You come back from the mountain
and what gets you is the day to day,
the small decisions and the interactions
that have the same ruts they had
when you were here before —
you think everything should be changed
but it isn’t

This is the challenge
greater than the summit —
to integrate the things you saw
into the fabric of every day,
to walk the same paths
but go up higher,
to taste the mountain air
right where you are.

©Wendy Mulhern
August 26, 2019