Snow day, choices

My hands, this morning, 

(following your lead)

Spoke of living in the sphere

or being on the wheel:

The sphere of possibilities,

The endless opportunities

that bloom out from the present openness,

acceptance of the moment,

its engaged embrace;

The wheel that grinds you

on its path of sameness —

The future—mere projection 

of a broken yesterday

that runs and runs with no hope for escape.

We watched my hands 

and heard the words interpret

while sitting at a cozy cafe window

and outside, icy pellets pretended to be snow

(as well they could, with us safe from their sting)

My boots had little purchase in the slush

They fared much better where the snow was fresh

and squeaked and creaked beneath our feet —

We walked three extra blocks to choose it.

My hands outlined the choices that are given

Our feet walked on the snowy paths we chose

So hands and feet and hearts can walk together

Our sphere unfolds before us as we go.

©Wendy Mulhern

January 19, 2012

Today marks the first anniversary of my poetry blog.  Two hundred eighty posts, a few more poems than that, since I sometimes put two in a post.  3991 page views, mostly from the US, but a steady amount from Russia, and a fair number of other countries represented.  Modest stats for viewership.  Rather prodigious stats for poetry writing, I must allow.

It was in the summer of 2010 that I first started considering that I might think of myself as a poet, that I might become one.  I found myself haunted by the sounds of words and the taste of images, as they spun themselves to me on bike rides.  The usual internal critics were also present, the ones who said only experts could rightly tell me if my poetry was any good, if it even counted as poetry.  And the ones who mentioned that a lot of the poetry that literary magazines seemed to favor was stuff that didn’t interest me at all, so what did the “experts” know?  And the ones who pointed out that you can’t make a living writing poetry, so what right did I have to spend my time developing the craft . . .

Nonetheless, the sweet confluence of sounds and images gave me too much joy to leave alone.  So I started to consider taking on the discipline of writing poetry often enough to sustain a poetry blog.  And a year ago, with a modest buffer of pre-written poems, I launched Earth Whispering.  Over time, as consistent writing improved my craft, I came to consider myself a poet.

The writing of a daily poem quickly became part of my life practice — a discipline that served to focus me on what was honest, what was salient, what about the day needed a poem.  It became part of a three-part practice that launched me on a year of amazing personal growth (the other two parts are prayer and dance).  I look forward to where it will take me this year.

Looking to the next year of my blog, I’d love to increase my readership.  I was awake at 2 this morning thinking about this — how I could maybe encourage my current readers to share it with others, and how uncomfortable I feel about asking them this.  One voice opines, shrilly, that if they had wanted to share it they would have already.  That, when I asked for feedback from an earlier blog, I got no response, and why should I expect this to be different?  

But I am forging forward anyway.  There might be a few of you who are willing to help, and that will make this solicitation worthwhile.  If you are in support of my gaining recognition as a poet, here are some ways you can help:

1) Follow my blog.  On the right hand side, under “About this blog,” there is a button that says “join this site.”  If you press it, you can use an identity you’ve already established, or you can make one up.  Then either a little picture of you appears, or an unidentifiable face, depending on what’s in your identity.  I’m not sure what all it does for you to be a follower if you don’t also have a blog, but I think it makes it easy for you to comment on my posts, which I would love.

2) Share my posts.  At the bottom of each post is a series of buttons which allow you to share my post to email, blogger, twitter, facebook, or google.  If you ever like one of my poems and think of someone else who might also like it, it would be very sweet of you to pass it on.

3) Tell me what else I might do.  If you have any savvy about these things and know what I could do to increase my readership, please let me know.

Thanks to everyone who read this note, and thanks in advance for any feedback you might have.