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.

In the place of dragons

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In the early perfection of the morning,
deep breathing while still half bound in sleep,
I felt the wakening hand
of what moves everything,
the easy all encompassing of harmony,
the power of waterfalls
and teeming life

And I felt that, if I had to face
the dragon’s breath again,
I would know what to say,
or not say, I would have the softening
that we brought back from the ocean  –
soothing of clouds and waves,
comfort of heads resting on shoulders  –
enough to dissipate what had threatened
to swallow us before.

©Wendy Mulhern
June 29, 2021

Love, unstoried

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I”m looking for a way to be home,
looking for a way to love that won’t fail,
seeking to wean myself from stories
of the quick flicker and mysterious arc
of love – how it can flame and crash
or just be gone

I know that love has never been like that –
when it touched into the stories,
it brought a power with it
that no story could sustain,
contain, retain, restrain –
and so I’m seeking love
outside of stories,
the love that, when they’re done,
will still remain.

©Wendy Mulhern
June 28, 2021

Enduring

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At some point I noticed
I was thinking of the day
in terms of enduring  –
waiting out the heat till evening,
so I took a cold shower
and sat on the porch in the shade
listening to cicadas and quiet  birds

I’ve been training myself to step away
from the clenched pause from enjoyment
I called enduring,
to recast that quality
as a more alert patience,
a nimbler approach to living the moments
I will traverse anyway
and might as well enjoy.

©Wendy Mulhern
June 26  2021

Poem written in the dark after it was finally cool enough

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Everyone is looking for places to stay cool,
and I’m feeling the wish
to write a long story,
one of missed connections
and broken threads –
lost threads seeking each other over years,
sad and tragic mismatches
that people settled for
after their dreams were lost

But all the threads of the story
are subsumed,
changed as tide pools change
when tide comes in –
things that were disconnected
become one,
things that were lost
unite on holy ground.

©Wendy Mulhern
June 25,  2021

Empowerment

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If we understood our power,
every one of us,
we’d know that all of us are rich
and any one of us
can bring in the divinity of peace
the game-arresting concord of divinity

If we understood our power,
we’d know that none of us
can be impoverished,
for nothing can be taken
from our wholeness,
and nothing can deprive us
of our sovereignty

If we understood our power,
life would flow abundantly
at our hands, lush gardens
would spring forth
and be inhabited,
and every living thing we thought was lost
will find its way back
to flourish and bask in our grace.

©Wendy Mulhern
June 24,  2021

Take Two

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I tried to write a poem
before my exertion  –
put down some rhythmic platitudes  –
not untrue, except in how they felt

But now I’m here
under the house
learning the lessons of humility
amid the insulation dust,
wielding my knife and my learning curve  –
not much to say about it

Last night we watched virga at sunset,
talked until it turned from dark pink
to dark gray,
watched the almost full moon get brighter,
said good night
far later than we planned to.

©Wendy Mulhern
June 23, 2021

Illumination

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Love illumines you.
Understand this:
follow the pulse of your being
all the way down
to what wants to be  –
what wants to be seen,
what wants to be known,
what hungers to find its expression

Love illumines you
way down to the core –
love is what courses
underneath everything,
spurring your very existence

Love illumines you
from the inside,
the only light you can see by,
the light by which you are seen –
look how it shines you up
right through whatever else
you may have thought had to be

Look how it shows you are
everything that you are,
right through what others might see,
right to the place you are free.

©Wendy Mulhern
June 21, 2021

Summer Solstice

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On this longest day
I’m guarding your dinner
from the mice
while mosquitoes sing me love songs
on the porch

The last streak of sun
has left the ground
and the neighbor’s dogs
have started their night time commentary

What I am to learn today
I may not yet know
but it’s the longest day
so there is time.

©Wendy Mulhern
June 20, 2021

Care free

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What a relief it is to realize
I don’t have to direct the pieces,
I don’t need
to make things come together
or even figure out what needs fixing

My shadow was smiling as it walked
in the evening sun, down to the cabin –
I could tell by the bounce in its gait –
it, too, must be relieved
not to have to determine
where it’s going – to simply glide
through the dapples and into shade.

©Wendy Mulhern
June 19, 2021

The house, still unfinished, summer

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Walk into the quiet,
feel your footsteps echo
open up the doors
and let the wind blow through

Try this: the screen doors, almost closed,
will whistle, even howl –
close them all the way, and you will hear
the birdsong again, and distant traffic,
and ravens holding court across the field

Daisies are rampant in the fields,
and bracken fern beyond them –
everything has shot up fast, yearning
towards seed

And as for us, we’re just working
on learning to be quiet,
how to be quiet, and still progress,
how to be quiet and still
while wind and sun progress through summer,
how to inhabit our house with mastery,
how to inhabit this house enough
to find it finished.

©Wendy Mulhern
June 18, 2021