adios map
from now on I travel
in
flower to flower—
so much honey here I turn
it into work
why are you surprised
I’m naked? I don’t know why
you’re not
Archive for January, 2012
three haiku on the how of it
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged busy, flower, going inward, haiku, poem, vulnerability on January 31, 2012| 3 Comments »
Dissolution Haiku
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged become one with everything, dissolution, haiku, illusion, night, poem on January 31, 2012| 3 Comments »
I asked the night to
swallow me, it said, Darling
I already did
five haiku
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged emptiness, freedom, haiku, love, perspective, poem, shy, stars, sun, words on January 29, 2012| 5 Comments »
I could never say
what love is but often
I say I love you
*
you’re shy? it’s okay—
I can drip love from these words
instead of flooding
*
who says there is
only one sun? let’s think
vaster than that
*
falling through
the spaces between stars
a temple of emptiness
*
a velvet cage
is still a cage she said
scissors in hand
The Gift of Forgetting
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged being available, brilliance, dissolution, gift, Rumi, stars, unknowing, unlearning on January 29, 2012| 3 Comments »
As salt dissolves in ocean,
I am swallowed up in you
beyond doubt or being sure.
Suddenly, here in my chest a star
came out so clear it drew all stars into it.
—Rumi, translation by Coleman Barks, Say I Am You
Dear Rumi,
It is easy to believe that a star could come out so clear in your chest,
a star so clear it could draw all stars into it, but in my chest? Here?
A star so clear? I don’t think so. No wonder I stumble
each time I try to memorize this line. I don’t think this is humility.
Is it fear? Fear of being responsible to my own light?
Here in my chest my own heart is straining against the cage
of my ribs, pushing hard all the oceans of blood that stay
in the shores of this skin—some interior ocean I am afraid
to go swimming in. “Not past the tip of the nose.” That is what
my teacher says, and time and time again I feel how true it is,
and now, your words like rocks in my mouth, here in my chest,
the same lesson again. I have been dreaming of stars,
dreamt that they were being poured into my mouth, not just the stars
but the spaces between them. Are these the stars of which you speak?
My god, here they are, already they have been given to me, and I am somehow unable to see them, unable to believe my own experience,
unable to unwrap the packaging and receive the gift. Here in my chest—
but these stars are not for me. Not something to make me brighter,
but a light that belongs to everyone. All of us dissolved
into the same ocean, all of us dissolved in the same night.
I can almost touch this, and then it is gone,
there is still too much of me here.
winter haiku
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged camellia, haiku, letter, paradox, poem, snow on January 28, 2012| 1 Comment »
four haiku and a tanka
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged awareness, haiku, poem, presence, reaching, silence, stillness, tanka on January 26, 2012| 1 Comment »
inside that sigh
migrate a thousand thousand
butterflies
*
what’s quiet
is still quiet behind
the barking dog
*
I fall asleep
aware of part of me watching
the one who sleeps
*
these arms
not reaching
but waving
*
poor woman
stopping long enough to smell
the juniper berries
only because
she has to pee
two haiku
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged atlas, change, haiku, opening, petals, poem, tulip on January 25, 2012| 2 Comments »
watching the tulip
do the splits, every part of me
becomes tulip
*
this old atlas
pages of borders long since changed
and rose petals
haiku
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged garment, haiku, nakedness, ravel, refresh, uncertainty, unknown, what is on January 24, 2012| 3 Comments »
seven haiku
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged accident, birdsong, geese, haiku, knitting, night, poems, searching, silence, stars, thoughts on January 24, 2012| 2 Comments »
those wild geese
edging the clouds, my thoughts fly
beyond their wings
*
just one more row
I think, and knit one more and think
just one more row
*
the night pressed
its darkness into me, what
could I do but open
*
these ears
go on a long walk looking
for bird song
*
while no one’s watching
I trade all my molecules
with the night
*
did someone sow
all those stars, or did someone
trip and spill the bag
*
walking at two below
both questions and answers
come out as clouds
four haiku
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged attention, bald eagle, dream, haiku, poem, singing, story, what lingers on January 22, 2012| 3 Comments »
That bald eagle
flies this canyon every day
today I saw him
*
all day I try
to scrape it off my skin
that bad dream
*
long after you leave
the chairs remain hushed so to
better hear you sing
*
every story
I’ve ever had
the end
seven haiku
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged crow, daughter, expectations, haiku, January, moon, mother, poems, resolution, snow, wanting, wind on January 21, 2012| 1 Comment »
the wind blows
both ways at once
my thoughts, too
*
fingers covered
in syrup my daughter reaches
to hug me
*
me and the falling snow
both of us
shadowless today
*
crow in the empty
tree, it did not sing to me
like a crow
*
in evergreens
drifting snow and how can it be?
scent of lilac
*
rushing to dance
with the moon, I tripped
on my own wanting
*
January and I
recall over tea we forgot
to make resolutions
With No Exceptions, Not One Tanka
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged book, gratitude, memory, non-dualism, page, reading, tanka on January 20, 2012| 1 Comment »
It Was Something about Hungry
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged car, darkness, daughter, mom, mother, night, poem, poetry, window on January 19, 2012| 5 Comments »
In the backseat,
Vivian says, Mom,
I want to know
the darkness,
and so rolls down
her window
and shouts,
Hello Night!
And then she
whispers something
to the air
that I can’t hear
though I strain
against the rush
of road noise
to decipher her words.
The conversation belongs
to her, though, and
to the night, and to
the window that
already she has learned
to open herself.
Where is This Going?
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged entitlement, flowers, generosity of spirit, personalizing, poem, selflessness, sharing on January 18, 2012| 6 Comments »
for Joi Sharp
And there they appeared,
all around me, roses,
lilies and delphiniums blue,
and even some flowers
that weren’t in season—
lilacs, azaleas
and birds of paradise,
all of them blooming,
abundant and blooming,
the air hung with sweetness,
the petals so soft,
and for a while I thought
oh! for me! my flowers!
my bouquets! Until
one by one, though reluctant
at first, and with some pouting throughout,
I was guided to give them away
and they were much
lovelier then.
five haiku
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged allowing things to be, change, haiku, letter, lupine, morning after the storm, mountain, poem, presence, river, storm on January 18, 2012| 1 Comment »
nothing holds back
the river forever—
these hands still trying
same cold, same dawn,
same landscape—even that hill
seems tired of standing
*
again I write
in my head the letter, again
I rip it up
*
and then the day came
when I sat in the lupine
instead of climbing
*
morning after
the storm each glittering limb
the most lovely
Write a Poem a Day? You? Yep–Join Rosemerry in Ridgway
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged poem a day practice, practice, ridgway, Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer, weehawken, writing workshop on January 17, 2012| Leave a Comment »
Leaping: How to Wildly Advance Your Writing
A five-week adventure in growing your voice
led by Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer
Wednesdays February 1-February 29
11 a.m. to 1 p.m.
When a stranger on the corner asked, “How do you get to Carnegie Hall?” pianist Arthur Rubinstein famously replied: “Practice. Practice. Practice. “
What’s true for the pianist is true for the poet. If you want to improve, it takes practice. In this five-week class, participants will be asked to write a poem a day for a month.
A poem a day?!
Mmm hmm. You can do it even if you’ve never written a poem outside of English class. All participants will receive a 30-day inspiration booklet with 60 possible prompts written by the workshop leader. This year will also feature experiential prompts. But her prompts are merely suggestions. You can scribble a late-night haiku about your cat or type a 14-line sonnet in rhymed iambic pentameter. It doesn’t matter. Nor does it matter if the writing is “good.” It matters that you write. It matters that you play. It matters that you try new things. More than poetry as product, we’re exploring a poetic life—poetry as path and lens and anchor and kite.
These just might be 30 of the most fun, creative, door-opening, writer’s-block-busting, voice-changing, provocative days of your life. Let’s play.
**
Passionate about language and writing, Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer earned her master’s degree in English Language and Linguistics, and for 10 years, she directed the Telluride Writers Guild. Her poems have been featured in O Magazine and on A Prairie Home Companion. Her books include Holding Three Things at Once, a finalist for the Colorado Book Award, and most recently The Miracle Already Happening: Everyday life with Rumi. For seventeen years, she’s taught in libraries, schools, businesses and universities. Clients have included Camp Coca Cola, The Aesthetic Education Institute of Colorado, Think 360, Business and Professional Women and the National Endowment for the Humanities. You’ll find her own poem-a-day practice at ahundredfallingveils.wordpress.com
**
http://www.weehawkenarts.org * Questions@weehawken.org * 970-318-0150
Upcoming Workshop with Rosemerry in Ridgway January 28
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged poetry, ridgway, Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer, Rumi, weehawken, writing workshop on January 17, 2012| Leave a Comment »
Why Look Like a Dead Fish?
A Day of Reading and Writing with Rumi
Saturday, January 28
10 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Weehawken Arts, Ridgway, CO
$85 member/$93 non-member
10 percent discount before January 20
“With passion pray. With passion make love. With passion eat and drink and dance and play. Why look like a dead fish in this ocean of God?”
Jalaladin Rumi (1207-1273), trans. Daniel Ladinsky
And with passion, we’ll read and converse and write. Rumi, a Sufi poet, theologian and teacher born in Persia, has been the best selling poet in America since the 1980s. His is a universal voice for cosmic, Divine love, not limited by religious beliefs, not embroiled in dogma. Into our modern, synthetic, technological world starved for real ecstasy, Rumi spills ecstasy.
For six hours, we’ll talk about Rumi’s life, read his poems from multiple translators, and write our own poems in response to his words. All are welcome, regardless of poetic experience. As Rumi would say, “It’s rigged—everything in your favor. So there is nothing to worry about.”
Passionate about language and writing, Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer earned her master’s degree in English Language and Linguistics, and for 10 years, she directed the Telluride Writers Guild. Her poems have been featured in O Magazine and on A Prairie Home Companion. Her books include Holding Three Things at Once, a finalist for the Colorado Book Award, and most recently The Miracle Already Happening: Everyday life with Rumi. For seventeen years, she’s taught in libraries, schools, businesses and universities. Clients have included Camp Coca Cola, The Aesthetic Education Institute of Colorado, Think 360, Business and Professional Women and the National Endowment for the Humanities. Visit her website, http://www.wordwoman.com for writing exercises and essays on the art of writing.
to register, call Weehawken, 318-0150
or visit weehawkenarts.org
fifteen
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged dreams, haiku, lily, losing the self, loss, meditation, moon, parenting, real, snow, stars, sufficient on January 17, 2012| 5 Comments »
blank field of snow
just after the blizzard
tracked up in minutes
*
driving sixty
while the tears on her cheeks
went eighty
*
these deep scars
I wish I could forget why
you can’t see them
*
even when I sit
very, very still, God sits
stiller
*
the trees pushing green
and in me a longing to
lose everything
*
even though I know
they won’t fit, I try them on
her mood rings
*
those gossamer dreams
when was it that they became
nooses?
*
all I want to know:
when I am with you, can I
be myself?
*
watching that star
I forget which of us
is moving
*
though all the petals
fell, the lily pistil still
dripping
*
come morning my hair
all tangled after a night
of tussling with words
*
no one says to
the lily, hey, one more petal
would look better
*
these haiku
perhaps I can scrawl them on
bits of DNA
*
more poem sprouts?
said the tears—but we just
started plowing
*
quarter moon
the boy says, it’s broken,
mommy fix it?
*
these dead willow sticks
beside me are so beautiful
I am beautiful
six
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged ego, haiku, moon, pinata, puddle, the path, the process, wings on January 15, 2012| 1 Comment »
why prefer?
the piñata before the strike
or just after
*
mud puddle
only the moon
doesn’t jump in
*
though tattered
I clutch at them, these shreds
of who I was
*
knitting the last row
I consider unraveling
the whole scarf
*
the sun takes me
by the hand—the mountain
can’t be tall enough
*
not the song
that made us look up but
the sound of wings
here you are haiku
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged compass rose, found, freedom, haiku, lost, map, the path on January 14, 2012| 1 Comment »
