Dear Miracle

Setting free the beautiful truth inside.

Tag Archives: mercy


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The Kindness of Strangers

Small and large mercies everywhere when you look.
Light in the shape of a butterfly on a dark and stormy night.

Don’t shutter the windows ,

don’t turn the deadbolt just yet while hope survives—

just not inside of you.

One minute past giving up, calling it quits

while you believe as you do because of those that hurt you—

you, the stranger, who has extended so much mercy in your life.

Kindness is not dead even if you believe it true.

You are due, owed your time, ripe for the plucking.

And your story may be much different than you picture it now

as you stand upon the narrow ledge of your own aching heart

thinking no one sees

or worse, cares.

Mercy and kindness travel in pairs on the bus of surprise—that

is how they operate.

You never see them coming until they arrive.

And what if you have locked all the doors to your heart,

how shall they enter?

All the while they’ve been looking for you while you slump pale and cold,

buttressed behind the deadbolt and shuttered window.

This troupe, this Calvary of strangers who arrive most unexpectedly

to see you through the next minute or the rest of your life

here to restore your faith in you, how okay you really are.

You never quite know where and when they will appear,

who or what will waltz or breeze through your door with arms

full of what you need

or run into your burning house

with buckets of water to save you.

So go on, turn out the lights and go to bed.

but this I beg of you,

just be sure to leave the door open a crack

for possibility, please.

Photo and poem by S. (Sawyer) Wolfington


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MERCY

Mercy

Photo by S. Wolfington

 It takes courage to tell you this

at the risk you’ll think less, nevertheless, I will.

I’ll tell you what depression is—like this—

a barren land leaning into forever,

a dark annhilation; it’s a

void of hope or imagination

when hell comes to pay a call.

And here’s the secret: I was just there.

But most of you would never know.

(You might even be there now, too.)

Truth as I saw it then, this life had been enough,

I was done.

But you think like that when you’re in hell.

And so began to envision, with each glass of water

that passed my lips, what I could do

with that and a few or more pills.

I didn’t exactly plan that I would, only imagined it so,

how it could be.

There was no more room for anything–

not in the cruelness of men or the ghosts denied, or

the self-deprivations while acting strong for everyone

visiting all at once in my life.

Orphans each of emotions

looking for the smallest drink of love.

Not that I wasn’t loved.

Not that I didn’t love in return, not that I didn’t care.

No, it wasn’t that at all.

It was the driest white bone of exhaustion,

all the lifetimes lived in the space of one.

It was like a gift

as I see it now.

I’ll tell you what strength is—like this—

strength is taking one small move in mercy’s direction,

even a flinch or a step,

towards whom and wherever it might be found.

When all you can say to anyone with kindness in their eyes,

to whatever’s holy or sacred paying attention,

help me, please.

And I did, because my life was leaving me,

just like the sea rushing back from the shore.

A gift, indeed.

A profound breaking, a leaving, then

a sad resurrection towards the miraculous while those that could,

in compassion, seen and unseen, walk me back to myself,

back to a kind of confounding beauty,

an uncertainty of what was to come.

And it was enough.

(We’re never really alone.)

Were I to be honest, the pull towards leaving

still haunts me once in awhile

when I imagine drinking that cup while tired, I forget

that mercy waits just past the next corner, the next fork in the road.

And I remember nothing is for certain for any of us,

and life and death have a way of reminding us

there’s nothing to control.

It’s a coming home again to myself,

wherein between staying or leaving,

I need only extend myself a whit to say help

to ask for mercy, please,

when hope is lost.

© 2015 Shoshana Wolfington


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Nocturne

biplane-fllying-into-sun-copy2.jpgAfter fire has burnt down your house,

the old skin of imperfection doesn’t seem

so terrible anymore.

There are worse things than that and

as watersheds go,

you’ve lived through them all—

you endure, you’ve learned

each brings a mercy of its own.

Now there are bones and memories that creak—

the crashing footfall of youth exhausted,

its intoxicant flush tamed,

solidity spent, traded in

for more sophisticated sensibilities.

Accustomed to imperfection,

light streams through its cracks and holes as

you walk weightless now

in upward, ever widening spirals

freeing yourself towards heaven.

2012 ~ S. Wolfington