Close Menu
  • Home
    • About
    • Masthead
    • Links
  • MER Journal
    • Latest Issue
    • Back Issues
    • Subscribe to MER!
  • MER ONLINE
    • MER Quarterly
    • MER Literary Folios
    • Poetry
    • Fiction
    • Creative Prose
    • Essay
    • Craft
    • Interviews
    • Book Reviews
      • Bookshelf
    • Authors’ Notes
    • Art Gallery
      • Special – Hybrids
  • News & Events
    • News
    • Poem of the Month
    • Events
      • MER 18 Virtual Reading – Voices From HOME
    • Currents
      • Announcements
      • Highlights
  • Shop
    • All Issues
    • One Year Subscription
    • Two Year Subscription
  • Submit
Facebook X (Twitter) Instagram
MER – Mom Egg Review
Facebook X (Twitter) Instagram YouTube Tumblr Threads
  • Home
    • About
    • Masthead
    • Links
  • MER Journal
    • Latest Issue
    • Back Issues
    • Subscribe to MER!
  • MER ONLINE
    • MER Quarterly
    • MER Literary Folios
    • Poetry
    • Fiction
    • Creative Prose
    • Essay
    • Craft
    • Interviews
    • Book Reviews
      • Bookshelf
    • Authors’ Notes
    • Art Gallery
      • Special – Hybrids
  • News & Events
    • News
    • Poem of the Month
    • Events
      • MER 18 Virtual Reading – Voices From HOME
    • Currents
      • Announcements
      • Highlights
  • Shop
    • All Issues
    • One Year Subscription
    • Two Year Subscription
  • Submit
NEWSLETTER
MER – Mom Egg Review
You are at:Home » Unending Potential by Carmel Mawle

Unending Potential by Carmel Mawle

0
By Mom Egg Review on December 30, 2015 Poetry

When I was young, engulfed in a hazy half-life of drug and alcohol- induced close calls, I never imagined that I would live to see children or grandchildren. I could more readily see my spirit sinking away from an emaciated body in a trash bin than looking back on a jumble of lessons learned through years of completions and failures, the continual unveiling of living.

Morbid teenaged ruminations have long ago dissolved into a reality-based curiosity. Yes, death will eventually come — there’s no guarantee of a next heartbeat — but more interesting are the infinite unimaginable possibilities of life.

It’s easy to recognize unlimited potential in youth, to hold an infant in our arms and feel the weight of his life stretched before him, but what if our potential increases exponentially with age? I think of Diana Nyad who swam the Straights of Florida, walking onto a Cuban beach at 64, or Harry Bernstein who published his first book, a memoir, at 96. At the age of 85, Sister Megan Rice has the oligarchy quaking in its jackboots. Consider that there is more power in the greater perspective and wisdom acquired from accumulated experience than ever there was in our young bodies.

Today I see something of my future in my mother, smaller than I remember her during my childhood, but still contributing, questioning, still brimming with unfulfilled potential. I don’t know what tomorrow will bring, but the greatest mysteries — a breath, a turning — are inevitably found in this day, this moment. And it’s the reaching, the dreaming, that keeps us young.

Share. Facebook Twitter Pinterest LinkedIn Tumblr Email
Previous ArticleA Aha Moment – Ms. Tillie Belle by Nella Larsen
Next Article Minna Dubin – Momlists
Leave A Reply

You must be logged in to post a comment.

May 8, 2025

Psychic Party Under the Bottle Tree by Jennifer Martelli

May 8, 2025

Venus Anadyomene by Alyssa Sinclair

May 4, 2025

Seeking Spirit: A Vietnamese (non) Buddhist Memoir by Linda Trinh

May 4, 2025

Apartness by Judy Kronenfeld

May 4, 2025

Inconsolable Objects by Nancy Miller Gomez

May 4, 2025

All This Can Be True by Jen Michalski

May 4, 2025

Leafskin by Miranda Schmidt

May 1, 2025

MER Poem of the Month – May 2025

April 27, 2025

MER Submissions Are Open!

April 20, 2025

MER Reading a Mass Poetry in Salem MA

Facebook X (Twitter) Instagram YouTube Tumblr Threads
  • About
  • Advertise
  • Submit
  • Contact
MER - Mom Egg Review
PO Box 9037, Bardonia, NY 10954
Contact [email protected]

Copyright © 2025 MER and Mom Egg Review

Type above and press Enter to search. Press Esc to cancel.