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.

“I will gather them”

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twin ponds tree1lomo

The internal call is promised —
There is no one it will not reach.
They will be called from within
by their own truth,
by the imperative of their life,
by the enduring fervency
of their love

They will not stay scattered,
each one thinking
what they are is not enough,
that it’s too much to ask
for their gift to be valued
to the point of being able to sustain

They will no longer close off hope
as if it were a wound,
won’t lose themselves
in efforts to conform

They will be gathered
by the radiance
of everything they are.
It will lead them to the circle
where all the light is magnified
and they are celebrated,
and nothing will be wasted,
and there’s ample room for everyone inside.

©Wendy Mulhern
July 28, 2014

Foibles

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four hands1

Perhaps my biggest foible
is to try to hide my foibles:

If I succeed
I have no safety net,
no understanding hands of friends
who have learned how to catch me
when I fall

And when I fail
(at least, at times, it’s been like this)
I am the last to know,
the last to see, with grateful eyes,
those steadfast and ironic hands
of friends who know this foible
and don’t tell me,
kindly shielding me
from the imagined fall
of seeing I’m not perfect after all.

©Wendy Mulhern
July 27, 2014

Solace

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solace

What can I give
to comfort you
when you are hurting?

I know through trial and failure
there’s no help
in sharing implications of my world view,
the fine-tuned systems
of my mental geometry

And there’s no help
in psychological analysis
or offering the latest theory
or the hottest healing fad

But I can stand with you
in the quiet of my own thoughts
and I can hold
my vision of your wholeness,
I can witness
the hidden strength within you
that knows how to lead you
to what you need.

©Wendy Mulhern
July 25, 2014

Now

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now

Time to stop talking about it.
Time to wait for the understanding
to catch up to my words,
Time to think about it . . .
Time to stop thinking about it.
Time to move, with my hands,
into the thick of it,
Time to walk into the air
and engage with each breath,
Time to interact,
Time to be this truth,
Time to heal.

©Wendy Mulhern
July 24, 2014

Transition

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transition1

rain falling like grace
falling grace
the rain can’t fall from —
as every drop falls,
grace is what stays

soft melting edges —
somewhere, the will disappears
and the form begins to meld
with what it’s pressed up against,
yielding, yielding itself —
a bleeding from form
of its essence
till form dissolves

while the essence now flows
with new purpose
and insistence
down the next fall line
into the next crack
onward with ever-seeking
curiosity
into the next adventure.

©Wendy Mulhern
July 23, 2014

A secret key

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sunflowers any living thing

Every living thing —
any given one —
can be a spark —
They need no pedigree
to qualify

Any light
can lift you from the dark —
you need no name
to call it by

The images of dream may leave their mark,
smudging out the brightness of your day,
may tell you there’s no reason to embark
on what will likely hold
no goodness for you anyway

And when your own ignition
seems completely spent,
your shiny hope beclouded,
your intentions bent,
You needn’t go back under
to see where they went
for any living thing
can bring you out.

©Wendy Mulhern
July 22, 2014

Life Water

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life water

We start drinking
life water —
We take it in
with our eyes
and our pores,
We feel light,
We feel strong

We drink truth like water —
Truth that cleanses us
from all the years’ deposits
of calcified projections,
judgement, disapproval,
years of manipulations —
all those vain attempts
to make us be machinery,
polished on the outside,
programed,
silent

We drink life water
and feel the eager
expansion of our minds,
the bright embrace
of our reawakening —
Our breath, our limbs
now so responsive
to what impels us
from within.

©Wendy Mulhern
July 20, 2014

A Reflection

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twin ponds reflection2

It’s not what I look like
but how I see
that makes me shine,
that makes me me

It’s not what I know
but how I hear
that makes my course of action clear

If I go out without a pre-made script,
free of opinions,
I can be equipped
with emptiness that’s able to receive
whatever cries for gathering,
whatever needs
to rest and grow, and to be seen,
and bring its latent gifts
to vibrant being

Not how I see myself
but what I give
will feed my spirit
and make me live.

©Wendy Mulhern
July 19, 2014

Gifts of Light

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Light dances in memory —
Images form from ripples
Under closed eyes
Scenes resolve, dissolve

tree and waterlomo

All the harvest of the day’s sights
jostle and arrange themselves,
parade
brightly down the path
that leads to dream,
weavings of pictures
forming themselves into story,
crafting a narrative
for the ambient sounds

There is joy in this,
Joy in the surfeit of beauty
that springs from each frame
of my eyes —
Everything, all day long,
So rich to look on,
Plenty to pour through my vision,
enchanting me
all through the night.

©Wendy Mulhern
July 18, 2014

An Evaluation

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distance3_0001

Eventually I noticed,
by the echoes,
that my voice was in a small box,
buffeted by louder competing voices,
coming through in snatches
mostly unheard

I reflect on the absences
that brought me to that place —
the drive, on automatic,
the walking, with a sense
of obligation more than eagerness,
a sense of fatalism,
more than bearing witness to the truth

Yes, I was there,
and my being there was nominally good
(there is a value, after all, in showing up)
But at any time
I could have gone through
the other door in consciousness,
where nothing has been mindless
and the holy purpose
of everything
aligns us
with the present unfolding
of the blessing we each can offer
and each receive.

©Wendy Mulhern
July 17, 2014