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.

A new way of looking at patience

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Patience is knowing
that everything moves
in the rhythm of Life,
and every need is being met —
all the microscopic needs
in the give and take
that feeds each tiny mouth,
and the orchestrated needs
of larger systems —
great living networks
of realized mutual trust,
resulting in the intricately timed provision
of each response along the moving wave

And as this is the case,
Life’s essence operating
in every place,
it surely will continue
in the arc whereon you gaze,
anticipating some desired conclusion.
Grace is not capricious,
not the gain of luck or chance —
it is the rhythm,
fractally repeated,
present where you need it —
it is the constant motion
of Life’s defining dance.

©Wendy Mulhern
July 1, 2013


The rhythm of summer

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Everything is moving in the rhythm
of summer —
sound of wind chimes,
scent of privet,
transfixing flit of
not-quite-random insects,
play of light on spider webs,
crows in conversation —

There is something to learn from this,
something to take with me
from the unhurried connection of events,
the space between
that’s long enough for slack,
supple so it ripples smoothly.

Here where it’s too hot
for spiking urgency
or any worry,
things still progress
prodigiously,
with ample room
to take their perfect time.

©Wendy Mulhern
June 30, 2013


Reflections while driving home from recovering my car after it was towed from where my children parked it

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I’m grateful that you’re here,
grateful that we could bail you out
and bring you home,
and have you in our lives,
Grateful that this, too,
is life-building,
and you will be stronger
because of it

Grateful to have learned
(though sorry that I didn’t learn it sooner)
that we only have one job
concerning you,
which is to see you —
to behold, in awe, your essence,
far more intricate and comprehensive
than we could grasp in a moment
or in years,
though we might glimpse it
in either years or moments . . .

No need to compel or criticize —
We only need (and need to only)
see and celebrate
what you bring,
what you give,
what you are.

©Wendy Mulhern
June 29, 2013


Ecology

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Nothing is condemned,
Nothing thrown away —
There are so many branches
along life’s paths —
So many cycles
at every speed and scale
and everything is moving,
aligned in some great plan,
rolling out the endless course of life

No one is condemned,
No one cast aside,
for every life uniquely serves its purpose
and all shall be embraced,
for everyone belongs
and all of us
are needed where we are.

©Wendy Mulhern
June 28, 2013


My Final Offer

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There is no part of my desire
that I’m willing to give up.
I insist on all the goodness
that I crave:

The part about the living land
and our deep kinship with it;
The part about our well-honed gifts
and all the richness shared in their fruition;
The part about our home
and all the others who live with us;
The part about the healing of the earth;

All these must be included
in the goodness we acquire,
No part may be excluded from the vision.
I won’t agree to any less
and so it must be given.

©Wendy Mulhern
June 27, 2013


Entering

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Bring nothing with you,
for everything you need
is in your power to see what’s here

And there’s a lightness in knowing
every moment has, within it,
deep wells of richness,
plenty for your present thriving

And there’s no lack
of the substance in yourself
that calls forth that dark glow —
the subterranean shining
that quenches every thirst.

©Wendy Mulhern
June 26, 2013


Riding the beast

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The lengths of highway
flex their strength
like muscular snakes.
We who have thought 
they lived to serve us
start to feel our big mistake,
Start to sense how trapped we’ve been
in the grid of roads,
in the grid of time,
in the grip of (up till now)
unquestioned rules
that say we have to ride the snakes
and serve the hours 
and not complain
when (for our safety)
more and more of liberty
is locked away.

If we are to escape,
we must slide, softly,
off the back of what we have been riding,
Find ourselves together off the grid,
Build the places in between
until they make new paths
for all our energies.
Let the beast grow old and still
through lack of use,
Give our every effort to our truth.

©Wendy Mulhern
June 25, 2013


Incubation

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There is great value
in the unformed place
where the bee dance of particles
buzzes and clusters,
groups and regroups,
and a new understanding
can start to emerge,
something that’s shared,
something that joins
entities that had been separate
in some grand and wild
sliding together space
where all prior sets
of intents and opinions
are widely thrown away

And in the fresh fertility of union,
quick shoots start up,
vigorous and smooth.
New air is touched
in wonder by leaves
that had been, till then,
unimagined,
that now can take their place 
in the lush, emergent forest,
doing the sun work
to bring the great dream into being.

©Wendy Mulhern
June 24, 2013


Ark Building

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We have our instructions:
In the face of great violence,
build an ark.

So much violence in the land,
no one is even talking about it —
afraid, as they may be,
of bringing down the wrath upon their heads,
lulled, as they may be,
by the vehemence of misdirecting tales

Violence to the land,
Violence to the people,
Violence to their structures of support:
Build an ark.

Make it out of circles of our arms,
Make is out of clear communication,
Make it from the habit
of open-hearted caring,
Make it with room for everyone

Make it out of work that serves the earth,
that builds the chains of life supporting life,
Make it from our trueness,
Make it with our hearts,
Make it from the clearness of our vision.

Build the ark.
Let all the creatures in —
No point in a war against the violence —
As we build, our worth will lift us up
Upon the sea that reconfigures all.

©Wendy Mulhern
June 23, 2013


Your Salvation

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It doesn’t depend
on your belief.
After all, you can’t decide
what you believe in,
can’t change your mind, at will,
about your trusts,
So it is not required
that you make yourself believe
in something other than you do.

It doesn’t depend
on your getting it right —
holding the right images,
doing the right rituals,
making the right choices
at the right time.

Your salvation
(your healing, your finding
your tribe and your calling)
depends on the same law
that guides the stars
and the mycorrhizae
and everything between.
It belongs to you.
You can have it.

©Wendy Mulhern
June 22, 2013