they didn’t look
like a cage, those years,
until I was offered a key
and realized I knew not
how to use it
Archive for September, 2016
I Never Knew Dreams Had Wings Until They No Longer Flew, And
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged cage, dreams, poem, poetry on September 28, 2016| 1 Comment »
On the Edge of Cold
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged autumn, offering, poem, poetry on September 27, 2016| 2 Comments »
They will say it is impossible,
but I want to give you things
they say no one can keep—
the scent on the trail
this morning, a golden smell,
and the amber light inside it.
Or the pause before the dance
commences. Or the moment
when falling becomes flying.
I want to give you elusive things—
the moon in the river, the way
the sunset turns the whole world
to rose, the feeling that love
not only is possible, it’s as
inevitable as blinking, as
unavoidable as noon.
It is not too late. In fact,
already we are here.
Poetry & Meditation: Sept. 30-Oct. 2
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged meditation, poetry retreat, Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer, Susie Harrington on September 27, 2016| 1 Comment »
There are still one or two spaces left for a retreat this weekend in La Sal, Utah
The Grand Embrace: Writing and relaxing into not knowingness
sliding fee of $170 – $220 for room and board and a suggested teacher donation of $150 – $400
La Sal, Utah
We live in a culture that wants to know—we chart and graph and test and outline. We codify and classify and name. But what do we really know? What is all this messiness and mystery that breeds underneath our longing for orderliness and certainty? What would happen if we could really rest in uncertainty? How deep might that relaxation go? How much more open might our lives be if we made friends with letting go?
Join retreat leaders Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer and dharma teacher Susie Harrington. We’ll read poems that don’t bring answers, poems that lead us deeper into paradox. We’ll sit in the midst of the not-knowing, sit with our joys, our challenges, the what is here of each moment. We’ll write our own explorations of what if and what else and see what even a small bit of wonder might do … if you’re willing to risk a little, meditation and writing can open doors where before you didn’t even realize a door existed. Spiritual doors. Healing doors. Doors where there used to be walls.
No previous writing experience required. No previous meditation experience required. This poetry and meditation weekend is for anyone who is curious about weaving spiritual awakening and the creative poetic impulse.
Letting the Small Ache Sing
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged death, poem, poetry, song on September 26, 2016| 1 Comment »
Not yet dirt,
the outline
of squirrel is still visible
on the hard earth
of the back road—
I step over what remains,
wonder
how many other lives
I’m walking on.
There are infinite ways
to praise,
among them
these words:
I am sorry.
One Simultaneous
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged autumn, poem, poetry on September 25, 2016| Leave a Comment »
Dear Rachel
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged aesthetics, friendship, memory, poem, poetry on September 25, 2016| 2 Comments »
It’s so curious what we choose to frame.
You could, I am sure, with your art degree, explain
to me how aesthetics change. And why.
But I have too much dirt and dust in my home
to want an image of dirt and dust on my wall.
And I don’t relate to women in gowns
parting floral drifts with a white parasol.
I remember the first time I went to your home
and saw in your hall a painting—just one color, red,
you had painted it yourself—and I recall
how easy I found it to stare and stare and get lost
inside. So much of the world is black and white.
On my walls, it’s mostly nudes.
It never seemed strange until my children
asked why there were so many naked women
in our home. I didn’t know what to say
to make it okay. I said, “Because they are beautiful.”
If I could, I would frame the laughter
you left on my answering machine
and hang that on my wall. Or frame
how warm the sun was when we went for a walk.
Or frame the taste of peaches, the scent
of wood smoke and poems in our hair, the easy
silence we sometimes share.
But I would frame, too, the mornings
we speak of our children and weep.
And I’d frame our hurt and our fear
and the nights we’ve fallen apart.
So perhaps that’s not so different
from framing dust and dirt. And those
two women strolling in the sun,
on second thought, they look familiar.
In a Low-Angled Light
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged aging, autumn, poem, poetry on September 23, 2016| 1 Comment »
Already shriveled, these marigolds
that line the fence. Something soothing
about the way the flowers keep their color,
though the leaves are brown and dried.
From a distance, they are vibrant.
From a distance, you might forget
that the garden will soon be filled with snow.
So much is ignored in the name of beauty.
Here, here is the season with your name on it,
your name the scent of gold. You find yourself
longing to be more like a lily, dropping everything,
not even pretending to survive the cold.
Art & Poetry Opening October 6, 6-9, Telluride
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged 81435 gallery, Jill Sabella, poem, poetry, Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer on September 23, 2016| Leave a Comment »
Join me and Jill Sabella at our opening for In Three Lines, a two-year collaboration. We’ll have food and wine and live music by cellist Kyra Kopestonsky, and 5-minute readings on the 1/2 hour … plus we HOPE to have our new book, Even Now, by then. Join us at the 81435 Gallery.
One Survival
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged improvisation, poem, poetry on September 22, 2016| Leave a Comment »
Positively
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged calendar, no, poem, poetry, scheduling, yes on September 21, 2016| 9 Comments »
Saying yes to too many things at once
is like eating dark chocolate truffles one
after another after another. The first
is infused with wild raspberry, which leads
to a caramel truffle with fleur de sel, which leads
to two smooth champagne truffles, which leads
to a tummy ache, bittersweet. My calendar
has a tummy ache. Its numbered squares
are filled in with rows of rich invitations…
a book club infused with Louise Erdrich
and Sauvignon Blanc, a meditation retreat
handcrafted with extra silence, a trail run
through aspen groves filled with silky light.
How could I pass on any of these delights?
Saying yes to too many things at once
is like crossing a remote border at midnight,
and though your pulse races with the thrill,
you have no idea if you will ever know
what home means again. Saying yes
to too many things at once is in fact
a disguise for saying no. No to openness,
no to spontaneity, no to whatever surprise
might have found its way into the vacant
possibility of that deliciously empty square.
One Inner Desert
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged poem, poetry, rain on September 20, 2016| Leave a Comment »
thick with rain
this afternoon and still
the thirstiest parts of me
shriveled
longing to be drenched
Crossing the Line
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged acceptance, body, poem, poetry on September 19, 2016| 1 Comment »
Mi casa es su casa.
My arms are your arms.
My lips are your lips.
My ripeness, yours. My triceps,
yours. My hunger, my nipples,
my skin, my swollen pinks
are yours, yours. And why stop there?
My dry elbows, your elbows.
My bunions, your bunions.
My cyst, your cyst. What part
of me would you rather not love?
Could you miss it? Tell me you will also take
my thinning skin, my widening hips,
my wrinkled cheek, my cracked heel.
If my fear is your fear; my ugly,
your ugly; my broken, your broken;
my shame, your shame, then kiss me
there. Again. Please? Kiss me there.
Invitation While Staring at Kahlo’s Self-Portrait with Thorn Necklace and Hummingbird
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged ekphrasis, Frida Kahlo, poem, poetry, trouble on September 18, 2016| 1 Comment »
When trouble comes like a black monkey
sitting on your shoulder, picking at things
you can’t see; when trouble comes
like a necklace made of thorns that twists
around your neck; when trouble comes
with its hummingbirds dead and dangling,
with its indifference to blue, do not try
to escape into the upper left corner,
though the dragonfly there could distract you.
Dare to meet it with a gaze unyielding,
meet it exactly where you are. Ask it
with your eyes, What do you have to teach me?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-Portrait_with_Thorn_Necklace_and_Hummingbird
One Taboo
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged books, burning books, poem, poetry on September 17, 2016| 1 Comment »
Meeting Yeats
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged poem, poetry, Yeats on September 17, 2016| 2 Comments »
Meeting William Butler Yeats on the road
is like passing by a beggar on the street.
Surely, he says, surely the second coming
is at hand. People clear him, looking the other way.
He holds out his empty hat to you. He does
not want your spare change. Surely,
he says, looking into your eyes with a certainty
pitiless as the sun, surely the second coming
is at hand. What is it in his eyes?
Your own reflection, slouching.
Quantum
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged kissing, poem, poetry on September 17, 2016| 1 Comment »
on a line from Ocean Vuong
The most beautiful part of your body
is the place your lover has just kissed,
how his lips remind you that you are also
orchid and apple and arch.
How easy it is to forget our own holiness.
How sweet when another reminds us of the ocean
still in our blood, the sand in our hair.
Call it communion, the way he touches you
and the way your own tongue leaves
a wet trail on his skin not so different
from those first attempts to crawl onto shore.
The most beautiful part of your body
is your longing to open more, everywhere
he touches, you become door.
Three Inadequacies
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged death, pet, poem, poetry on September 14, 2016| 1 Comment »
slumped on my chest
the body of the girl
not quite so limp
as the weight of her pet
still almost warm
*
no less permanent
this death of a body
so small
*
the dull weight of sorrow,
wishing it would come soon
to replace this burn
Into the Poem I Tuck
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged ars poetica, poem, poetry on September 13, 2016| 1 Comment »
a left turn,
a river stone,
straw,
the moon,
an empty frame,
the scent of books,
a wide-brimmed hat,
a question mark,
ripe peach juice, maps
to nowhere,
unfinished songs,
a trunk, blue mornings,
fields of gold,
uncertainty
of what comes next,
the promise
I will try
again.
Nocturne
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged language, night, poem, poetry on September 12, 2016| 1 Comment »
Even after everything is said
there is so much left unsaid.
I have measured the nights in stars
and lost track. I struggle to say
something true. When I stop
trying, I notice the how night
comes in and fills my throat.
Though no one can hear it,
it says everything I wish to say.
Lesson
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged ditching class, friendship, poem, poetry on September 11, 2016| 3 Comments »
Not that anyone caught us,
but that was the day
when Marnie and I
cut school during sixth hour
and drove my old VW bug
to the undeveloped hills
just past the edge of town.
Nothing grew there but grass
and wide open emptiness.
She’d bought some No Doz,
and though we were already
wildly alive and awake,
taking them seemed a good idea.
I don’t remember what class
I ditched—perhaps French IV,
which could explain why to this day
I cannot remember the plusque
parfait—but I recall
how barren the hills were,
their syntax of winter dry grass,
still brown, and how we ran
as fast as we could chasing
nothing we could see
as the wind grabbed the laughter
from our mouths and flung it
past the barbed wire fences,
past the highway that circled our town
until we lay at last down
and stared at the sky
conjugating the clouds
until the sun was spent
and we were cold.
No one ever asked
where we’d gone. No one
noticed the grass still
stuck in our hair,
the sky still clinging
to our clothes, the absence
of bells in our blood.