Just for a moment
my hair was on fire
and just for a moment
orange flames
rose from me
and just for a moment
I knew what it was
to be candle—
even now I can see it
beside my face,
how before I was afraid
I thought, how beautiful.
Archive for December, 2019
Too Close to the Light
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged fire, light, poem, poetry on December 31, 2019| 3 Comments »
Always Becoming: Dream & Poetry Workshop on January 8, Telluride
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged Ah Haa School for the Arts, Corinne Platt, dreams, poetry, poetry workshop, Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer on December 31, 2019| Leave a Comment »
Poetry and dream work walk hand in hand in the most creative and inspiring ways. In this workshop, dream practitioner Corinne Platt and poet Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer will work with students to explore the landscape of dreams. We’ll use symbols, images, metaphors and feelings to leap into language, writing poems that walk the line between certainty and uncertainty, dream and reality, the irrational and the true. Through dreams and poetry we will navigate the tides of becoming—the continual, miraculous unfolding of life. No previous experience with dream work or poetry necessary.
For more information, visit The Ah Haa School
One Lucky
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged blue, poem, poetry, sky on December 29, 2019| Leave a Comment »
Gratitude List with Eyes Continuously Closing
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged poem, poetry, praise on December 29, 2019| Leave a Comment »
Easy today to praise the snow
a sparkling settled on all the world,
and easy to praise the oranges
that arrived bringing sunshine
from far away.
Easy to praise the sky as it clears
and easy to praise the wind
as it blows the storm away.
Less easy to praise the moment
between night and dawn
when I would rather be sleeping
than praising.
Less easy to praise the song
that insists on replaying
inside my head.
Less easy still to praise
the sorrow, though
its roots are in great love.
But bless the poem
for offering the chance
to discover praise.
And bless the praise,
for showing up despite
sorrow, despite fear.
Praise the longing
to praise, may it ever
insist on itself, like
grasses that poke
through the snow in the field,
like the sunshine
inside the clementine,
like a poem past midnight
that refuses to let me sleep.
Missing
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged cat, hope, loss, paradox, poem, poetry, science on December 28, 2019| 2 Comments »
Hope is, perhaps, a quantum thing,
a paradox, like Schrödinger’s cat,
simultaneously alive and dead.
Today, I wandered the snowy field
and the icy banks and the shadowed wood,
calling the name of my sweet gray cat.
If I could find her now, I’d see
she’s either alive or dead.
But in this moment of uncertainty,
she’s both alive and dead to me.
I’m tugged by both possibilities as I wade
through tall dry grass. Oh damn that hope,
and bless it, too, how just a candle-measure
opposes a whole tower of unfounded certainty,
sends me out into the blizzard
calling her name, listening.
The Second Night the Cat Doesn’t Come Home
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged cat, loss, poem, poetry on December 27, 2019| Leave a Comment »
catching sight
of where she isn’t—
in the dark behind the window
I see only
my own searching
One Present
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged authenticity, gift, poem, poetry, vulnerability on December 26, 2019| Leave a Comment »
Into Your Stocking
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged Christmas, color, gift, poem, poetry on December 25, 2019| 6 Comments »
I slipped some magic markers
for coloring the world—
the leaves, the river, the moon.
You can write messages
in the sky and the wind
will blow them where
they need to go.
You can color thoughts—
give them stripes or polka dots.
You can change the hue
of a mood with a few broad strokes.
There’s one that will make you
invisible. Some markers I
don’t know what they do.
One is the color of laughter.
Another the color of forgiveness.
Don’t be surprised if other people
can’t see them. Don’t be
surprised when they graffiti
the walls around your heart.
Don’t be surprised when
you start to think in color—
when you start to believe
every idea, every word,
every dream can change
the shade of the world.
One Sideways Conversation
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged conversation, parenting, poem, poetry on December 24, 2019| Leave a Comment »
The Question
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged jude Janett, love, poem, poetry, question on December 23, 2019| 10 Comments »
for Jude Jordan Kalush, who asked the question
All day, I replay these words:
Is this the path of love?
I think of them as I rise, as
I wake my children, as I wash dishes,
as I drive too close behind the slow
blue Subaru, Is this the path of love?
Think of these words as I stand in line
at the grocery store,
think of them as I sit on the couch
with my daughter. Amazing how
quickly six words become compass,
the new lens through which to see myself
in the world. I notice what the question is not.
Not, “Is this right?” Not,
“Is this wrong?” It just longs to know
how the action of existence
links us to the path of love.
And is it this? Is it this? All day,
I let myself be led by the question.
All day I let myself not be too certain
of the answer. Is it this?
Is this the path of love? I ask
as I wait for the next word to come.
*
this poem is published in The Path to Kindness: Poems of Connection & Joy, edited by James Crews (Storey Publishing, 2022)
One Recipe
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged daughter, music, poem, poetry, test on December 22, 2019| 3 Comments »
Surprise Grace
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged dark, light, losing the self, loss of the separate self, night, solstice on December 21, 2019| 4 Comments »
And this is the chapter
when it just feels
too much too much
to turn on the light
and so you sit
in the dark.
This is not a myth
in which you are punished,
turned into a tree or a kingfisher—
nor is this the story
in which you discover
your own light.
No, this is the night
in which you are simply
a lifetime of tired
and unable to turn on the light.
And so it’s you
and the night.
It’s you and the night.
And then it’s just the night.
One Reveal
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged light, night, poem, poetry, sky on December 20, 2019| 2 Comments »
In These Halcyon Days
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged knowing, knowing the self, poem, poetry, self on December 19, 2019| 2 Comments »
for it is not so much to know the self
as to know it as it is known
by galaxy and cedar cone
—A.R. Ammons, “Gravelly Run”
I want to know the self
the way a nest might know
the eggs it holds, the way
a feather might know a wing.
I want to know the self
as a bank knows a river,
as wave knows water,
as night knows the night.
There is a kind of knowing
that has less to do with certainty
and more to do with meeting
the world again and again as it is.
I want to know the self
with no name, with no story,
as a stone might know it,
or a song.
Soften, She Said
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged augusta kantra, poem, poetry, reaching, softening, yoga on December 18, 2019| 9 Comments »
In these darkened days,
I think of the potato
that, left in the pantry,
will grow long white arms
to reach for the light.
There is, of course,
a beauty in reaching.
But today I think of Augusta
who taught me
the beauty of softening—
how the same reaching effect
can be achieved
by focusing on the part
that isn’t reaching,
letting it soften.
Soften, she said.
Soften. And it was as if
I were new in my body.
The effect was the same,
the method the opposite.
I love how I didn’t know
there was something
so beautiful yet to learn
about letting go. I love
these lessons in softening—
how, on this morning I learn again
to relax, to unstrive, to unreach,
to lean into ease, and like a camellia blossom,
in the dark of winter to open,
to find such sweet release.
20 billion atoms from Shakespeare
I’m Thinking of an Ornament
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged Christmas, mom, mother, parenting, poem, poetry, questions on December 16, 2019| 2 Comments »
The rules are simple. One person chooses
an ornament on the tree. The others ask
yes/no questions until they guess it correctly.
It was my mother who taught me.
I taught my own children. It’s a ritual
as important as the tree itself. Is it red?
Is it round? Is it cloth? Handmade?
So many questions we never can answer.
So many questions elude yes or no. But here,
in the soft glow of Christmas tree lights,
we share moments when every question
leads us closer to a treasure, where
the moments are treasures themselves.
One Return of Friendship
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged Christmas, death, friendship, tree on December 15, 2019| Leave a Comment »
Shabbat
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged bread, candle, food, kindness, poem, poetry, Shabbat on December 14, 2019| 7 Comments »
for Peter and Lisa
We covered our eyes with our hands
and repeated the sacred words that Peter said,
blessing the pomegranate juice, blessing
the challah bread. And when we were done
with the prayer, we removed our hands
from our eyes and the candlelit world
was surprisingly bright. Such a simple faith,
kindness. The willingness to invite another in,
to make them bread, to offer them soup,
to say to the other, Here. Feast. Rest. To share
ancient stories and offer new wisdom.
To pass the braided bread, hand to hand,
and eat it together. To listen to each other
until the candles had burned through all their wax.
To continue to listen after the light goes out.
Following the Queen’s Lead
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged acceptance, Alice in wonderland, impossible, Lewis Carroll, poem, poetry, possibility on December 12, 2019| 2 Comments »
Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.
—Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland
I put off breakfast for hours,
hoping it will allow more time
for impossible thoughts to come.
They trickle in: World peace.
Inner peace. Healing.
Pure love. An abundance
of unrestricted hours.
Then, stymied, I put off lunch.
Put off snack. Just before dinner
I meet a sixth impossible thought:
accepting the world the way it is,
falling in love anyway.
Who wants to believe in that?
But acceptance shines
through the window like a full moon,
as if it’s the only thing that makes sense.
Eventually, the night is so bright
anything seems possible.
As the Chemo Begins
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged chemo, friendship, hair, healing, poem, poetry on December 12, 2019| 5 Comments »
Most of her hair was gone already,
but I guided the electric razor across her scalp,
brown tufts falling into my fingers.
We listened to music, drank wine,
toasted to vulnerability. She made jokes
about not needing to buy shampoo.
I sang along with the songs we had chosen—
choked on the lyrics to “Life is Wonderful,”
hummed when I couldn’t sing.
There are days when wonderful
is so far from what we might have chosen,
but wonderful it was, my hands
smoothing across the new naked landscape
of her head, delighting in the feel of the fuzz,
marveling at the gift of sharing loss and fear.
There are days when we lean into each other
and cry. And such a terrible wonderful it is,
letting the tears come. Weeping them together.