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.

Jennifer’s Wisdom

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JenniferMcCurdyJulius

(my sister’s words)

Who you are
is the same person
you’ve always been —
from birth, maybe before it

You’ve always been yourself —
you need not fear
that choice or circumstance
has made you less,
has trapped you into somewhere dull or damned,
or that by luck or narrow skill
you have avoided that so far
but that you might, at any moment, fall.

You are what you are,
and what you are is needed, blessed,
and is preserved, as pure as any element.
Nothing bad that’s come to you
has ever been deserved,
nor can it dampen you — your essence
is not suppressed

This is your life
and you know how to live it,
This is your gift,
and you know how to give it.

©Wendy Mulhern
May 16, 2014

vessel by Jennifer McCurdy; image by Julius Friedman

 

One Morning, Lagoon Pond, Vineyard Haven

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Lagoon at 830

See how the colors change entirely:
At six thirty, the palette is silvers, bronzes,
olives, pale gold of early sun, mauve and pewter
in the water and the sky

At eight thirty, it’s all blues and greens,
sparkly water, tender glow of fresh young grass
with its russet seed heads,
white of beach plum blossoms, yellow dandelion

At nine, it changes again, as marbled clouds
roll in on mounting south wind —
blue water goes gray-green,
grass, by turns, is bright and somber

A seagull rides an updraft
upwind along the bank,
glides through time
as colors glide through the day.

©Wendy Mulhern
May 15, 2014

photo by Pam Cassel

Biking Philosophers

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sparkles on water

Well, she said,
Perhaps we’ve given up
on solving all the world’s problems
before eight o’clock in the morning.

Yes, I agreed,
In our maturity,
we have determined
there is no solving things
for someone else —
The only place
we may have traction
is with ourselves

Later, as I watch the swath of sparkles
spread across the water
underneath the sun,
I think: These sparkles are a dance
between my eyes and the bright light —
They engage and spin together
in the nexus of perception

I will come away dazzled.
The light will keep dancing
with each living thing that receives it.
We’ll see it sometimes,
and not be aware when we don’t.

©Wendy Mulhern
May 14, 2014

Photo by Heather Mulhern

Tuesday Morning

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I.
The coffee shop hopped
with bright wait staff
and cheerful locals
and earnest banter
about music and ways of seeing.
People moved
in the rhythms
of their expectations
and their relationships,
and one young woman
moved with the detached slow motion
of someone overcome
with an internal passion,
from which she looked out
and saw the world
as if it were a movie.

II.
On Lagoon Pond Road
we hear the whisper of last year’s grasses
and the warble of this year’s blackbirds,
while the strong north wind
that came in with rain last night
is sweetened by the strong sun,
and we walk in the sure comfort
of hands that know each other
while sand blows along the road
into my shoes.

III.
Home for breakfast
Five of us around the table
gobble popovers, and laugh —
A time like the brief passing sun
through a window pane
to bask in as long as it’s here.

©Wendy Mulhern
May 13, 2014

Ready

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2014-05-12 12.38.25

Spring is pale here,
and though the weather swings
from cold to warm to cold,
the buds have ventured out,
as startling as katydids —
the revealed preparation
of all those tiny leaves
lined up,
now throwing off
their hard, sleek, sheathes,
ready to expand
with a rapidity
that’s almost alarming —
all those precise pleats and points
starting to unfold,
ready to fill the tree,
tender but unstoppable
like millennials
stretching out
into their lives.

©Wendy Mulhern
May 12, 2014

Photo by Heather Mulhern

Here with us

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(to my mom)

You have prepared
this place of openness
so that the scent of blossoms
and the beauty
in the shapes of trees
can go right in
(not asking for permission)
just flooding you —

You light up with them
and with the quiet calls of birds
and with simple presence —
We are here
and that is good —
that is enough.

©Wendy Mulhern
May 10, 2014

Pre-Graduation, Boston

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(after a night flight from Seattle)

The day was striped with joy —
Bright reunion interspersed
with times of sinking under,
giving space
for the wired attention of travel
to slide away
into insistent sleep,
from which we would emerge,
hands numb, groggy,
and rise again to energy,
remembering
that we are here
in this time of triumph
and coming back together
and steady family love
made sweeter
by the time apart —
Worth celebrating,
watching the competent backs
of our children,
now walking in comfortable harmony,
on their own but still connected,
solid in their new lives,
heading home.

©Wendy Mulhern
May 9, 2014

Preparing for Departure

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There is a pacing
that falls shy of grace,
caught up short
on either side of waiting,
the quick skip effort
to align my step
with the gliding blocks of time
that we must mount
to reach our destination

So many back and forths
along the rushing skitter
and the pauses noticing
there’s plenty of time,
time to wait for things to charge,
time to breathe,
time we can’t apply, however,
to the final flurry
of all the things that have to happen
just before we leave.

©Wendy Mulhern
May 8, 2014

Leapfrog

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leapfrog2

I play leapfrog with the bus
down 15th Avenue —
It stops for passengers,
I forge forward,
sometimes coasting, sometimes climbing.
It’s not my choice of game,
dwarfed, as I am,
by my opponent’s size

Somewhere along the long climb
up to 90th,
I sense it must have turned,
leaving me to the scent of lilacs
and the quiet waving
of the backlit grass.

©Wendy Mulhern
May 7, 2014

After the Effort

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waves

OK. Breathe deep.
Sigh of release.

Back from the surge of exertion
fall
the elements of me —
falling to rest,
falling to quiet.

In a while there will be little stirs —
What has this meant?
How have I changed?
(though for now I’m less than eager
to inquire)

Maybe who I am
is the feeling of the movement
and of the stillness,
not as a form that moved and stopped
but as the impulse
in and of itself,
as active in the stillness as the racing,
as undescribed as waves
thundering home.

©Wendy Mulhern
May 6, 2014