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.

Course correction

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It’s OK
There’s more truth
in those three hugs
and their memories
than in all the dread
attempting to array itself
against your coming day
There’s more truth
in those strong smiles
than in the sense of many looming tasks

The truth in every now
outshines the constructs of tomorrow
There’s no trouble
that you ever have to borrow
Every moment
brings its own illumination
So you never need to wander
in the dark.

©Wendy Mulhern
December 2, 2012


Art Work

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My head is full of colors
and my floor is full of scraps
Bright detritus from the pictures I’ve been making
And though I tried to stop myself
I kept on coming back
to the compelling concentration 
of creating

And the satisfaction fills me
like the vivid saturation
of the colors that I painted and cut out
And I revel in the evidence
of steady maturation 
of my craft, and the receding of my doubt

My mind is full of color
and it spills into the metaphors
for everything I’m thinking of today
And I think that when I’ve finished
and cleaned up all the paper
These internal scraps of color will remain.

©Wendy Mulhern
December 1, 2012


Falling to yes

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There are so many yeses in this world
A yes to each cascading course of water’s fall
A yes to leaves surrendering to soil
A yes to seeds that nestle in for winter
to live the chill that later triggers them
to rise up with the upswing of the seasons

A yes to eyes that meet and know relationship
A yes to recognition of a kindred soul
A yes to dance
A yes to touch
Yes to the silent, smooth synchronization

Yes to your breath, yes to your voice
Yes to your fingers’ call
In a response that transcends choice
My body
says yes
to it all.

©Wendy Mulhern
November 30, 2012


Freshman

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It is not fathomable 
to imagine you gone
though we see you little enough
in the small crossings of orbits
when we are all awake
and all here
and not sequestered
in our respective caves

When I think of you
out on your own
I wonder about your laundry
and your innocence
I want to wrap you in a cloak
that’s been too small for several years
Protect you
from a world I’m sure you think 
you know much more about than I do

I want you to soar free and far
I want your mask of self-assurance
to be filled out, from within
with trial-tested confidence
I don’t want the world to prove you wrong
I want the world to prove you strong

It’s not fathomable
to imagine you gone
So I will think of you
Somewhere, next year
Exploring some as yet uncharted here.

©Wendy Mulhern
November 29, 2012


If everything is made of thought

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If everything is made of thought
Then there are no separate things
No rolly, clunky, cluttery things
No inscrutable, intractable things
Nothing to fall out of place
Nothing to fail to move

If everything is made of thought
Then there is no past, no gaping track
where things tore through the fabric
of our hopes and plans
leaving shreds along the course of time
No regrets and no alarm
No irreparable harm

If everything is made of thought
Then all these things
we think are non-negotiable —
the way things are, the way they have to be —
can really change, in any instant
Blink of an eye, awakening from dream.

©Wendy Mulhern
November 28, 2012


Application Deadlines

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Actually,
You can’t make things be
what they’re not
You can’t make a stream
run faster down its course
rapid or languid as the fall line designates
You can’t make the clouds
configure themselves
into neat, ordered little puffs

And we can’t make our son
hop to, conform, align
when all his atoms stretch
along some still-unmarked direction
as he charts the constellations
of his singular universe

Obligatorily,
there will be hoops to jump through
See how he bends his lanky form
to condescending depths
and somehow manages to find some grace
complying with the needed tasks

Some things fall behind
and yet we can be sure
Everything that’s really part of him
will find a way to flourish,
to endure.

©Wendy Mulhern
November 27, 2012


Jacob’s Ladder

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(Notes from the fifth seasonal five women gathering)

We fold and unfold and refold
Constant surprises of new faces
appearing and then hidden
reemerging later somewhere else
We see each other
We see ourselves
Faces that we recognize from now, 
and, too, from other times
We mirror, and are mirrored
And in the grand revealing of our paths —
our being, spread across a stretch of time —
Great gardens spring to life, to light
their fragrant blossoms sweetening the air

We are a circle
A circle of love and caring
A circle of women
Holding the safe net
we all jump into
Feeling the tug at the sides
as we hold each other up
Feeling our cords strengthen
in the stretch of the give and take
Feeling the ties of our intersections
hugging us close

We are angels
Ascending and descending
Bringing ourselves messages
and the dear assurance
that this land, this place
has been prepared for us
and we will inhabit it
and bring forth our fruits.

©Wendy Mulhern
November 24, 2012


Mending

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Retreated here from all activities
So many proffered offerings
roll by like water
The waves of doing things —
Fun and togetherness —
(photos as proof)
thunder over my head
and are gone
There’s hardly even
space for regret
deep, as I am
under the turbulence
where it is still
and I am still waiting 
for the internal calm.

©Wendy Mulhern
November 23, 2012


Gratitude

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Gratitude is stronger than pain
Like bright sunlight, it flows forth
Outshining the burred edges
of stress, of fear
of tiresome perturbations

Gratitude is stronger than the manager
Who posits reasons I must suffer
Bargains me away in its strong zeal for condemnation
Tells me why I must be being punished

Gratitude releases me
from the harsh sentence
cast by the rasp of complaint
on my day
Gratitude fills me,
Lifts me up, holds me
Sets me with grace on a lovelier way.

©Wendy Mulhern
November 22, 2012