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.

Free

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Here’s a possibility —
A space a box creates
by enclosing it
(corners like elbows 
pushing out to make room)
Here’s a possibility:
We could be free.

Free is something 
I have maybe never been
Though we are told we are
We’re also told there’s no free lunch
So there you go.
We are not free if we are bought
We are not free if we must buy our right to be
with work on tasks we wouldn’t choose
on projects that don’t serve us.

Here is a thought:
If I’m enslaved,
It’s my own mind that chains me
That tells me things must be this way
That I don’t have a choice
That I should never deign to think
that I deserve to choose my work,
To own my gift.

Here’s a possibility:
A whisper in a little box —
The box could grow until
it can contain us all
and we can learn
our freedom.


©Wendy Mulhern
November 29, 2011



Reasoning

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Look,
I said, earnest and concerned,
You can’t have a bad good
Or a good bad
For if you did, how could you then 
know anything?
(a conversation I was having in my mind)
The ancient text entreats:
“My son, eat thou honey,
for it is good,”
And elsewhere,
“Butter and honey shall he eat
That he may know to refuse the evil
and choose the good.”
See? I said (in my mind)
You have to trust that
you can tell what good is
That you can know it by its fruits
You have to trust that if it’s love
you’ll love to do it
It will feed you, will sustain you
It will feel right.
Your constant vigilance will be for naught
if you imagine arcane texts
and tenuous interpretations
have more weight than your internal compass —
The weight of your joy
The overwhelming vastness
of your need
The unspeakable depth
your love can plumb
(and does so every day)
to meet it.


©Wendy Mulhern
November 28, 2011



Untying Time

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We find ourselves as characters
Unfinished, emerging 
as on time’s great loom
we’re woven,
The colors of our purpose and desires
Slow-forming on its tapestry of story
With wefts that wrap and then dip down
unseen
And poke up further on between the warps
The things we know, then don’t,
Then know again
The breathless trailing edges
of our hopes . . .

But then
We may view time as our dimension
Something we’ve stretched out
upon a frame
Coordinates established by our mind force
to help us understand our vital being
And maybe time, and time’s whole tapestry
We’ll take up one day, like a mighty cloak
to wrap ourselves
But then to fling away
So we may stride in freedom
since we know
That we endure, outside of time, eternal
And the day
No longer bound 
May then be redefined
And time be understood again
As rhythm
A beat to dance, a riff to sing
A harmony
An endless field and we the masters
Untied from time 
Aloft on Spirit’s wing.

©Wendy Mulhern
November 24, 2011

(Background music: Isaac Shepard, “Thoughtful”)

Receiving

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    I won’t dismiss as ego
The need to be received
Wrapped in a soft receiving blanket
Passed from arm to arm, enchanting
Cooed over
Welcomed
And cradled then especially
In loving and protective arms
To look out knowing
You are guarded fiercely
And treasured more than anything before.

Why should we think this need would go away
because our bones have grown
our circles widened out?
This need must grow apace with all our being
To knit us to our tribe
and show us how, in turn, 
we’re made to so receive each other
To welcome, to accept, respect and love
An ancient gift that we must now recover
to reach our peace, our purpose, and our home.
©Wendy Mulhern
     November 25, 2011


(Background music: Isaac Shepard, “Memories Never Fade”)

Steady rain, steady love

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    As sure as rain
That falls into the ebbing year
With pools for our reflection
When the ripples clear
As sure as rain
That summons windshield wipers’ thrash
And vigilance in traffic
As the trucks’ sprays blast
The hypnotic, droning rhythm
That propels us on toward night
And the dampening of leaves
Impelled, thus, to their final flight
As sure as rain
This law:
That steady love
Poured out in constant stream
With no concern for consequence, no shame
Or thought what it may seem
Will call the same.


©Wendy Mulhern
November 23, 2011

Music in background: Sprinkle to Rain by Isaac Shepard


From a Conversation: Three Points

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1.
I realized, he said
I didn’t need to teach her tennis
My job was just to help her
discover her own game.
And so it is, he said,
in all of our endeavors
Integrity within gives us the cue
The harmony of all we are
and our uniqueness through and through
will form the pattern we embody
Impel the grace of everything we do.

2.
Of all the efforts made to teach us —
Goals and rules, and models to compare —
Just one thing will ultimately reach us
Which is to know there’s somebody that cares.

3.
In action lies your mastery
In mastery, you have no need
To justify, defend or vaunt your actions
Your works will speak for you
Through them you will succeed.


©Wendy Mulhern
November 22, 2011



Vaulting

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there is a great joy in clarity
like spring water bubbling up
from ancient aquifers
like the distance of stars
in deep, cold night
and the smell of air 
when it has snowed in the mountains
like understanding a connection
forged before the world was born
and rising from a deep sleep of languid dreams
to the strength of all the day’s promises
knowing
you are here for this moment
and this moment is here for you.


©Wendy Mulhern
November 21, 2011



For Love, on her birthday

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It is not your path—
the moving corridor
where everyone steps on
and stands with baggage
and waits to be delivered
to the next destination

Your path darts in and out
through many worlds
The doors between them
things you notice:
Doors of willingness
where intention can form a room
Doors of silliness
where the dizzy twirl of the soul
may open something new
Doors of metaphor
where a seed may be itself a door
And this is you
With laughter or with trepidation
facing changes —
Going through, going through.


©Wendy Mulhern
November 18, 2011