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.

Perfect

Posted on by
Reply













To Edward

It’s perfect
the way we travel together
Comfort in time, rhythms aligned
Compatible blend
of ease and adventure
Relishing all that we find

It’s perfect
the way we’re evolving together
Questings so similar
Thought currents parallel
Wonderful mixing
of longing and insight
Confluence of spirit and mind

It’s perfect
the way that we now come together
Our movement as one
like chords in a song
Exquisite expression
of tender connection
as bright as our lights ever shined.

©Wendy Mulhern
October 5, 2012


Precipice

Posted on by
Reply













You may be daring
and brilliantly alive
But I still can’t watch you go
prance on a precipice

Yes, I’m a little bit wrong here
Yes, I know caution is tippy
And faith in your balance —
My certain conviction 
of your sure perfection —
Serves many times better
to safeguard your person
than all of my worries 
and cries to be careful

I know it’s the same for me —
Times that I know 
that although you can’t stand it
you know you must let me be free

You care that I care
And I feel that way, too
So we come to a balance 
of what we will do
At times for each other
we’ll dial back the daring
And sometimes we’ll deftly belay
And sometimes we’ll hold 
to the faith in our caring
and keep ourselves out of the way. 

©Wendy Mulhern
October 4, 2012


Gifts

Posted on by
Reply

Sand scoots down the beach

like birds flocking
Catspaws race along the tidal pools
Waves froth white across the swath of ocean
Wind rules

In the quiet dunes
the wind is lighter
Soft sand settles on my face and chest
Moves in starts and stops
to shift within its ridges
Swiftly filling all our footprints in

Huge rocks may be ruins
of what was once a headland
Now they stand like personalities
Faces, figures, spires and arching structures
Sentinels watching at the edge of sea

The grandeur sets our thoughts
to deep reflection
of purposes established before time
The service we were called to
long before this life began
The call that makes us most alive

Sure as these rocks
and all the life they shelter
Sure as this wind, 
Sure as this tide
What calls us here has called us here forever
Our gifts abide.

©Wendy Mulhern
October 2, 2012


Day’s End, Bandon

Posted on by
Reply













Shadows pool on sand
between the pooled reflected 
sky collected in the base of
giant rocks collecting darkness

Sun has set
and soon the wind will quiet
though the restless waves
will roar on through the night
Tide will rise and cover
all the places where we walked
in the domain of silent creatures of the sea
Water will flow through the rocks
and seethe and rock and swirl

And the night sea
will soon be seen
by the newly waning moon
And we will sleep
and rise to see it
setting in the morning
not into the sea,
into the day.

©Wendy Mulhern
October 1, 2012


Lessons

Posted on by
Reply

We are apprentices
to the master ocean
and the master rock shore
performing their dance
in this moment
and in geologic time
The rock turns the water
The water carves the rock
One thunderous curl at a time
While the rock trains it
in swirling, curving arcs

And every move they do is beautiful
The swishes and the swift, explosive leaps
The whirlpools and the rolling falling back
The graceful movement of the currents
rendered still in caves and crevices of rock
We watch, we feel, we are filled
Leap with this power, are carved
by its insistent roar
Find ourselves deepening
opening out
Learning the logic of waves.

©Wendy Mulhern
September 30, 2012


Ocean

Posted on by
Reply













Our union was like
Ocean . . .
Ebullient waves coming
in and in and in
Flipped and turned by rocks, diverting
Cross waves rolling in on top of others
Circling, turning
Flowing back, down and down and down
into the place they meet
the flow of other waves
Fold on fold of froth, pristine and soft

Each one in its time, none in a hurry
Time to find each crevice in the rocks
Time to curl around inside them
Time to flow like waterfalls returning
On and on until the next wave’s crash
White spumes leaping
Water heaving, churning

Our breathing and our flowing 
was like that ocean —
So many separate infinities
crossing one another in a timeless rhythm
So much life, such presence
Such imperative of motion
A place we shall return
time and again.

©Wendy Mulhern
September 30, 2012


Returning

Posted on by
Reply

There is evidence of kindness everywhere
In the undercurrents of life
the breathing and the circulation
the giving and receiving
the ebbing and the flowing
providing every need

There is kindness in the stillness of the stars
and in the waxing moon
and in the season’s turning
Soft fall of darkness
and the leaves’ returning
to the earth

Everything that sets out
comes home sometime
As sure as breath
As sure as tides
It finds its place
in the matrix of kindness
It finds its welcome
rejoins its own.

©Wendy Mulhern
September 28, 2012


Shell

Posted on by
Reply

This gift was forged
In the inimitable act of life
Nothing but life’s intense volition
could bend its forces to such structure,
craft this compact, spiraling container
to fit so neatly in the currents that surround it

Only the imperative of life
could call this genius forth
impel the mastery of this design;
Though it is tossed here empty
we see it still
calling us to wonder:
Long after life has left it
the impress of life’s essence stays.

©Wendy Mulhern
September 27, 2012


Kin

Posted on by
Reply

Kin fits in skin
Within my ken
With what I can
Those of my home
My folk, my clan
It’s what I know
It’s what I am

Kin kindles kindliness
My kind, like-mindedness
Conscious connectedness
Seeking and finding

So may my circle
Contain all the cosmos
Its sphere as my realm
And its oneness my center
As large as awareness
As cozy as kinship
Here in sweet presence
Skin-intimate
Soul.

©Wendy Mulhern
September 26, 2012


Thirty Years

Posted on by
Reply

(To Edward)

Thirty years
and we are like
the newlyweds we seemed to be
back then
when hope stretched out across the span
of inexperience

Excitement for the joining 
and the journey
fueled those early times
Propelled us through 
the doubts and disappointments

In some ways
our love has grown quietly
like the pine beside our front door
from its sapling start to where
it towers above the house
It didn’t happen in one day
but after time
it stood as if it always had been there
Inimitable sign of long duration

In other ways
our life has brought our love 
through metamorphosis
The eager feeding of those early years
replaced by quiet inwardness
(though still the growth continued)

Till now
when in these bright monarch days
Our love has re-emerged
its colors shimmering
We feel it flexing
strong brilliant wings to lift us
to new vision.

©Wendy Mulhern
September 25, 2012