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.

Source

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Where do I live?
What ribbons of contiguity
define my thought? How are they affixed?
What winds do they blow in? These stories
of sequenced events, cause and effect –
how much of them do I write myself,
and what inspires me?
What do I copy, what do I notice,
how much attention do I pay
to what I’ve written down?

These are important questions.
I won’t try to answer
before I’ve asked them fully,
I’ll let their unfurling consequences
make it clear,
and I will turn for confirmation
ever back to my creator,
I’ll turn for affirmation
to my source.

©Wendy Mulhern
November 13, 2020

Evening

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Evening can look like rainfall
these shorter days,
falling and falling in front of my eyes,
rain I can see but not feel –
what looks like a socked in sky
may really be sundown
sneaking in behind the clouds

It feels silent
but I can still hear ravens
and the rattle of the ladder
and the hum of distant traffic,
the quiet being, actually,
the day’s anticipation of the night,
their brief meeting
soft as the clasp of hands.

©Wendy Mulhern
November 12, 2020

Stepping Up

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More dangerous to me than hardship
is the vapid satisfaction
that accepts a lie about my being
because it’s not that bad,
that accepts a happy that is disempowered,
that lets a picture of a good life
obscure the depth and brilliance
of a life truly lived,
a life whose purpose is
to show the presence of
the good encompassing
the whole of being,
healing and including all the world.

©Wendy Mulhern
November 10, 2020

Kingdom

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I have seen the kingdom
and it is within – it is the impulse
of my consciousness, the realm
of my desire, my hope, my love,
and that which governs them

I have seen the kingdom
and it is within – it’s what insists
on justice, what won’t settle
for lies, for privilege,
for ignorant oppression,
for childish blindness
to the things that need to change

I’ve seen the kingdom
in the hearts of others,
and I recognized the clarity,
the sudden opening –
vast canyons and the breathtaking
settledness, commanding calm,
the wave of certainty that washes doubt away –
kingdom within, in me, in us, as one.

©Wendy Mulhern
November 9, 2020

Weathered

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The cold sun has weathered me today,
leaving me attracted to fire,
to radiant warmth,
though it washes me
in sandstone red, muting
my thoughts and feelings,
wearing down my words

Sleep will be easy
as the outside cold
sucks the heat out of the cabin
once the fire is gone.
We will stay warm wrapped in blankets
and dream on through the darkness
to the cold dawn.

©Wendy Mulhern
November 8, 2020

Illuminated

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The light catches us
in moments we didn’t pose for,
renders us radiant
in the midst of daily efforts
we thought we were just
trying to get through

But actually it’s showing us
what we are –
made of brilliance,
of spontaneous
glory and grace,
just like everything
we share this earth with,
finding home within the power of place.

©Wendy Mulhern
November 7, 2020

Awake

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I shook myself awake
from where I was wandering
through memories of young adulthood,
ways I thought, and things I said and did

The mood had gotten tedious,
a haze of self-dissatisfaction
slouching in, making it hard to breathe

I didn’t ask for this,
didn’t give permission for my mind
to fill with toxins, for the mood
to be this semi-dismal color

So I shook myself awake –
I didn’t need to dwell there
and my past did not require me
to be paraded back, head hung down

For one could also say
that I was young, and that my ignorance
was not my fault (or not entirely)

And one could say
if I have truly woken up
then all of that was just a story –
none of it can cling to who I am,
and none of it can sully who I was.

©Wendy Mulhern
November 6, 2020

No Pundit

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I will not talk about
things that are not mine –
what I have not proven
will stand out like sticks
that pontifications
can never clothe

I’ll let the colors fall
and let the branches
speak for themselves –
these things I think I ought to know
but don’t
still stand out clear
and I will see them
as I keep seeking.

©Wendy Mulhern
November 5, 2020

Working in November

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That we can work together
through rain,
that we can be cheerful
as puddles form
and gloves get wet
gives me a chortle,
a bright warming,
an inner heat source
to counteract my dampened clothes

We kept on working
while the rain came harder,
and then it stopped, and we continued,
the appreciation that we had
each for the other
as strong a structure as the frame we built.

©Wendy Mulhern
November 3, 2020

Morning Wisps

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Behind the wisps of sorrow
that came drifting up
from memories released
by an offhand reminder

Behind my being sorry
for being too inept
to offer you the wisdom
that you looked for,
behind the sense
that I had let you down

Comes, like the light that prompts the mist to lift,
to float above the ground before dispersing,
the fact that love was, even then,
the only force impelling me,
the only message I could give
and all that you could really hear

And love, I know, can do no harm,
and nothing I advised,
could interfere with who you are
and how you shine,
could hold you back from coming to your own.

©Wendy Mulhern
November 2, 2020