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The Night I Remembered What Love Can Do

May 19, 2026 by Rosemerry

What is unwanted still serves. 
                  —Sam Aureli, “Dandelions”

I was just sitting on the edge of the porch,
but I couldn’t breathe, I couldn’t breathe, 
I was sobbing and scared and hurting and
I couldn’t fucking breathe; panic surged in me,
my brain screamed red, and I tried to breathe— 
why couldn’t I breathe?—as my chest squeezed 
and sobs quaked and shook and stole me, 
and I couldn’t feel my heart. Wait. I couldn’t feel 
my heart? A star-bright awareness sang in me then
like a one-note song I could follow home through 
any darkness or density. Not that the terror disappeared, 
but in attuning myself to my heart, my physical heart 
opened enough to hold the terror. I sat on the edge 
of the porch. Just sat. And was breathed.

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 Over Time 

May 18, 2026 by Rosemerry

 

 
The way my grandmother tended 
to her daylilies, that is the way
I want to attune to your words—
knowing how each utterance blooms
only briefly, but when cared for,
the plant itself is hardy, long lasting,
abundant, able to survive both
heat and chill, both loam and clay. 
Come love, whisper to me. 
I cherish every petal. And when
there is no bloom, I have learned 
water and fertilize anyway, to honor
the place where the bloom will be.  

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Self-Portrait as Seedling

May 17, 2026 by Rosemerry


 
 
To know the self as seedling again.
To push against the home I’ve known
before launching into ecstatic stretch. 
To trust again how the slenderest threads 
will anchor me to the world. 
I had become so enamored with blooming,
I forgot the joy of initiation, 
the thrill of not knowing, 
the startlement of reaching through
darkness into light. 
I’d forgotten the earnest striving
that comes before bud, before petal, 
before effulgent perfume.
To be held by it again, 
that sacred uncertainty. 
To feel the flush of becoming 
what I already am.

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Walking Across Snowfields at Tree Line in May

May 16, 2026 by Rosemerry

 
for my husband
 
And we’re scooching on the surface, 
and we’re skimming on the surface,
and we’re walking on the crust and 
we’re up to our crotches in rotten snow,
sharp crystals scratching our legs,
our shoes drenched, our toes cold,
and we climb out to skim again on the surface
and sink. And skim. Get stuck. Crawl out. 
It was, of course, a relief to find
ourselves again on a dry dirt trail, 
but it was wonderful, wasn’t it, to flounder
and still find our way, I mean 
today, but I mean for thirty two years, 
falling in deep and choosing again 
to take the next step.

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Portal

May 15, 2026 by Rosemerry


 
 
Not only the golden yellow belly
of the evening grosbeak as he bobs
below the feeder; not only 
the rich purple flash of the black-chinned
hummingbird charging the air with iridescence;
it could, in fact, be any gray-winged thing, 
even, for instance, a cricket, common as grass,
prehistoric and segmented in its armor, yes,
it could be anything—ant hill, moth dust, 
soft moss, ginger—anything at all
that makes you, for a moment, pause 
to take in the miracle of what is here, and
the attendant miracle that you are here, too,
as witness, and in this pleat of a pause,
you might find yourself stunned with a gratefulness
you could never hope to name, a thanksgiving
beyond the syllables of prayer, a throbbing
thanksgiving for the utter marvel of this life 
that none of us did anything at all to deserve, 
yes, gratefulness for the pausing itself, 
that portal through which we travel 
to find everything, everything is holy,
even the pill bug, even the tick,
even the one who cannot stop stuttering 
thank you, thank you, thank you. 

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The Gift of Forgetting

May 14, 2026 by Rosemerry


 
 
A Thursday so ordinary
I might forget it is another
chance to love this world
until the delicate flowers
of service berry bushes 
start to throw their lacy white petals 
onto the trail as if I’m a bride 
walking the aisle—
and maybe it’s a gift
each time I forget the wonder
of Spring because each time
I remember, I’m remade again
by the simple splendor
of May, how tender the green
of the new aspen leaves, 
how urgent the rush of snowmelt
as it pumps through the gorge 
with its cold, clear song,
how warm the air playing on my face
like a lover’s hands ever so gently 
lifting the veil.

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At the Table of Loss

May 13, 2026 by Rosemerry

As many chairs
as humans.
No way to refuse 
what we are served.
We choke on 
the courses.
How is it they
nourish us?
Beneath the table, 
we hold hands.

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In Its Own Time

May 12, 2026 by Rosemerry


 
 
Long before dark
                             a single bat zig zags
           and dips, its erratic
    twisting and diving
                               so unlike the smooth
   loops of swallows—
 
             it’s like when forgiveness 
 grows wings before the mind 
                                       is on board, moving inside us
                with its own mysterious 
intelligence. More agile than we thought,
                   surprisingly flexible, wild, clearly blind.
 
                                How strange to see it fluttering
in the light, something we’ve been told 
   is improbable.
                       We couldn’t say it’s beautiful, 
  yet we can’t stop staring.
         How humble it is. How hungry.

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What the Heart Knows

May 11, 2026 by Rosemerry

In every moment, there is a car 
 and an infinite hill and the chance 
  you will roll down that hill. With no brakes.
   Backwards. When grief first yanked me
    into its old beater, I was too stunned
     to try to stop gravity from doing what 
      gravity does. Mostly, these days, 
I forget what can happen. Mostly, 
 there’s a rope attached to the car
  that keeps it from careening, a rope 
   made of friendship, of family, 
    of trust in the self that has grown over time. 
     The rope is a lovely illusion.
      Sometimes I fool myself into believing
       that the stability I feel is because 
the brakes are fixed and I’ve become 
 better at parking, even in the steepest zones. 
  I fool myself into thinking the rope can’t be cut.  
   That is why, perhaps, it’s so surprising
    when I feel the lurch, my stomach rising
     into my chest. So surprising to see loss 
      is sitting in the driver’s seat looking  
       at me with its uncompromising gaze
        as if to say, No, sweetheart, 
 that seatbelt won’t do you any good. 
 If you pray, now’s a good time for that—
  but don’t bother to pray for the car 
   to stop. Pray to be able to laugh 
    as we speed down the hill. 
     Pray that as the world blurs by,
      while terror squeezes your throat
       what is most alive in you also notices 
        how radiant the sunset, how briefly 
it shines, that tender pink. 

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A Small Lesson in Infinity

May 10, 2026 by Rosemerry


 
after “Flower in a Field” by Dario Cvencek
 
A mother is still a mother
even in an empty house, 
even when there’s not a child
hanging on her hip or leg, 
she’s still a mother even when 
the floors are clean, devoid  
of Legos and Monopoly houses. 
Even when silence 
fills the spaces where once
rang laughter, crying, singing,
even when the cake stays exactly
where she left it in the fridge, 
when her car doesn’t leave the drive
for days because no one needs 
to be taken to school or to dance. 
Even then, she’s a mother,
when the phone doesn’t ring, 
when her child can no longer
walk in the room, can’t say hello,
can’t even breathe, even then, 
even then when there is no damn way 
she can care for her child, that sad
fact does not change the fact
that she’s a mother, just as a tree 
in the field is no less tree when the saplings 
that came from its seeds are cut down, 
just as a happy memory might still 
make you happy even if it arrives
amongst tears. She is no less a mother
when the only thing that fills her arms 
is tenderness for other mothers with 
empty arms, when instead of holding
anyone, she lets herself be held. 
 

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