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.

Spring Outlook

Posted on by
Reply

Everything has changed:
A keystone puzzle piece explaining everything,
Sun coming out bright after weeks of cold rain,
Warmth quickly filling the long-drained vessels
of human hope,
Brimming over in spontaneous smiles.

Nothing has changed:
All this time, buds were forming,
Plump potential taking shape as furled petals
Which now must open,
Green leaves growing from the draft of sweet sap
Which they make from sun
even in the fully shrouded days.

And this bright goodness —
The thing that fills me up with joy —
Why, it was here all along
The only difference is that now,
Despite all former lack of faith,
I know.

©Wendy Mulhern
April 24, 2013


Permacuddle

Posted on by
1

I’m ready
to take down all the bars
I want a permaculture
of cuddle
I want to hug
all the people on the city street
I want to catch each eye
And feel the bright exchange of recognition —
Smooth rippling surge connecting us
before we touch —
I want the hug to come as echo —
Warm confirming of the surge’s message —
And for each release to send
encouragement and strength
for anywhere they might be headed next

It would take a long time
to walk fifth avenue
But think how rich we all would be!
I would smell of cigarettes and perfume,
Coffee and garlic
And I wouldn’t mind.
I don’t want anyone, anymore, to not know how,
To not feel free to cuddle all the time.
It would be a permaculture
for our hearts
And we would spread our potent roots
all through the land.

©Wendy Mulhern
April 23, 2013


Gulch

Posted on by
Reply

I can’t go to where you are.
There are no roads.
Though I had wanted to establish some
I didn’t know what kind of bridge
to build over the silence
that became a gulch
(The more I tried, the more
the crumbly land gave in)

And now, I have no toehold
on the other side
I can only be glad
that there are others with you
And that they can help
And I can only work
on the general greening
which has begun
and will continue
Until someday
Our whole shared landscape is restored
And I’ll cross over.

©Wendy Mulhern
April 22, 2013


Centering

Posted on by
Reply

I will go to this deep place
I will go to this place
that’s deeper than the floor,
Deeper than all the floating levels
that shift and sift and change perspective

I will go to where I feel
the elemental hook
that anchors me,
sends a surge of solidness
up through my core and out beyond
and binds me to the stars

I will bring my vision of you
to this deep place,
I will see you centered,
and anchored,
and soaring,
where no false floors
can trap you or distract you,
And so I’ll see you home.

©Wendy Mulhern
April 21, 2013


Weaving Love

Posted on by
Reply

As she began to pull her glorious love
out and out,
As it billowed and wrapped
its luxurious fabric,
Covering more and more,
She began to understand:

This love is not about being trapped
This love can’t be kept in a box,
Can’t be contained
This love is about weaving the world
It is the stuff that holds all the things together

It can hold a man,
A clan,
The flow of peace throughout the land,
It can harmonize the seas
And set all things at ease —
Look how everyone dives into it
with such abandon,
Such confidence that it will bear them up!

She sees she needn’t fear she won’t be strong enough
to keep the threads together
The love she spins has purpose of its own
It sends its strength back to her weaving hands —
Held in its web, she can’t feel all alone.
It doesn’t matter if she’s asked 
to care for all that is,
For she can do it:
Her love was made for this.

©Wendy Mulhern
April 20, 2013


Mountain Time

Posted on by
1

Yeah, I’ve been here a long time
Maybe about as long as a mountain.
I’ve learned to settle in,
Deeply etched by all the watersheds
whose paths I then determine.

Weather brings on its steady drama
Sometimes stilled by me, sometimes augmented
I let things flow through me like that,
Let them change me,
Bring me ever closer to myself
(Canyons of time and tears expose my core)

Today I feel as if
I will be here a long time
Maybe as long as a mountain.
Tomorrow I may feel
ephemeral as a cloud.

©Wendy Mulhern
April 19, 2013


Light effects

Posted on by
Reply

I saw this as a movie in my mind,
I heard its soundtrack in my thoughts,
I understood:
This is a picture of the way we are,
the way we move:

The medium in which we danced
seemed to be thick,
Seemed to slow our motion
and deflect our light
into many bouncing flecks —
Square-shaped, fading in and out
So it was hard to see
just where — and when — we were.

We didn’t worry that we were arrested
or restrained
or blocked
or yet dispersed
within the semi-opaque thickness.
We knew all that was just a trick of light
And that our impulse
was as strong and clear
as it had always been
and that we owned it
and the medium could never slow us down.

So we could watch it
and play with its effects
And use our undiminished vigor
to enact our purpose
And wait to see
how it would be interpreted
in this thick, slow place
wherein we seem to walk.

©Wendy Mulhern
April 18, 2013


Deep waters

Posted on by
Reply

The river runs swifter
on this stretch between the high banks
And many
who have plied the currents confidently
all these years 
Still find themselves
unequal to its strength.
Their paddles catch,
Their little craft disintegrate
or founder,
They reach for other boats
Or sweep along alone
And the “I told you so”s of younger times
now sink, or echo, hollow
in their irony.
Before long, there’s no longer time
to think about the past
The river bears them onward
True to its own course.

©Wendy Mulhern
April 17, 2013


Little things rescue me

Posted on by
Reply

“Glad I could help,”
says the smiling corner
of my daughter’s mouth
After she has talked me through
two cycles of distress.

A robin sings outside the jail.
I think it must have come
to comfort someone
up there in a cell . . . 

Inside, the guards are friendly:
“Need some stuff irradiated?
— Here you go!”
And through the glass, upstairs
I feel a spirit-heart connection.

Shafts of sun break in
from time to time, upon the day
Calm settles, and I write the needed letters.
Little things rescue me.
It doesn’t always take epiphany:
Sometimes the quiet confluences
are enough
to stop the crisis and reset my screen.

©Wendy Mulhern
April 16, 2013


Reconsidering

Posted on by
Reply

Well, actually,
I don’t want to be the one
to do the talking
(Steam still rolling off of my indignant thoughts,
which mostly, to the mercy of the peace,
were never given breath)

I’m tired already, from their
pacing around inside the cage
of my surprise,
Rattling my words, finding them
deficient

It’s not enough that I deny them voice
They need to change, to find a higher mission
Somehow these thoughts
must all return to calm

So I consider:
Do I want to choose my friends, my loves,
on grounds of shared opinions,
so we can lie together
flat along the plane that we have chosen?

Or do I want to own
all the dimensions,
To spread out free, in an embrace
that hugs us all,
Transcending any scorn or condemnation?

Thank you. Right.
I won’t be duped to carrying that baggage on the plane
So I release all this from thought
to dwell in peace again.

©Wendy Mulhern
April 15, 2013