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.

Foraging

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One of the deer
regarded me through the window
for a long time
before it moved off
stepping stiffly through the light mud
and paused again, until another
came and nuzzled it

I think these were the twins of summer,
their mother coming up behind,
their coats now in the duller
shades of winter
to better blend with spent and battered stalks

Our walk through winter
is not unlike theirs,
our first time through this passage,
following signs we haven’t seen before
but which are clear enough  –
foraging the prospects of the day.

©Wendy Mulhern
December 10, 2020

Naming Names

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In the fast rolling world
where names are hidden,
since calling things by name
lets you control them,
there is one name
that doesn’t try to hide,
since naming it
invokes its power,
which overcomes everything,
anything that would oppose it –
makes it forget why
it would ever want to –
commands a willing surrender
of all contrary schemes,
since everything desires
to be one
with the One.

©Wendy Mulhern
December 9, 2020

Healing

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All these words have been said
about healing,  how it is your coming home
to what has always been,
how it’s your awakening
to who you really are

These words are true,  and somewhere
beyond the quick dismissal
and the calculation
that these are pretty thoughts
that somehow don’t apply to you

There is a clarity
that sends its straight lines down
so numerous that they become space,
so powerful  that everything
tingles in their presence

There is a truth that focuses and strengthens,
and in its halo
you are made whole.

©Wendy Mulhern
December 7, 2020

Comfort Enough

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I started to think about
what would be comfort  –
end of day, sun gone down,
cold cabin waiting dark,
food to prepare

I started to picture it –
someone to care for me,
some place of light and warmth
where I could rest

The images slipped away quickly,
shifting and melting, canceling out,
till all I had left was a golden glow
and a feeling of worthiness
from having loved

So I knew that I had what I needed,
beyond and above the wood for the fire
and the place I could sit
and the noodles to eat

I knew that I had what I needed,
and that was comfort enough.

©Wendy Mulhern
December 6, 2020

These Clouds

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These clouds that silently appeared
along the western ridge,
that quietly amassed
until they owned the sky,
at least the half of it
where the sun had been

These clouds that signify a turn,
prospect of rain, a wrinkle in our plans,
still paused to let the late sun through
and let themselves be cast in blue

And my desire
is for the same kind of peace
to rule my day –
whatever comes in later still offering
the same generous expanse
of presence and acceptance
and release. 

©Wendy Mulhern
December 5, 2020

Observations while roof building

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These short cold days,
the sun, even when it does come out
doesn’t have much time
to melt the ice, to warm the air,
and while it can land steady
on the south slope,
it only glances down the north,
leaving long shadows behind short stubble,
unable to dry the wood
dampened by fog and frost

This time of year
we fall short of our goals,
leave the night watch
to the cold stars,
start up next day
as slow as the sun does,
move through our project the same.

©Wendy Mulhern
December 3, 2020

As I walk

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And finally, I find myself
enjoying the companionship of silence,
of having no instructions
as my feet step out in front of me,
of spinning no stories  –
just letting the things I see be hymns –
the deer with their tentative presence,
the grass now green again, ferns gone brown,
the piercing blue as fog lifts,
the bracing cold

There’s memory, too –
images unfolding, innocent of judgment,
showing I can also
see my folly without regret,
and younger viewpoints
without correcting

So I learn kindness
in the stillness deep inside,
so I learn quiet
in the unassuming rhythm of the land.

©Wendy Mulhern
December 1, 2020

Getting Through

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Though it’s hard to think
how we will make it through the winter,
it’s not so hard to deal with every day  –
get up, perform the work at hand,
persevere through darkness
and through cold,
be graced, be blessed,
by glimpses of the light

This is how we’ll get through  –
one day into the next,
grand plans dimly in the background,
committed to the way this moment plays.

©Wendy Mulhern
November 30, 2020

Nonetheless

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It could be a small thing.
It wouldn’t have to be something like
the raising of a barn
or a transformation in consciousness

It could be the view across a field
just in one moment,
or the huddle space
where the fire is warm
while the cold air
creeps around my back

It could be a small thing I notice
that shows, nonetheless,
the sweetness of our lives.

©Wendy Mulhern
November 29, 2020

A Story

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They didn’t think they wanted to get up,
absorbed, as they were, in arranging
the little curlicues of what they called their lives

Which always seemed to promise:
Sometime, somehow, they’d get it right
and win the prize of fortune, fame, delight

They thought it was annoying to be prodded,
even unfair, as it perhaps distracted
them off their game, made them miss their win,
plus it was fearsome to be demanded
to be more than they had ever been

And yet, when they finally awoke.
They had no more words to describe.
The things that looked like onerous demands
were simply invitations to arise,
to inhabit the vast regions of their being,
to humbly wield their quintessential power.

©Wendy Mulhern
November 28, 2020