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.

Counsel

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I can’t tell you what it’s worth
to work alongside someone
steady repetition, finding rhythm
common effort toward a common goal
getting grimy, overcoming awkwardness
gaining growing comfort in the job

I can’t help you choose
whether to engage
in this thankless task of working with your dad
who will not thank you, who won’t be counting points
but will slowly feel companioned by your presence
And if it’s not done willingly
you might as well not bother
might as well go hang out with your friends

I know that it’s worth something
but I can’t tell you what
I don’t know what it’s worth to you
I don’t know what you’ll get
I don’t know when you’ll know what you have gained
You’ll choose, and maybe later understand.

©Wendy Mulhern
May 12, 2012



Lifelines

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Many years ago,
a dozing vision told me,
“You have a lifeline to a star.”
I sat up, alert, obscurely comforted
that any chasm I might face 
could hold no threat
and that no danger loomed
of finding my life dull and flat
I had a lifeline to a star!
and it would lift me up
across light years and eons
to my dreams

Little did I know
I have so many lifelines —
distant stars the least of them —
right here
Wind touched willow singing in the sun,
Gentle currents sliding softly,
All the gems of eyes that can connect
are lifelines holding everything together
I move and feel them pull against my chest
Inviting me to heft them, find their swing
and catapult myself
in heady, death defying joy
hand over hand along their awesome web
through this bright day.

©Wendy Mulhern
May 11, 2012



Good Night

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Sweet bright day 

draws to its close
Companionable shadows
bring me in
to intimacy’s secret sentences
The moon that tracked 
across the daytime sky
now sleeps, and leaves the cool night
to the stars

Inside the house, the ticking clocks
prepare to stand their vigil
The noises of the day retreat
to leave them looming
It’s my time to surrender
so that dreams can have their sway
as we ride swiftly
through the curve of night
and on toward day.

©Wendy Mulhern
May 10, 2012



Remembering

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We walk almost in trance
Remembering
Doing things no one has taught us
Doing them because we must —
Some ancient edict
has brought us to this point
Insistent hunger drives us to the place
where we may find ourselves together
learning grace

Slowly, we pick up and wear the wisdom
Older than the schools
and the long, loud rush of words
and the frantic reasoning
intoned over and over
The words of those who would impose
a logic to their will
and make us think we need to do
the things that scatter, kill
us off, to cull the ones
who for a time can do the bidding 
of a voice that doesn’t care.

But we return
Some of us, at first
Then a few more
We come in ones and twos
But we are many
And listening within
Each of us knows 
this thing we need to do

So we unite
First join hands
Then learn to breathe together
Then learn to hold the space for one another,
To shine the light that magnifies each person’s gift
That brings us into peace and closes up the rift
Till we can weave our separate music into one voice
To reconstruct our primal song, and so rejoice.

©Wendy Mulhern
May 9, 2012


Picture: Jennifer McCurdy Vortex Vessel, Photo by Gary Mirando



Together

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If we breathe together —

the whole earth —
in grand and rushing intakes,
curling into every cranny,
long, sustained releasing,
returning and returning

If we fly together
riding on the currents 
and creating them
swooping, swirling, echoing each other
cushioned by the air, ecstatic, gliding

If we hum together
all the toning of our integral vibrations
finding unforeseen harmonics, deep support
joining in the long reverberation
of all we are, and all we’ve been before

Then we shall later walk enchanted
through the richness of each moment’s breath
knowing that no gesture goes unanswered
each movement met by all the ones we’re with.

©Wendy Mulhern
May 8, 2012



Elementary

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Love is easy

All you need to do is hold on
as to five hundred helium balloons
You’ll fly alright
Just don’t let go
for anything

Love is simple
One action only is required
Take hold, decide to do it
No more decisions need be made
You’ll be all right
It’s your toccata waiting to be played

Love is safe
The law of Love releases every fear
For though you fly
you never fly in peril
You can’t fall out of love
for Love is always here.

©Wendy Mulhern
May 6, 2012




picture: Jennifer McCurdy Golden Water Photo by Julius Friedman

Drifting

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Lapping over my consciousness

like waves of incoming tides,
Cross-currents weaving
between each others phases,
The soporific influence
of three fronts:
The lateness of my sleeping
The coldness of the day
The dream-like memories
of last night’s celebrating—
Doubled rhythms
concatenate along the line of waves
So I have drifted
and the forward march of progress
has been arrested
attention sifted
and the beach-ward wash of thoughts
bobs there suspended
Till some renewed resolve should lift me clear
Return me to my traction on the shore.

©Wendy Mulhern
May 5, 2012



photo by Casey McCurdy

Holding On

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Take me in

to hidden chambers
Lift the secret latches
Solve the puzzle locks
Bring me into mystery
and endow me there
What I’ve heard in silence
I will shout from mountains
It is right
that everybody hear this truth
That it begin to offer
another way of seeing
another way to be:

Spirit, I will hold you
I will cling
like an infant
to my mother
I will not let go
I’ll feel the flow
of infant love
that holds on tight with such need
in the instinct of connection
but not in desperation —
in affection

Spirit, when you fly
and the wind rushes around us
and the land 
falls away beneath us
and the air grows cool
I will cling
to your warmth
I will hold on with love
and whoop
with heart-rush joy.

©Wendy Mulhern
May 4, 2012


Chain of Lights

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It’s an unexpected gift
to be seen
and to find myself to be
part of a chain
A chain of shining lights
pulled along in awe and joy
on through the rolling wave of time
The pulse of undulation
and the centrifuge of spinning
augmenting our connection
to each other
Leading us enchanted
to the place of no beginning
The place from which we came and now return
knowing it has always been our home.

©Wendy Mulhern
May 3, 2012



Metamorphosis

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Nothing stops the peace
of this release:
The shrunken husk,
the burst cocoon,
curls in upon itself
and so recedes
No need to seek its cloister
anymore

The bright wings pumping full of life
stretching out to own a greater sphere
affirm my purpose
and epitomize
why I’m here

So I begin to learn
to move, inhabit this expansive dome
To seek the currents in the air
To find myself at home

And if I need to feel a close embrace
I’ll seek it in a way that lets my wings stay free
Angelic cradling and seeing, face to face
how we embody what we’re meant to be.

©Wendy Mulhern
May 2, 2012
Music in background: “Evening Chat” by Isaac Shepard