after William Matthews
like the universe, ever expanding,
ever moving beyond its center,
is that what love is?
Archive for November, 2016
One Question
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged love, physics, poem, poetry on November 30, 2016| 1 Comment »
One Healing
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged poem on November 29, 2016| 1 Comment »
One Because
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged ars poetica, poem, poetry on November 28, 2016| 1 Comment »
Sometimes
nothing
happens
still we arrive
to be wrestled
by a poem
sometimes
what emerges
has wings.
November 26
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged beginning, memory, poem, poetry on November 27, 2016| 2 Comments »
No one will remember that this is the day
that my son and I stayed home
and he watched movies and I
met deadlines for work. It was the day
that I didn’t finish drying the apples,
the day I didn’t listen to a single song,
the day no snow fell in the yard.
It was, however, the anniversary
of Howard Carter opening Tutankhamun’s
tomb in Egypt, still virtually intact.
It’s still a few months from the day
he’ll discover the inner burial chamber—
for now, he is still ablaze with the thrill
of beginning, hopeful he’ll find
the sarcophagus. Does he know yet
that it will be made of solid gold?
The world is ripe with beginnings—
even in this season of dying and cold,
there’s always so much left to discover,
so much we do not yet know.
Eventually the movies are over and I finish
my article about Tuscan architecture
and my son and I again begin. No one will
ever remember how this is the day
we spent hours together at a table
with a puzzle fitting the thousand pieces in.
But I am still ablaze with beginning,
still in the thrill of his youth. I don’t yet know
where our lives will go, but I’m giddy
on laughter that only we two can hear,
the rest of the house quiet, no bells,
no shouts, no hum of the fruit as it dries.
A Small, Intimate, Provocative Gift
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged Even Now, gift poetry, Jill Sabella, poetry book, Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer on November 26, 2016| 2 Comments »
Available for purchase now! $20 plus shipping. Click here to order, click here for sample pages, and click here to read more about the poetry and drawings by Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer and Jill Sabella. When you order, ask for personalized inscriptions.
“This book is a little treasure chest (a mere six inches square) full of catalytic gems that resonate with just about any punch life might be dishing out at the moment. Place near workstation or bed or altar for ready access. … Open it frequently, starting now.” —Jazz Jaeschke, Story Circle Book Reviews
New Seeing
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged poem, poetry, shadow on November 26, 2016| Leave a Comment »
Just because
we can’t say what
a thing is doesn’t mean
it won’t cast a shadow—
a shadow so small we perhaps
don’t notice as it falls on our own
naked skin—
and sometimes, focused as we are
on the light, we fail to see where
our own shadow lands, our
familiar shape distorted,
creating (for whom?)
an unintentional
(I’m sorry)
darkness.
Grace
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged grace, love, poem, poetry, thanksgiving on November 26, 2016| Leave a Comment »
Though the world is dented and dinged
and scuffed and scorned,
we trim the beans and peel the potatoes,
and the kitchen is warm and full
of laughter. We hum as we work
and break into scraps of song.
All day our hands are joyful
as they prepare the meal to come.
There are wars and battles even now,
not all of them fought with guns,
some waged intimately in our thoughts,
our scraped up hearts. And still,
this scent of apple pie, sweetening
as it bakes, this inner insistence
that love is not only possible,
it is every bit as real as our fear.
Whether the host has brought
out his best wine and his best crystal glasses
or water in chipped clay cups,
there is every reason
to be generous, to serve not only
our family, our friends, ourselves,
but also those we don’t yet know how to love
and those parts of ourselves we
have tried to keep separate.
Tonight the host has hidden bait
in the dinner—we all are caught.
Scent of sage, scent of mushrooms
and cream. The bite of cranberry.
Never mind the potatoes cooked too long.
Blessings seep into all the imperfect places,
even if you can’t name the blessings—
consider them secret ingredients.
The point is not to understand the feast,
but to eat, to eat it together.
In the Spirit of Thanksgiving …
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged poems, poetry, Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer, thanksgiving on November 24, 2016| 2 Comments »
Here are two poems published today in Telluride Inside & Out.
Wishing you grace all day, friends,
Rosemerry
Taking the Leaves Out of the Closet
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged gathering, love, poem, poetry on November 24, 2016| 2 Comments »
We turn the old metal clasps beneath the table,
my brother and I, and pull the two halves apart.
It’s so easy, I think, to make more space at a table,
allowing everyone to fit. Let it be so in our hearts.
One Unwanted
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged poem, poetry, thought on November 22, 2016| 1 Comment »
The Inevitable Sorrow of Potatoes
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged betrayal, friendship, poem, poetry, potatoes on November 22, 2016| 3 Comments »
Something in me rails against the word inevitable,
wants to root for underdogs and impossibilities.
But everything and everyone lets us down sometime,
and we meet the inevitability we would rather not know.
Last week, it was the potatoes. When we went
to harvest them, we found them abundant
in the sandy earth, but with their red skins pocked
with black scabs. That’s where the sorrow comes in.
Later I learn Black Scab is the common name
for the pathogen. There’s something almost comforting
in calling things as they are. I learn
that when peeling the potatoes, if I peel deep enough,
eventually the dark spots disappear.
And the potatoes taste delicious, somehow
more potato than the potatoes in the store.
The sorrow was just a surface thing, not like
the letter I received today outlining the betrayals
of a friend. How I longed for it to be a surface thing then—
something I could peel and find the core still good,
still full of nourishment, still unmarred.
How impossible it felt to call things as they are.
I longed for the potatoes to be like auguries,
omens that everything would be okay,
I wanted them to be portents that when we dig
there is treasure to be found, though
it may not look anything like we thought.
One Inevitable
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged poem, poetry, work on November 21, 2016| 4 Comments »
One Trip
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged exhaustion, poem, poetry on November 20, 2016| 4 Comments »
The Soul Has Demands
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged poem, poetry, transformation on November 20, 2016| 2 Comments »
with thanks to Mirabai, Lorca and Judyth Hill
I want my body to fall down
into a heap of sandalwood.
I’ve been made of crystal too long.
I have spent too many days
trying to love what I do not love.
I want my body to fall down
into a heap of mahogany.
You ask me why. The square root
of negativity is negativity.
My prayers want more than
a new language, they want
new lips, a new tongue.
Golden ideas hammer
against my facts. Before the moon’s
up, it’s already down.
I want my body to fall
into a heap of walnut or cherry.
Carve me into un violencello,
un bandalon, un arpa, smooth,
warmed and played
by curious hands into song.
The rose says this:
the square root of bliss
is bliss.
Cher M. Magritte,
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged ekphrasis, poem, poetry, Rene Magritte, the treachery of images on November 17, 2016| 2 Comments »
A poem based on The Treachery of Images
No, of course it’s not a pipe,
and I am not a woman
looking at an image
of a pipe,
and this is not
a love poem.
Just today I did not put a frame
around my tears.
I felt them slip,
wet and messy,
hot and light
against my cheeks,
the rich and pungent
scent of smoke
nowhere
to be found.
If There Were Such a Maker
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged courage, ferocity, glove, poem, poetry on November 16, 2016| 1 Comment »
The maker of gloves
is busy now. She knows
there are many hands
to sheath, much weeding
to be done. All the paths
of the garden are overrun
by brambles. The fountains
are covered in thorns.
The disarray didn’t happen overnight,
but in our present haste
to make things quickly right,
we’ve arrived with eager hands bare
and now they are bleeding, numb.
Attuned only to beauty,
how tender we’ve let
our hands become.
The maker of gloves
does not waste any time
tsk tsking. She starts
right in on her knitting,
infusing each stitch
with courage, ferocity.
Do not be surprised
when her gloves
arrive at your door.
Slip them on. They are
not for ornament.
She has made
them so you will feel
invincible. It’s not true,
but you must believe it.
The time for hard work has come.
Candor
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged poem, words on November 16, 2016| 2 Comments »
That’s when the words
arrive barefoot
and not in the tight laced shoes
we set out for them
by the door,
and they surprise us—
perhaps because
they appeared on the lips
via tiptoe,
perhaps because
they bypassed the brain
with a leap—
so that before
we have a chance
to stop the rogue words,
they bounce
off the tongue
and out into the air
where anyone,
even we—
despite our horror—
are astonished
at their pluck,
so naked and
going for it
anyway.
All the Way Home
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged change, parenting, peace, poem, poetry, worry on November 14, 2016| Leave a Comment »
Although the world is full of suffering, it is also full of the overcoming of it.
—Helen Keller
Three days after
I think the world
is coming apart,
in the back seat
of the car
my daughter
is improvised
by a song—
I eavesdrop
as she mumbles
along
to an accidental
tune,
change is
wonderful
change
is wonderful.
Still Life with Skull
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged mortality, poem, poetry, skull on November 13, 2016| 6 Comments »
they look hollow,
the sockets where the eyes
once were,
or is it the looker
who is hollow?
*
map of the skull—
all the places her dust has been,
all the places it will go
*
it is months
before he can tell her
that her skull is creepy,
that it scares him—
he hides it behind the books
*
across the brow,
a forever stamp,
a lotus, full bloom—
shhhh, don’t tell her
it’s already been canceled
*
golden wings in the back
of her skull,
is it any wonder
every morning
her thoughts fly east?
*
there are monks
who use skulls as a centerpiece—
perhaps as a symbol
of mortality, perhaps
because it’s lovely
*
there’s a red leaf
where her mouth would be—
here hung those lips
that loved
to kiss*
*
all around the skull on the table
are the skulls of the living,
so much shedding left to be done
*
behind the birding book
she finds the skull,
puts it on the table again
*”Here hung those lips that I have kissed I know not how oft,” in Hamlet, William Shakespeare
How Long Has It Been?
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged childhood, doll, love, poem, poetry on November 12, 2016| 2 Comments »
They sit on the shelf now, mostly,
or have moved into boxes of memory,
those soft cloth dolls we once cradled
and cuddled and dragged from bed
to the yard to the car to the store.
They went everywhere with us,
their small yarn eyes always open,
never narrowing in disapproval,
never turning to shine on someone else.
Their plump cheeks eternally blushing,
their smile never uncurling
into disinterest, never snarling
into disdain. We could tell them
everything—about the girl
down the street who jeered
that our plaid pants were too short,
who sneered at the way we ran.
We could tell them about
the blue monster who lived in the closet,
and how he sometimes slipped out
to crawl beneath our bed.
And they listened. And smiled.
And let us hold them and suck
on their hands—or their hats—if that’s
what made the night feel safe.
They never whispered mean
words about us to their friends
while we were off at school.
Sometimes, it’s true, they would
disappear. That’s what all
beloved things do. And then,
days later perhaps, they’d be found
under a pillow on the couch or out
beneath the willow tree sitting
in the dirt beside the shovel and pail.
Now, it is we who have disappeared
into the world of harder things—
keys and doors and ceilings,
and women with words
like sticks and men with eyes
that seldom meet our eyes.
We are too old for dolls.
Still, there is in us, perhaps,
the faded longing to hold something
soft, something so familiar,
something so well loved,
so absent of cruelty
it makes us feel capable
of loving utterly, unguardedly again.