Heaven

Posted on January 4, 2016 by Wendy

(Creative Etymology)

If heaven is the breathing of everything,
the generous heave of the earth,
the inspiration, the release
across the days, the months,
the seasons,
the ever-cycling peace,
the renewal that comes back around,
inciting curls of growth,
currents rising and branching,
sending new life ever outward,
ever inward

Then it is heaven
to move just like this,
in concert with the breathing
of earth and sea, of sky and stars,
where everything has room
for its own unfolding,
where everything is held
and everything is free.

©Wendy Mulhern
January 3, 2016

Manna

Posted on January 3, 2016 by Wendy

The sheen of sun on winter trees,
the gentle scrish of frost underfoot,
the taste of ice crystals and
the moss on which they grew,
the smell of rotted cabbage

The subtle sinking into
the movement of the moment,
the easy harmonizing
of glance and gesture,
the flash appreciation of a color palette,
the warmth that radiates
from trunks of trees

These are the gifts of the day
and the new year,
gifts, like manna,
collectible every day,
nourishing the present,
allowing tomorrow’s hunger
to fend for itself.

©Wendy Mulhern
January 2, 2016

Let it Go

Posted on December 30, 2015 by Wendy

Well, you don’t hold up the world
by worrying, so let it go,
let it go

Seeds in the ground
don’t need your exhortations
to bide their time
and spring forth when they’re needed

And your body
doesn’t need you telling it to breathe,
telling it to beat its steady rhythm

Let it go, let it go

Everything comes home,
in its time. Even the venturing out
is part of it, part of the
ever-growing claiming and reclaiming
of its own —
its place in the divine dance of being.
It will do so without your worrying —
let it go.

©Wendy Mulhern
December 29, 2015

Foundation

Posted on December 25, 2015 by Wendy

Let me pause long enough
to find gravity,
internal cohesion,
the natural pull
to sink me
all the way down
to the silence

Though there be frenetic raging
on the surface,
though turbulent currents
attend my descent,
it will get quieter
as I go deeper

And I will find the settled peace
that undergirds everything,
I will sit still
and feel its radiance
rising in rays
until it lights and calms the whole.

©Wendy Mulhern
December 24, 2015

If it is art

Posted on December 4, 2015 by Wendy

If it is art
it will build on everything
that came before it,
and it will add something —

the excitement of
the fresh curve of cresting wave,
bright froth touched
by this singular breath of wind,
the clean erasure of past footprints
and its new line on crusted sand

brought here through
swells that built across the sound,
carrying each signal
of ships, of currents,
fish and whales,
the deep memory of ancient water
and the surface memory
that knows the oneness
to which it constantly returns

If it is art
it will touch your skin
in just that way —
so much truth laid down
in the communion of your viewing.

©Wendy Mulhern
December 4, 2015

Vessel by Jennifer McCurdy, photo by Julius Friedman

Simple Warmth

Posted on December 1, 2015 by Wendy

These days our circles are clipped
by cold, by early darkness,
and my gratitude glows bright
for simple warmth —
the miraculous heat of your body
bringing me in to the safety
that melts my hard edges,
the rigid shivering giving thankful place
to the reception
of your radiation,
effortless, smooth,
comforting to the bone.

©Wendy Mulhern
November 29, 2015

There’s time

Posted on November 29, 2015 by Wendy

Quiet. There will be time
for everything,
as long frost crystals form
through the night,
as iridescent frost melt
shines in morning sun,
and bright green is released from whiteness
as the shadows move

There will be time
for everything to rise into its purpose,
to stretch, luxuriant, in the fulfilling
of what it has always been
and will ever be

There is always time,
and it will be enough.

The Earth Sings

Posted on October 2, 2015 by Wendy

The earth sings under the city,
patterns passed through rock and sand,
in slow waves moving,
lore stored in mountains,
riffs originating in the craggy pools
along the shore

All this is known, all this is felt,
nothing made in the last two hundred years
can mar the message —
It goes around the deep holes
we’ve dug in the ground,
it moves beneath the places we regraded

It makes no judgment about these,
for they are minor —
transient as shadows
moving across a day.
The earth sings
her long song
among the stars.

Mid September

Posted on September 15, 2015 by Wendy

It’s not quite time
to settle
into the coziness of darker days,
the smell of inside heat
while winds blow outside
and the sun comes just
in scattered, rapid glances,
and rain spatters
and there is no guilt
in staying inside all day

Now the squash have played their hands —
some will roll in flush and full to harvest,
some are banking on a longer season,
their fruits now small and hopeful and daring

And the heart race
of this span of opportunity
pulls me forward —
right to the edge of what I can know,
right to the hungering yearning urge
to keep leaping, one bound after another,
into open space.

Slow

Posted on September 4, 2015 by Wendy

Within the restful hush
of pre-dawn stirrings
you can feel the low tone of patient stone
that took in fall’s impassioned chill
all through the night
and now releases it
with no hurry,
equalizing the swifter emotions
of day and night
in slow perspective,
as elders view the young
with quiet humor —
nothing of heaven or tragedy
won or lost in a single day.

Earth Whispering Press

Poetry, ideas, inspiration

Tag Archives: nature

Heaven

Manna

Let it Go

Foundation

If it is art

Simple Warmth

There’s time

The Earth Sings

Mid September

Slow

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