Bringing in the Day – Poetry by Maria Brady-Smith

Pure Possibility

Posted on April 19, 2026April 19, 2026 by Maria

Pure Possibility I. When I was born, I was pure possibility, just a brand new body with a fresh brain, ready for connection. Those connections unlocked my potential but also narrowed it. They rooted m... Read More

Murmur

Posted on April 12, 2026April 12, 2026 by Maria

Murmur I’ve long come to realize that this is how I pray, these early morning writes. How, in this predawn stillness, I open to the page, setting onto it the mundane, the repetitive, the endless que... Read More

Primal

Posted on April 5, 2026April 5, 2026 by Maria

Happy Sunday morning and Happy Easter! My mother was born on Easter day, 1920. She died during Holy Week, 2015. She was an Easter kind of person. Her almost always cheerful disposition belied the trau... Read More

Solitude II

Posted on March 21, 2026March 22, 2026 by Maria

Solitude II The sun will rise soon, prefaced now by a glow, a streak of color beyond the trees on the far hill. This is all that matters now- the sound of the birds, the silence of the trees, and the ... Read More

How He Worships

Posted on March 15, 2026March 14, 2026 by Maria

How He Worships He wakes in the morning, stretches his stiff bones, dresses, kisses his wife, pours a cup of coffee and steps out the door into the garden that he has planted, tilling and sowing, hoei... Read More

Clear and Bright

Posted on March 8, 2026March 8, 2026 by Maria

Written eight years ago, but still just as true, especially the gentle and abiding strength part. Clear and Bright To Clara on her 34th birthday Being your mother has so defined my path, it is hard to... Read More

Introversion

Posted on March 1, 2026February 28, 2026 by Maria

Introversion When I am around a lot of people, there is a little scribe in my brain who insists on taking notes, processing every single interaction. He is very thorough and writes slowly with his tin... Read More

At Sixty-Three

Posted on February 22, 2026February 22, 2026 by Maria

Even more true now that I am almost sixty-seven. At Sixty-Three There is so much history in me now, so many memories from so many phases of life, all calling for recognition, for some kind of resoluti... Read More

How They Saved Me

Posted on February 8, 2026 by Maria

How They Saved Me My prayers of desperation were almost always centered around my children. Please. I beg You. Bargaining, even though I don’t believe in that sort of thing. I would have given my li... Read More

Source

Posted on February 1, 2026 by Maria

Source We are standing on dangerous ground, with leadership more interested in retaliation than policy, sewing fear and hate as a source of power. The continual chaos tears at us, rattles our brains. ... Read More

Meal Prayer

Posted on February 1, 2026February 1, 2026 by Maria

Meal Prayer As we take these gifts into our bodies, may we be aware of the daily abundance that You provide, that we receive. As the healing energy of this meal nourishes us, may we be grateful for ev... Read More

No Words

Posted on January 25, 2026 by Maria

I have no words this morning. I don’t have a poem to match the national tragedy we are experiencing every single day. It feels disrespectful to post anything else right now. It is shocking, terr... Read More

Once

Posted on January 18, 2026January 18, 2026 by Maria

Once Once upon a time, I was brand new. I saw faces, felt the touch, of people who loved me just for being born. I grew. I reached out for the green of the trees, the blue of the sky. I breathed in th... Read More

Math

Posted on January 11, 2026January 11, 2026 by Maria

Math All these years have passed and I still have the same repetitive dream. I am in college. It’s the end of semester and I realize there is a math class, calculus, trigonometry, a hard one, of cou... Read More

Instructions for Beginning Anything

Posted on January 4, 2026January 4, 2026 by Maria

Instructions for Beginning Anything Before you start, take a moment to do whatever it is you need to do- sweep the floor, wipe the table, take out the trash- to clear the house that is your mind. Let ... Read More

New Year’s Resolution

Posted on December 28, 2025December 28, 2025 by Maria

New Year’s Resolution Take a bite of warm apple sauce on this frigid January day. Remember your small granddaughter climbing the rickety ladder by the tree, its branches drooping with fruit. Remembe... Read More

Breath

Posted on December 21, 2025December 20, 2025 by Maria

Breath In and out, in and out, in and out. In and out, tree and me, we breathe one another. Lung to leaf, she inhales my breath to build her body. Bronchioles branch, delivering her gift to all my cel... Read More

Daily Prayer

Posted on December 14, 2025December 14, 2025 by Maria

Daily Prayer It is here in these quiet pre-dawn moments that I have come to discover the Kingdom of Heaven within. At Your feet I set my burdens then raise my heart open, breathe in healing Light, bef... Read More

Ode to a Chair

Posted on November 30, 2025November 30, 2025 by Maria

Ode To A Chair The old metal chair sits in the backyard, Its back firm, Its arms magnanimously at its side. It weathers all the seasons, Patiently enduring snow and storms And oxidizing sun. Dirt and ... Read More

Chipmunk

Posted on November 23, 2025November 23, 2025 by Maria

Chipmunk All of my adult life, I have felt this small chipmunk of fear running a labyrinth in my chest, lost and panicked. The thoughts that really get it going: Am I enough? Am I doing enough? Is the... Read More

Changes

Posted on November 16, 2025November 16, 2025 by Maria

Changes We have lived in this house for so long that sometimes when I wake up in the morning, I half expect one child or another to peek around the corner. But they are all grown up now with their own... Read More

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