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.

Equilibrium

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Let your peace return,
spiral inward, homing
There is no perturbation
that can mar its coming

In your internal quiet
the steady pulsing
has never ceased
This reassertion of itself
it does with ease

Outside, the winds may buffet you
May tease along your furls
Try to unravel you
Surge, hiss, seethe
Set you flapping, fraying
Worry at the edges of your poise

But underneath
The currents run their course
untouched by surface winds
And the soft voice
that’s anchored in the truth
of who you are
is still here
and it will spread its deep calm
in strong and tranquil rays
across your sphere.

©Wendy Mulhern
May 22, 2012

(Picture: Wind bowl, Jennifer McCurdy.  Photo by Gary Mirando)

Perspective

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He sits there with his dirty hands
And rocks and rocks, and squeaks and squeaks
He has gone vacant
You can’t trust anything he says about his day
You know he doesn’t have a clue what happened.
When he gets up you’ll see
the whitish marks his hands left on the chair


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He sits there with his gnarled hands
still full of all the memories of having worked
still capable beneath the wrinkled skin
They tap against the chair arm keeping time
to some remembered song
Or to the band he marched in once
so many years ago

He rocks and rocks, remembering
The times he won, the times
He proved himself to be uniquely clever
The times when he was master
The times when he was kind
He plays them back, for they affirm him
Repetitious pleasure signals
Looping through his mind

When he gets up to eat the food that I’ve prepared
He’s always grateful: for the food, but more
He’s grateful for the time we share
Companionable repast nurturing
His sense of being wanted, and belonging


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No facts that I observe can stand alone
I’ll always bind them up in explanation
Then let my story here
be one I’m glad to own
that holds my thought in nurturing relation.

©Wendy Mulhern
May 21, 2012



Cuddle Your Curmudgeons

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Cuddle your curmudgeons
Lay their heads in your lap
Stroke their hair
But do not take their frowns into yourself
Don’t match their myriad complaints
with irritations of your own,
frustration since you just can’t make them see —
For if you do
you mirror forth 
that same old bitter world
that you so want to tell them isn’t real.

Cuddle your curmudgeons
whether they live within you
or are people who in some way
share your life
For if you do, then day by day
you’ll show them
Life’s more than disappointment, stress, and strife.

Cuddle your curmudgeons
For they are tender souls
They need to know your care
is unconditional.

©Wendy Mulhern
May 20, 2012



Day’s End

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Quiet evening closes in
Light gathers into lamplit circles
Sky outside exudes its final magic
Trees recede serenely into shadows

All the ranging efforts of the day return
Pool their energy into the center
Strong internal processors now softly burn
assimilating what the day has meant

Each time of holding up the light 
has played its part
Each act of empathy 
imprinted in your heart
will bring its fruits 
in surer shining of the truth
to satisfy your soul and bring rebirth
and serve as affirmation of your worth.

©Wendy Mulhern
May 19, 2012


Howling

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Go ahead
Stomp if you need to
Raise your fist at the sky
and scream
Swear, howl, wail
Your thoughts aren’t holding up the world
Your actions, however desperate
can’t damn you
The Love that holds you
is well able to sustain the world
and you
through this storm
whether it’s your storm
or all the world kicked up around you
whether you feel you have been bad
or feel you have been wronged
It doesn’t matter
You can rest
The Principle that turns the worlds
will keep on turning
Your drooping hopes will raise their heads
towards morning.

©Wendy Mulhern
May 18, 2012



Approaching You

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The way to your open heart
and the way to mine
may be the same:
When I care more
than any calculated consequence
And I listen
not to words 
but to the cry beneath them
And I hear
not what I’ve thought before 
but that which calls right now
And I ask myself:
What does it feel like behind those eyes?
I may approach you
And if I see 
that flicker of a kindled hope
And if I feel
its resonance within
And if I shine
that flicker back in affirmation
I may arrive.

©Wendy Mulhern
May 17, 2012



Infinite Permission

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The One who made you
never said
Only take a little love
a polite small serving
(being sure to leave plenty
for everyone else)

The One who made you 
never said
Just show a little of yourself
not enough so anyone has to notice
(don’t be a spectacle)

The One who made you
gives you infinite permission
to take all the love
you possibly can
(for in taking love, you multiply it)

The One who made you 
gives you infinite permission
to shine forth everything you are
(for otherwise,
Why would you have been made?)

©Wendy Mulhern
May 16, 2012



Forgiveness

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For this great silent gift
that’s called forgiveness —
Release of gracious fragrance
to the air,
Permission to surrender my agenda
for a fine peace to cherish and to share —
I give my thanks,
For it came down so softly
Independent of my wrestling mind
It healed my wounds, erased my anguished pain
and let my inner tones be realigned

Though I knew forgiveness was required
It wasn’t something I could do alone
Ah! It was given me from somewhere higher
A truth reverberating in my bones

With this gift
I know that I, too, am forgiven
Released from all the knots wherein I writhed
To walk through slender rays of present heaven
Bright halos hovering around my eyes.

©Wendy Mulhern
May 15, 2012



Thought Channels II

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Don’t have much to say

I must sit and wait
till my internal waters settle down
The turbid sediment, roiled up
from stream beds used to quiet flow
from banks above where waters mostly run
Must make its way
as far as it must go
till it can clear.

Then I’ll see
just how the course has changed
What views will stay the same
What places where my thoughts and hopes once dwelt
will be no longer fed
and so dry out
What unexpected new course I might find
of love to feed and occupy my mind.

©Wendy Mulhern
May 14, 2012



Processing

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How will you remember these —
Swing of hammock, song of trees
Blanket filling in where sun has ceased?
Wounded thoughts that need to be released . . .

Every day I send these bobbing forth
Always with earnest hope that some will see
Encapsulated, bottled, swiftly corked
Love notes to my community

There is no string to bring me with them
I can’t expect them to be met, I know
They must be free if I’m to truly give them
I send them out, and I stay here, alone

The sun is sitting in the tops of trees
The wind, affectionate, still musses up their leaves
The afternoon slides on towards evening hours
Punctuated by suburban crows and cars

Evening evens everything
Draws together trees and sky
As here and there become the same,
Things that were distant softly unify

How will you remember this?
You’ll wrap it in the evening scents and sounds
You’ll bring your peace to reign, and here is how:
You’ll set your steady anchor in the now.

©Wendy Mulhern
May 13, 2012