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.

Reflection

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Things about you made me happy today  –
your humming just now,
your hand’s touch earlier,
and how, when you were working
(around the corner, out of my sight)
the feel of your presence
was joy invoking  – little warbles
jumping up inside, making me smile
(though you couldn’t see me)

And the color of your presence
was like dark wood burning in a fire,
one side turning to coals
glowing that compelling white-orange,
sending its heat out like chocolate

I wasn’t thinking of you in the old way –
this was something new –
the reflection of God walking
right here, so close to me –
in the very same house!

©Wendy Mulhern
January 2, 2021

Rekindling

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It feels like it should be a metaphor
how my skin has taken in this image –
the dance of embers
when the fire is almost gone,
the way a gentle setting down
of slender sticks
will make them jump  – jump and
glow and strangely reappear
further down the coal
where all was dark,
and if the sticks are light and dry enough,
and close enough for company
(but not to crowd)
there will at some point be a “ploof”
and fire will have returned,
merry and vivacious

It feels to me like so many things  –
some which would be trite to name,
some clad in so much wonder
I can’t utter them.

©Wendy Mulhern
December 31, 2020

Lessons in fire tending

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For.the fire.to thrive,
the air needs a free exit.

True, it needs an open space for intake,
but that is not enough  –
if it’s held in, if it is clogged at the top,
the fire will be air-starved,
it will grow cool and dull and orange
and cloud up the glass door,
which, when you open,
will pour smoke into the room

To have a clean fire,
the chimney trap
needs to be free of soot
so air can get out
as freely as it comes in

I’m thinking this is also true
of gifts. That gratitude glows bright
in the breath of generosity,
and love – love needs
a constant letting go.

©Wendy Mulhern
December 30, 2020

Fortitude

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Though I may think I want comfort,
I don’t really want
to be helpless,
don’t want someone
to swoop in and make things right

A better choice is fortitude  –
to stride right into the fray,
to brave the cold, the smoke,
the mud – whatever calls forth
my need to persevere

For then that comfort
will also glow with confidence,
that comfort
will rest in tested strength.

©Wendy Mulhern
December 29, 2020

Just Right

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I come back around to the fact
that I don’t want to be
anywhere else, don’t want
to be anyone else  –
that this place,.and this time,
and this company
are just right for me

See? All this has been prepared
to give the opportunity
for this learning, this growth,
this coming to understand
the timeless truth
I can receive
right here, right now.

©Wendy Mulhern
December 27, 2020

There is a river

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I’m still thinking of that spring
whose source is deep within you  –
how it orients you
even if you hardly sense it there

And I’m thinking of the welling up,
the rising that no spring resists
that pushes what would block it
clean away

There is a river,
yes, there is a river,
there is peace like a river
surging forward without end

And yes, it calls you,
it calls your spring forth –
you have flowed into it
before you knew you would.

©Wendy Mulhern
December 26, 2020

In the order of things

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I’ve given up the fear
of things going wrong on the inside,
now that I have glimpsed
how deep the mind force goes,
how there is no scale
at which it abdicates its power
and leaves a role for mindlessness

Electrons hum in harmony
and systems for which they are suns
hum,.too. Who am I to think
the song could pixelate, or end,
who am I to doubt
the care with which I’m held –

Who am I,  after all,
in the order of Infinity?
– where my presence is the basis
for my trust.

©Wendy Mulhern
December 25, 2020

Where there is always room

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Come in, sit down  –
there’s a place here
even for your tears

We can give you the comfort of darkness
where you don’t have to
control your features,
we can give you a blanket
the color of light behind closed eyes  –
it can wrap you soft,
it will make room for you

When you’re done
you can come out –
there’s a place for you here too,
to let the warmth and light
lift the corners of your mouth back up

Come in, all you who are alone  –
you can comfort us,
we’ll comfort you  –
we call you even as we are called
to the place outside of space
where there is always room.

©Wendy Mulhern
December 24, 2020

Like Water

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We find we are like water  –
come amorphous to the morning,
to the moment when  the light hits
and we array ourselves in shine

Before then, of course,
there is much movement  –
we rise to meet the air, we drift,
we kiss the edges of the things we know,
we make fog, we roll, we lift 
we curl up small and tumble down

All this to know ourselves
in how we let the light be seen,
all this to show our essence
in how we meet the dawn.

©Wendy Mulhern
December 23, 2020