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.

The Dancer

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I wrote this poem in the fall of my freshman year at college.  Mostly I was having fun with the rhyme schemes.  Actually it was one of those times when I felt like an expert skier of words – slaloming down the sounds with ease and grace.  The sentiment, while not one I was deeply feeling at the time or writing out from, was one I could remember and relate to.


    Something wrong, something right
Something true, something trite
All of us are waiting for the answer
Let the song play through the night
The magic shoes are always bright
And who will try to stop the dancer?
Who will try to stop the dancer?
 
Frenzy spins her topsy turvy
All the scenes are blurred
She celebrates in sorry fury
While we wait to hear the answer
Who will try to stop the dancer?
 
Someone said it’s good to sing
And see the images expressed
But all the joy is spun away
And still the dancer finds no rest
    And something’s wrong – she’s no more blessed
She’s crying, asking why
The shoes give no reply
And why won’t someone try to stop the dancer?
 
Sluggish days and sleepless nights
Though pen is dead, the hand still writes
In limp ink, tired assignments
My mind seeks realignment
But no one here can find it
And we’re still waiting for the answer
Who will try to stop the dancer?


©Wendy Mulhern
Fall, 1975
 
 
 
 

What Joy Looks Like

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I’ll tell you what
I’ll tell you what joy looks like
Looks like that cloud
Stretching out its four arms
Against the blessed sky
Curling slowly inward towards itself
And reaching out again
Embracing blue
Looks like that day moon
White as the cloud
Diving down to it
Mouth wide open.
I’ll tell you what
I’ll tell you what joy looks like
Looks like that man
Riding his bike no hands
Clapping to some tune or thought
Only he can hear
I’ll tell you what joy tastes like
Tastes like this day
Leaves smelling of fall
Day full of journey and purpose
And sweet bright air.


©Wendy Mulhern
September 20, 2011





Half empty nest

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Heatherlessness still takes me by surprise.

Less so the dried up stalks of summer flowers
And lovely ones remaining once I’ve pruned
And blusterings of wind that brings the leaves down
Iconic for September afternoons.

It’s in the moments in between my conscious thought
As when I may reach out to flip a light switch
Forgetting once again the power’s out
I notice I expect to feel her light touch.

It’s sweet to know that far away she blossoms
To hear, in frequent news of what she’s doing,
The edges of a tale of flight so awesome
We’ll need to read between the lines to fathom.

Or so, at least, is my parental hope
As she transitions to a grander scope
I hold her image clear before my eyes
But Heatherlessness still takes me by surprise.


©Wendy Mulhern
September 19, 2011



Dream Gift

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How magical! To wake from dream with laughter
My heart so full of mirthful, giddy wonder
And well-being, enfolding me long after—
Each time I turned and stretched and slid back under.

I dreamed I danced and kept on jumping higher
Delightful float at each crest of the arc
Each leap empowered by a wave of joy
A curling in, a springing stretching forth.

And then at once I found myself suspended
Atop an arc, not needing to come down
And laughter bubbled up all unportended 
And blended with the music’s tranceful sound.

Much later now, the traces still remain
Like inner bubbles, trying to escape
If I could harness them I’d streak
Across the sky, or help someone stand up.

I calm myself, considering it’s true
Each power has its perfect purpose
This energy must find its fruitful use
I give it up to Love, for Love to choose.


©Wendy Mulhern
September 18, 2011



Mind Touch (more)

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They said the robot’s jerky movements
Kept her from being seen as human
Although the robot knew the proper cues
The turn of face, of eyes, to hear your news

But what they hadn’t programed for
Or analyzed, or knew to see
Was how the long wave of connection
Moves between each you and me

How that first click of recognition
—Human, kinsman, lover—spotted from afar
Strings a taut line between us, core to core
On which then afterward the signals run

The turn of face, the eye contact, the mirrored smiles
Come later, when we’re already in tune
When every move of mine will synchronize with yours
No wave will fail to flow all the way through

From you to me, from me to you
Each thing I feel, you’ll know
Each thing you know, I’ll feel
Though we may not acknowledge it
It’s surely real

Your wave will hit against the door I finally close
The echo back will show how far I let you in
Though you may have no words for it, you’ll know
My openness will zing across your skin

And if you open all the way, I’ll be compelled
To recognize you holy, priceless, true
Your heart in mine with tenderness to hold –
I can’t escape the Mind touch any more than you

The robot, though meticulously programed
Couldn’t tell
How much at one our movement always is
How deep the input, how apt the response
However much we try to mask ourselves.


©Wendy Mulhern
September 16, 2011



Friends

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They walk and talk and flock
Their glances flit
Their shoulders wait to settle
Their bodies to be hugged.
In each one
Love rises like bubbles
through the complex layers of fears
Rolls up laterally
along stories crafted for self protection
Finds the cracks and squeezes through
Attains another level.
Love shines from deep within
a glow
that won’t stay trapped
It must gain strength
as it goes higher
and is seen as beauty
and is seen as grace
as mama-bear-caring
for each one’s safe place.
Love surfaces
fervent in tattoos
and incongruous, amazing eyelashes
and sudden, brimming smiles
and eyes that see them.


©Wendy Mulhern
September 14, 2011



A Young Poet

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The currents flow
close to the surface
Heat rises quickly
The quick is quickly cut
He deals in this –
Emotions’ currents
his currency
“I bleed, therefore I feel
I make you feel
therefore I am
All that I dare
will make you love me
The love of many
makes me real.”
This is his thrill
To stand before us now
To lose himself
in his own abandon
for our finding 
of ourselves
and of him
and of why we are here.


©Wendy Mulhern
September 14, 2011



sinking

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The water closes over it
And it’s gone
The ripples lap over each other
And disappear
No sign left that anything
Was ever here
Other perturbations take their turn.
The water takes its color from the sky
The sky is deep; within it, many echoes
Across its breadth, a varied palette stretches
The water’s depth may thus stay undefined.
How far, how deep, how slow, how wandering
May be the drop down to the ocean’s floor
The surface stillness leaves a space for pondering
What worlds beneath have slipped away before
And if the momentary ease of foundering
Should be resisted.  Help me find the shore.


©Wendy Mulhern
September 8, 2011



The angst that haunts my edges

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Here’s the confusion of my current state:
No poem, because of nothing to relate
I’ve given up on hearing back from Harvey Hix
Nor can I count on Facebook for a feedback fix
What then? What? What can my future be?
What will fulfill my purpose, prove my destiny?
Can I love everyone enough to heal?
Heal me and everyone who has a need?
Or am I sentenced just to eat chocolate
And feel the roving hunger chocolate can’t touch?
Why do I always write about myself?
Don’t I care about anything else?
Enough! It’s time to stop this whine and do more
Let later days recount what these have been for.


©Wendy Mulhern
September 6, 2011



Rush

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My heart is open, and a wind blows through it
A wind of longing and of deep hope
For this my life, what I may give to it
As sun gives magic to the far slope
The rush of high I feel, what calls it forth?
Is it these people, are they like none other?
Is this my tribe, my compass home, my true north
Just taken half a lifetime to discover?
Or is there something else, a shift in attitude
That lights me up, and everything I know
A unilateral influx of gratitude
That shows us shining in our native glow?
If so, it signifies a clear design
Where everything that lives may so align.


©Wendy Mulhern
September 4, 2011