhern
November 10, 2014

Dream Scenes

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dream scenes

Behind my closed eyes
images form on black,
an illustration for the music —
big wheel rolling, big cogs turning

I wonder about light in dreams,
how it comes in, at what point
my mind decides it sees,
and when and how the vibrant colors
tune themselves into being

I’ve been journeying again —
errant socks lost
in the picking up to move —
some caravan, its character
mostly unremembered,
The trundling of the dream
interrupted
and so quickly left behind
with the dawn.

©Wendy Mulhern
November 9, 2014

Cozy

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Within the warm enclosing orb,
a concentrated calm,
a softly emanating glow,
a home, a welcome balm

Come in, come inward —
Here is the essence of cozy —
This house, this room,
these people,

This place inside yourself
where you are content,
where your inner lamp
warms your corners
and draws your world
into your embrace.

©Wendy Mulhern
November 8, 2014

Day of Color

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ridgecrest evening

Today the artful wind
harnessed exuberance,
filled the early sky with roiling gold,
chased it, then, with dark showers,
burnished leaves whipped along the road

Then momentary blue, then
the full palette of fall’s splendor
lit up against the backdrop
of a gray sky

And I was nourished
by tunnels of color,
roads wreathed in leaves
above and under,
Fed by red, maroon, gold and umber,
eased into evening
by the sky’s
wind-swift turning.

©Wendy Mulhern
November 6, 2014

nightfall2

Channels

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MacKenzie golden afternoon

We are so at home together here
in the realm beyond the worries and the posturing,
beyond the trotting out of
constructs of ourselves
comprised of fear, resentment, and bravado,

We are home together here
where your sweet, responsive
flowing essence
runs so close against me,
merges in the harmony
of what we are
and what we now discover
in the streaming of our being
down the deep swift channels
of our common soul.

©Wendy Mulhern
November 5, 2014

The Daily Choice

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daily choice2

In the riddle there are two knights —
One can only lie, and the other
only tell the truth,
In the riddle you don’t know
which is which
but in real life, you do

So stop conversing with the lying knight!
He won’t, at any given time,
decide to guide you right.
He’ll keep you rammed against the same brick wall
facing disappointment, facing blight

In the daily choice for joy or misery,
the misery will tell you you don’t care,
that nothing matters much, and death comes anyway
and nothing is worth trying hard for here

But joy waits too, in every moment
steadily affirming life’s sweet worth —
If you don’t want it for yourself,
choose it for others —
It will rescue you and bless the earth.

©Wendy Mulhern
November 4, 2014

The Void Again

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a little whine

They say to go ahead
and feel your feelings,
breathe them deep,
rock and keen,
go down, go down, go through

And that may be more colorful
than this rain-pattered gray,
neither here nor there,
this suspended mist
and the house’s quiet
barely masked by music,
and its emptiness
not half mitigated
by a half-sleeping old man
intermittently creaking the chair

But it’s ridiculous
in my supremely easy life,
my running hot-water,
washer and dryer,
thermostat-heat controlled life
for me to entertain complaint

No right to it,
yet something is required —
A new pursuit of inquiry, some industry,
a project that will capture my attention
Or some new way to look at things
to rescue my infinity,
retrieve it from wherever I have left it.

©Wendy Mulhern
November 3, 2014

What Speaks to Us

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grass and flatirons

There are so many channels
through which the message speaks —
It can seep through the proximity
of parallel poses, bodies stretched in sun,
the rhythm of repose,
the undertone
of the quiet breathing of afternoon
as shadows slowly lengthen
on the grass

It can dance along the synesthetic glance
of light on sun stroked grass stalks,
wave in the instant shimmer
of seed heads,
dart like sudden song
into the senses

It can rumble kindly
in the connection of laughs and hugs
and the quick kindling of love-light
in the eyes of family

So many channels through which it speaks,
The message still the same.

©Wendy Mulhern
November 1, 2014

Releasing

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afternoon brilliance

When I release myself and you
from all opinions about each other,
all conclusions
that cast us static
as if we could exist
in some inert condition,
some set of predilections
that could be measured
independent of
our hearts’ and minds’ engagement

When I release us
I can tell
This is the sparking we were made for,
This is the ever-new, dynamic
unpredetermined
soul-rush flight we can do
when we are not judged,
when we are free.

©Wendy Mulhern
October 31, 2014

Don’t Touch the Lie

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dusk trees

Don’t touch the lie —
It will grab you,
sweep you into its vortex,
get all mixed up with you
like oil contaminating water —

You’ll think it’s the primal objective,
the thing you need to solve,
what should, and must,
take all your time
until it’s conquered

Don’t touch the lie —
It doesn’t own you
and you don’t owe it anything,
and if you simply turn toward truth,
you’ll find yourself as pure
as you have always been,
as free as you had dreamed
but didn’t dare to hope,
as joy-infused as you can sometimes
almost remember
from the time before the lie.

That truth of you is here,
sure as the seasons, sure
as the cosmos. Which is plenty big
to draw your whole attention
and be your whole fulfillment
without the lie

Don’t touch the lie.
for you don’t need it —
Your truth has always been enough:
Your truth defines you wholly
and can be your guide.

©Wendy Mulhern
October 30, 2014