Posted in Uncategorized, tagged dark, fire, light, marcus aurelius, poem, poetry on September 30, 2018| 3 Comments »
A blazing fire makes flame and brightness out of everything that is thrown into it.
—Marcus Aurelius
Let me be fire.
Let everything
ignite me.
Let the whole world
be kindling.
I’ll take all fuel.
Let me flash.
Let me flare.
Let me make brightness.
Give me the dark.
Let me blaze there.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged forgetting, memory, poem, poetry, song, traveler on September 30, 2018| Leave a Comment »
Once I knew it by heart,
that song about leaving
the earth and traveling on,
but tonight, I just hum
through the verse I’ve forgotten,
grateful the tune still knows
how to find me, grateful
to still have lips, breath.
Grateful to be a traveler
here, my feet still finding
the road.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged nature, personal responsibility, poem, poetry on September 29, 2018| 4 Comments »
When my shoulders feel too slight
to carry injustice and my arms
reach too short to hold the world
and my bones are too weak
to carry even a single aching heart,
I walk amongst the aspen and the spruce
and notice how the light shines through
the changing leaves—such radiance,
such golden shine—and slowly
the rational part of me that believes
in doom is forced to fade.
It’s not so simple, of course,
as walking out into the forest.
But there is something there
that grows the soul and breeds
a sense of possibility and tells
the aching heart to rise up, rise up
and do the work that must be done,
rise up and carry with it the light.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged amor fati, garden, poem, poetry on September 28, 2018| Leave a Comment »
And the next day,
the flowers are dead.
It always happens this way—
the zinnias go from orange
and gold and pink to fragile gray.
And the cosmos are slender
skeletons of bloom
that blazed only yesterday.
The nasturtiums resemble
drooping weeds from the sea.
The marigold leaves have blackened.
It always happens this way.
And the world goes on.
And the world goes on
with its cyclical necessities.
I pull roots from the ground
and breathe the rich and sour scent
of summer spent and autumn
chill triumphant, and fall
in love with the empty rows,
this is the way, the way it goes.
And it’s beautiful, this absence.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged Corinne Platt, dream workshop, poetry workshop, Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer, uncertainty on September 27, 2018| 2 Comments »
Placerville, CO, Sunday, October 28th 10 a.m. – 4:30 p.m., $100
How often do you wake up from a dream and wonder, “What was that?”
What if you discovered that your subconscious has the answers you are seeking? Each night, through dreams we are offered pieces of ourselves that we might never come to know. For many of us, we have learned to not just dismiss our dreams but our deeper emotional and spiritual worlds as well.
In this workshop, we will explore the landscape of dreams and write poems that float between dream and reality, the irrational and the authentic, certainty and uncertainty. Through dreams and poetry, we will open up to the uncertainty in each of our lives—the continual, miraculous unfolding of not knowing.
No previous experience with dream work or poetry necessary. Led by Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer and Corinne Platt.
To register, contact Rosemerry, 970-729-1838 or wordwoman@rosemerry.com
or
Corinne, 970- 596-5221 or corinneplatt@earthlink.net
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged connection, poem, poetry, sky on September 26, 2018| 2 Comments »
I imagine writing a one-line poem
long enough to reach you—
imagine how the words might quiver
in the wind, how I might climb
their serifs like a thin-runged ladder
and follow the words
to you like breadcrumbs,
like footprints, like hope.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged parenting, poem, poetry, quiet on September 26, 2018| 4 Comments »
Though I have hours of work to do
I lie beside him until I feel
the quiet do what quiet does,
the fight and fuss leave his muscles,
and the growl and gruff leave my sighs
until we are at last two breaths
beside each other, soft and tender,
two hearts in the dark
with their walls down.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged field, lost, path, perspective, poem, poetry on September 24, 2018| Leave a Comment »
lost in this meadow
deep in the grass
so easy to think
there is no path—
ask the mice
ask the stars
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged bells, meditation, poem, poetry on September 24, 2018| 2 Comments »
Suddenly everything is bell.
The bright clang of the spoon
stirring in the metal pot.
The scraping black note of crow.
Creak in the porch board
as I step into shadow.
Horn of a passing car.
What isn’t a call to attention?
Horse whinny. Airplane hum.
Dishwasher whirr. What
isn’t a bell to wake us up,
remind us to bring our attention
here. Whisper of leaves.
Squeak of the door hinge.
The small sigh escaping our lips.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged bus, fear, poem, poetry, worry on September 24, 2018| Leave a Comment »
And then, as I was walking the dirt road,
it hit me like a school bus: people
might not like me. I felt the rush of air before
the bumper connected with my butt, and knew
in that moment I could choose to be flattened or
choose to somehow crawl into that bus
and ride along with the jeers and snarls and sneers.
Okay, I said, as I clawed my way around the yellow fender
to the open door, a stowaway on my fear.
I climbed the green stairs and felt their stares:
icy, cruel, fierce. Others indifferent, bored.
I stared back, prepared to feel small.
Hello, I said, waiting for shame. But
that’s not what I felt at all. Instead,
some seed of awareness that I was not splattered
by fear but alive, and now moving in one direction
with this busload of what frightened me so,
And I was not flattened nor crushed nor bruised.
I took my seat. Felt their eyes on my back.
And the bus kept driving along. When it stopped,
I stepped off, surprisingly whole.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged lost, poem, poetry, self talk on September 24, 2018| Leave a Comment »
It is not so bad to be lost.
Being lost only rankles when you’re sure
you are heading somewhere.
But once you’ve been lost long enough,
you stop believing in arrivals.
When you are lost, you can walk
in any direction, toward that mountain,
for instance, without worrying
you should be walking toward work.
You can smell the frying of peppers and onions
in oil and be led by your nose.
When you’re lost and don’t feel any need
to find a way, every path leads you
exactly where you need to go.
You think it’s so important to have direction,
to follow the steps to a goal.
I can tell you feel a bit sorry for me,
poor lost soul, And then with a look
at your watch, off you go to your next place
to be. You gaze lands down the road,
your foot urging the gas. But if you went slower,
what would you see? And if you didn’t know
how the path goes, where else, where else
might you go? Who else might you be?
And I, I will wander, perhaps, among
the chamisa and sage. Who knows
what might happen next?
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged alter ego, frustration, fussiness, poem, poetry on September 20, 2018| 7 Comments »
I don’t remember inviting her along today,
that Prickly Rose, but everywhere I go,
she goes. I watch her pout around the kitchen
as she makes breakfast, her prickers falling
into the cereal, spines in the eggs. And she bristles
her way into the bedroom closet to
put on her clothes, daring to wear the same
outfit as I. She fusses her way to the car,
leaves a trail of bleary discontent,
then drives off in a huff, harrumphing
at beauty, at bliss. All morning, I watch her
from a distance, as far away as I can.
I tell her, “You know, you can choose
at any time to lose those thorns.”
She glares at me, like, “whatever,”
and goes back to her muttering.
“I see,” I say, giving her space.
She smells as if she burnt her eggs.
So I tease her, and make up new lyrics to.
“Miss Prickle regrets
she’s unable to smile today, Madam.”
and “The gripes are high but I’m holding on.”
I marvel at her insistence on holding
on to aggravation, frustration, annoyance,
stress. I mean, look at her now,
snarling there in the seat I’m in,
intent on her own misery. Oh Prickly Rose.
I want to hold her, but she will not
be held. So I watch her, let myself
get curious. Smile as she chooses to frown.
She’ll come around eventually, I tell myself.
Until then, I wonder at how she manages
to hold that scowl on her forehead
so furrowed, so deep, how she glowers
so impressively long.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged end of the world, lunch, parenting, poem, poetry, purpose on September 20, 2018| Leave a Comment »
In April, the Harvard
Department of Physics
issued a study suggesting
the universe will end the way
it began, with a bang. in fact,
they say, there’s likely a bubble
of true vacuum “barreling
toward us at the speed of light.”
The moment we see the bubble
will barely precede the moment
it destroys us.
And still, despite their findings,
I rise every morning in the dark
and make my children lunches.
Evenly spreading the butter
onto my daughter’s bread.
Slicing the cheese thin as hope,
just the way my son likes it.
As if making their lunches
really matters in these moments
before our demise.
Yes, I select the firmest apples.
Toast the walnuts
with maple syrup and salt
so they sing in the mouth,
both savory and sweet.
As if they will eat the food
and taste love. As if
they’re important, these
things that we do.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged dandelion, poem, poetry on September 18, 2018| 2 Comments »
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged beauty, daughter, mother, poem, poetry, saint francis and the sow on September 18, 2018| 2 Comments »
after Saint Francis and the Sow by Galway Kinnell
And when my daughter
runs to greet me, charges
me with joy, I am like
the great thick sow Saint Francis blessed
with his touch. For though
I look in the mirror
and see only what I wish to change,
my daughter sees differently
and bulldozes me with love,
a ferocious blessing,
reteaching me in a vigorous rush
that there is something
beautiful here, though
she wouldn’t name it as such—
and a small remembering
takes root in me and
vines throughout my thoughts,
and I flower there in blue surprise,
my own soil, again, enough.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged cloud, poem, poetry, self-perception on September 16, 2018| 2 Comments »
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged autumn, parting, poem, poetry, summer on September 15, 2018| Leave a Comment »
Summer travels beyond itself and
warms the stones and gives
the flowers more of what they love.
it is like a lover who, though he
has told you he is leaving, returns
and kisses you until you are panting,
makes you believe he will always
hold you. But then, even as your lips part
and you lean in, he is gone again,
taking his warmth with him,
leaving your skin somehow more fragile
in the thin autumn air.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged poem, poetry, resilience, snakeweed, wind on September 15, 2018| Leave a Comment »
At the edge of the cliff
the wind tousles the snakeweed
into a riot of waving fronds.
They dance and still, and dance
and still, resettling into their natural state
before being danced again.
All morning I have been thinking
about resilience, or more rightly,
resilience has visited me,
not as a thought, more as
a mandate. And here, the snakeweed,
golden flowers lit by sun,
leads me to the edge of the cliff
where the wind whips everything
that dares show up,
and the snakeweed—
stirred, disturbed and rearranged—
has never been more itself.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged blood test, escape, medicine, poem, poetry, reality on September 13, 2018| Leave a Comment »
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged ars poetica, paradox, poem, poetry, vulnerability, writing on September 12, 2018| Leave a Comment »