On a day when the world
asks too much of me
and I don’t know how to give it,
I think of the squirrels
at the feeder when I was a girl.
Dad hung the feeder
on a squirrel-proof wire.
Dad set the feeder
on a squirrel-proof pole.
Squirrels found a way.
Surely there’s some squirrel in me,
some chattering tenacity,
some bushy tailed resolve.
If I can’t be courageous and brave,
then let me at least be stubborn.
Surely inside this aching heart
is a scamperer willing to try again,
to try again, to meet disappointment
and failure and exhaustion
and try again, again.
Archive for December, 2020
Again, Again
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged determination, squirrel, stubbornness on December 31, 2020| 4 Comments »
Permission
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged brokenness, moon, softening on December 30, 2020| 5 Comments »
Funny on a full moon night
I think about brokenness.
After fifty years of proving
entropy with my life, with
my thoughts, some part of me
still wants to believe in perfection.
I’ve never once thought the moon
any less perfect for being partial.
Tonight, I give myself permission
to be broken. As if I could help it.
But something in the permission
lets me relax, lets me soften
as if I’m covered with moon-drunk snow.
Lets me soften like Erik Satie played low.
Let me see you, the moon seems to say,
just as you are. And I step outside
and the moon slips in.
Thanking the Christmas Cactus
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged beauty, hope, news, plants on December 29, 2020| 7 Comments »
Tonight, for a moment,
my world shrinks to the size
of the Christmas cactus,
which, despite the storm
that even now blusters outside,
has opened dozens of voluptuous
red blooms, as if to say,
Here I am, blooming midwinter,
and you can do it, too.
There are days when
the news makes me doubt
the value of blooming—
when the headlines alone
twist hope into a crumpled,
unrecognizable heap.
But then some snippet
of beauty finds me—
a scarlet flower,
a handwritten letter—
and breaks any scale
I would use to interpret
the world. It’s not that the terror
goes away, no. But for a few
moments, I am blessed
with the certainty
that even the smallest beauty matters
and that it is my job
to meet life however it appears—
petal, bomb, sweetness, pain—
grateful for my humanness,
vulnerable and tenuous
though it is.
Poeming into the New Year
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged thoughtshop on December 28, 2020| Leave a Comment »
FREE 40-minute poetry thoughtshop on transformation and honoring the moment
Tuesday, December 29, 4 p.m mountain time
The start of a new year is a natural chance to recalibrate—to get curious and let everything come into question. What a time to be amazed and astonished, to open ourselves to transformation. Poetry, both reading and writing it, can guide us into deeper wonder and help us meet our own hearts and the hearts of others. In this 40-minute thoughtshop, Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer will read poems from diverse voices about showing up, new beginnings and transformation, poems that invite spaciousness into constricted places, poems that help us awaken to the moment and to our lives. And with each poem, she’ll offer prompts—ways for you to leap into your own writing practice.
Register in advance for this webinar:
https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_qJu-WVhlTQC2LCOHfGc38A
After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the webinar.
This event is hosted bySHYFT at Mile High whose mission is to provide all people, regardless of ability to pay, with classes and programs proven to reduce stress, heal trauma, and create connection.
Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer co-hosts Emerging Form (a podcast on creative process with Christie Aschwanden), Stubborn Praise (an online poetry reading series with James Crews) Secret Agents of Change (a surreptitious kindness cabal with Sherry Richert Belul) and Soul Writer’s Circle (with meditation teacher Augusta Kantra). Her poetry has appeared in O Magazine, on A Prairie Home Companion and PBS Newshour, Poetry of Presence, and in her daily poetry blog, A Hundred Falling Veils. Her most recent collection, Hush won the Halcyon Prize. She teaches poetry for parents, scientists, mindfulness retreats. One word mantra: Adjust.
Fluency
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged falling, language, love on December 27, 2020| 3 Comments »
Stepping off the edge
I began to learn falling
as I would learn to speak
another tongue—
confused at first,
disoriented,
but now the thrill
as I notice
how the new
airy syntax
and unbound grammar
have changed
everything
about the way I think,
everything
about the way
I love.
One Connection
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged connection, conversation, family, walking, winter on December 26, 2020| Leave a Comment »
walking in chill air
beside the frozen creek
warm words
Eat More Slush Mush
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged breakfast, Christmas, family, play, slush mush, tradition on December 25, 2020| 1 Comment »
The first year I won the Slush Mush contest
I was shocked as my grandfather read a long, official letter
to everyone else around the Christmas tree
about how my entry into the Slush Mush Breakfast Cereal contest
had been the best one received that year.
I didn’t remember entering.
In fact, I was sure I had not.
Yet I won a puzzle.
Another year my brother won.
Or my mother. Or my cousin.
And each Christmas morning, my grandfather read
the long official letter
which always ended “Eat more Slush Mush.”
It was many years before I understood
how the contest worked.
And for the last twenty years
since he’s been gone,
I carry on, buying puzzles, writing letters,
appointing unsuspecting winners.
Part of me thrills in this annual ruse
because it reminds me of him.
Part of me thrills in remembering
how strange and wonderful it felt
to be chosen not because of how hard
I had tried, but because I was part
of a circle of love. It’s a malnourished world,
he would write every year. Thank you, Papa,
for the Slush Mush.
Bonfire in the Heart
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged change, fire, new year, transformation on December 24, 2020| 6 Comments »
I throw in any tallies
I’ve been keeping,
the ones that record
who did what and when.
I throw in all the letters
I wrote in my head but didn’t send.
I throw in tickets I didn’t buy
to places I didn’t visit.
I throw in all those expectations
I had for myself and the world last year
and countless lists of things I thought I should do.
I love watching them ignite,
turn into embers, to ash.
I love the space they leave behind
where anything can happen.
Star of Wonder
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged astronomy, communion, connection, planet, star, unity on December 23, 2020| 3 Comments »
I don’t want us to be
like Jupiter and Saturn,
slowly moving toward each other
only to find ourselves
slowly moving further away.
When we conjoin,
let it be that we find
our paths not crossing
but merging, moving
us forever in the same direction,
our light uniting so brightly
others might imagine
it signifies a miracle—
and they will, of course,
be right.