Posted in Uncategorized, tagged Journey of the Heart, Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer, women's spiritual poetry on October 9, 2014| Leave a Comment »
If you ever feel in need of an uplifting word or image, a fantastic place to visit is Journey of the Heart, a blog of women’s poems exploring what it means to be alive.
Today they published one of my poems from last week, but check it almost every day for new voices, new artwork.
http://womenspiritualpoetry.blogspot.com/2014/10/something-like-this-anyway-by-rosemerry.html
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged bridge, poem, poetry, surrender on October 8, 2014| 1 Comment »
I’ll never get
across that bridge,
I think, that bridge
I’ve been trying
to cross for years,
and my hands
throw themselves up
in surrender.
The God I say
I don’t believe in
wastes no time
in tickling me
under the armpits
until I am pink-faced
and gasping with
terrible laughter,
side-ripping, gut-aching
breath-grabbing laughter—
who knows how long
it goes on,
but when I wipe
the last tears
from my eyes
the bridge
is gone.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged parenting, poem, poetry, shadow on October 8, 2014| 1 Comment »
My young boy matches
his stride with my stride
left, right, left, right, left—
I didn’t see them
but I bet our shadows
were dancing behind us
to the music of our laughter.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged alphabet menagerie, fear, identity, poem, poetry, purpose on October 7, 2014| 6 Comments »
In a snowstorm, the yaks know to huddle together,
calves in the center. They press the bulk of their bodies so close
to each other that their breath forms a column of visible steam.
Elsewhere, in burrowed colonies, the yellow jackets
work in concert to forage for food, to feed the larvae,
to expand the nest and defend the queen.
It’s hardwired in us, this will to survive. Just look
at the yucca with its cascade of lemony petals
surrounded by tough, sword-shaped leaves.
Just look at you. Just look at me. See how we
like to hide behind our identities—lover,
loner, baker, runner, singer, prayer, biker, child.
As if we could use the list of our interests
and roles as a shield against our greatest fear—
the fear that we don’t know what we are doing here.
So we shout to each other like yodelers—here I am,
this is me, who are you? And we hold up invisible yardsticks
to ourselves, to each other, in an effort to learn our value.
And our egos rise and fall like yoyos in the hands
of a child who’s just learning to play. We think we’re someone.
We fear that we’re not. And what are we doing here anyway?
Is this why some choose solitude? Choose to live
beyond the shoulds and masks? Live like the yeti—
unknowable, unseeable, known only by stories and tracks?
Today, the hummingbirds are gone, and the waterfall is thin
in its plunge. The hours are warm though the sun is low—
and I can’t say that I know what we’re doing here,
but I think it has something to do with noticing the missing birds
and the thin waterfall and the timber in your voice when you tell me
you don’t know who you are. Me neither, friend, but whatever I am
fell in love with the way that the first morning sun today glanced
the frosted grass, and I could see dozens of columns of steam rise across
the whole field before the yellow jackets emerged from their nest.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged poem, poetry, separation on October 5, 2014| 1 Comment »
if the road were shorter
and the time more long,
but the road is not shorter
and the time is ever taken,
I would meet you every day
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged love, poem, poetry, warmth on October 5, 2014| 1 Comment »
no darling, I am
not like peaches that grow
sweeter with cold—
this woman needs your warmth,
I ain’t talkin’ flannel shirts
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged cosmos, gardening, poem, poetry, story on October 3, 2014| 2 Comments »
After the frost, the cosmos fronds
are brittle and brown. Not a hint
of return. Not a trace of pink. Brown.
Partially dust already. Sometimes it needs
to be this way in order for us to do
the work that must be done—the pulling
up of things by the roots and discarding
them into a pile. No, if there were any green chance
that the cosmos might bloom again,
it would be easier to tell the self a story
about how, with some luck and some care,
the plant might leap back to life.
But the story is a trick ladder,
every rung is covered in oil and even
if you reach the top it leads to nowhere.
Look. The flowers are dead. They were lovely once.
Say thank you. And give the stem a tug.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged moon, poem, poetry, yes on October 3, 2014| 1 Comment »
If You Ask Me Why I Tattooed Yes to My Forehead, It Is Because
when the moon says,
I will teach you my language
if you give me everything,
there is still part of me
that might say, let me sleep on it
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged door, open, poem, poetry, prayer, surrender on October 1, 2014| 2 Comments »
If I prayed, which I don’t,
then we could say that I asked
god to open every door that I
had shut, every door I did not
know was there.
Why I asked this, well,
this will make sense to you
or it won’t, but every closed
door I was aware of
had became a point of suffering.
And with every open door,
I could feel congruence,
the world rushing in to create
more space in me.
And god said to me, though
we could not say that it was a voice,
god said, Open even the door with people jeering
on the other side, their faces twisted
in hate? Even the door to an entire
forest of sorrow? And because
this conversation was not really
happening, we could not say that
I said yes to the questions, but
we could say, perhaps, that
the yes began to root in me
and it was not so much a matter
of someone opening the doors
but that the doors more or less
dissolved. And what I had thought
could separate me from anything else
was shown to be nothing at all.
I would like to tell you that I felt grace
in the opening, but the truth
is I felt such terrible ache.
And god did not come put a hand
on my cheek and tell me
everything would be okay.
In fact, if anything, the voice
I did not hear told me
there are no promises.
But I felt it, the invitation
to keep opening doors,
to not close my eyes,
to not turn away.
And though I do not pray,
I said thank you, thank you.