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.

What I forgot this time

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When I come again
I will bring with me
what I own —
It fits nicely into my frame,
I don’t need to hold it in my hands
or have it weigh down my pockets.

I will bring with me what I own:
I own this place —
Well, I own the right
to offer home
to anyone who’s here —
Home in my gravity,
home in my mass
and the certainty
of the right of everyone
in this place
to feel at home.

©Wendy Mulhern
October 20, 2013


Grey

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In the mystic grey on grey,
the tiny waves, nearly mute,
lip the shore.
At one certain angle,
they glint transparent,
showing all the stones
beneath the water

We speak with clarity
found in the closeness
that cuts through fog
and shows our insides,
as limpid as the waves
revealing stones

We walk into the future,
not predicting anything,
step on step through grey sand
along the grey shore
while grey and white stones
settle softly
under the quiet waves.

©Wendy Mulhern
October 19, 2013


Catching Up

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It felt good
to sit on the deck
weaving stories out of memory and light,
while the fog thinned
and hummingbirds chipped and whirred
through the old cherry tree.

It felt good
to finish the edges of that yarn —
to see it whole,
and then to come inside
for tea and conversation
(our voices calibrated
so as not to wake the sleepers)
morning rolling towards noon,
while steller’s jays
riled the little birds
and colors glowed brighter
against the clearing sky.

©Wendy Mulhern
October 18, 2013


Invitations

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The dog at the beach
invited us to play,
and it was as clear as
“Shall we dance?” —
The same ritual gesture,
the same kindling spark of eyes.

We know these signs —
We don’t need to be taught,
but we must feel
we are worth the gift,
and our would-be partner is, too,
so we don’t mask ourselves
or dodge the invitation —

So we can fling ourselves,
as that dog did,
into the bright, cold water 
that rose against her chest,
bringing us with her
into swift joy.

©Wendy Mulhern
October 17, 2013


Preparation

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There are so many ways
this whole dream could end
that I’ve gone beyond worrying.
In the end, I have to take my stand,
have to be unmoved,
uncowed by all the threats,
because life is like that, I guess —
Seedlings make their stands
on impossible outcroppings.
Sometimes they grow anyway,
into big trees.

If everything changes
I will still 
do what seems best at the time,
still fight for life and love,
still be
whatever it is I am.
So my best preparation
is to know what that is
and live it,
fearlessly, fiercely,
with all my heart.

©Wendy Mulhern
October 16, 2013


Shema

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I can’t keep going through days like this,
full of the steady progress of planned projects
and the routines of pleasant obligations,
flitting through them like high clouds
marbling the sky and drifting off.

Our fathers were instructed to make a portal
(“they shall be as frontlets between thine eyes”)
— a frame to go through every morning
and every time they looked out on the world
reminding them to leave behind
any images that they’d accumulated,
anything that let them move through life on automatic
such that they might forget
to engage with that ever unfolding 
wild adventure of being.

They had a portal to remind them,
Stand in awe of the Oneness.
Our mothers knew:
“My soul doth magnify the Truth.”
This is what I am here for.
Let me remember.

©Wendy Mulhern
October 15, 2013


Leveling

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Ah — I must try this more often —
leading with the parts of me
that have no words —
the bubble of my inner level,
the shared weight of contact,
the gravity of presence.

So blind it is of me
to lead with words and concepts
when what is needed is the simple clasp,
the resonance, the holding.

Let me surrender
to the constant liquid flow
that makes us equal
at each moment of connection.
Let me relinquish
everything I think I know,
everything I think I am
for the wordless oneness
in the timeless balance
of life’s unending dance.

©Wendy Mulhern
October 14, 2013

Magnuson Park, Mid October, 4 p.m.

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Windless, sunlit afternoon —
The lake has grown smooth and bright,
subtle colors — mauve and silver,
powder blue and olive,
dark blue lines cut through by speeding boats,
waves rolling in towards shore.

We feel the satisfaction of momentum —
things that, now started, will move out on their own
while we bask in solid comfort
of companionship and Sunday
(the waves turn at the shore and bound out,
rippling like animal muscle)
where we have suspended time,
for now.

©Wendy Mulhern
October 13, 2013


Evening music, home

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Rich textures of sound
invite me to close my eyes,
to open up the inner view
on which the images can be portrayed.
They play out
in that deep, spherical realm
that opens out above, in front, beneath me,
they fold and recombine
in colors and in forms,
invite my movement,
invite my song.

And when I join them
I can feel how this world intersects
the one my open eyes can see
just like reflections
from these inside rooms
intersect the outside scene.

©Wendy Mulhern
October 12, 2013


Casting

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We may love stories
but stories are not our home —
We will feel trapped
if cast in roles
as archetype, as foil,
as heroine, as villain —
We are made to move 
within a larger sphere.

Since I don’t want to be
a character in someone else’s story,
let me refrain from casting others
and let me dwell in no narrative,
place no significance
on the deposit of dialog,
the layered development of events.

This day’s assertion of itself
needs no story,
just my steady attention,
no arcane analysis,
just my love.

©Wendy Mulhern
October 11, 2013