Today I am so grateful
we are the characters
who go on a journey
and learn to find the bravest, best
and kindest versions of ourselves,
even when the road is beset
with Lestrygonians driving white Range Rovers,
especially when Charybdis tries to merge
into our crowded two-lane sea
after driving in the eddies of the emergency lane
to bypass the long lines,
yes, we are the characters who learn
that we are responsible for our own soundtrack
and must sing to meet each moment,
must be our own sirens calling ourselves
again and again and again
to crash only on our own shores
then sail on more carefully, more purposefully,
our song all the more joyful,
more determined, and yes, more alive.
Archive for January, 2021
Going Home
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged book, character, driving, home, travel, ullysses on January 31, 2021| Leave a Comment »
Evolution
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged daughter, driving, evolution, mother, parenting on January 31, 2021| 6 Comments »
We drove seven hours,
and half the time it snowed
so I kept my eyes fixed
to the slushy road, but
there was the moment
when I looked at my girl
in the passenger seat
and fell in love in an instant
and stroked her hair
and she, catching my gaze,
offered me her open hand—
for this the first tetrapods evolved
in shallow and swampy freshwater,
for this the ichthyostega formed
arms and finger bones,
and for this, though it took
thirty-million years
of primate and homo sapien change,
for this we learned how to smile.
Clean Slate
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged change, language, snow, weather on January 29, 2021| 2 Comments »
It’s almost always sunny just before
it snows—just before the sky turns grey
then meets the earth in giant swaths
of blue turned clouds turned snow turned drift,
and haven’t you sometimes wanted
to do that, too—to shift in an instant
from warm to cool, from blue to gray,
to know yourself as the opposite
of what you are, just as a day does,
an entirely new syntax unspooling
in swirling verbs and whirling predicates
so complex you forget who the subject is—
haven’t you wanted to flurry, to blizzard,
to white out until there were no tracks
like sentences left for you to follow?
Self-Portrait in Marble
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged aging, nothing, sculpture, self-portrait on January 28, 2021| 2 Comments »
With its tiny claw chisel
Thursday has chipped
and carved, made cross hatches
and striations in who I thought I was
on Wednesday. Every day
there is less of me, and
every day I am fashioned
more into who I am, this
diminishing work in progress
in which the sculptor never
stops—once I thought
it would take forever to make
me, now there’s so little
left of the block I understand
that only what is not here
will be forever.
Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer970-729-1838 wordwoman.com
Watch my TEDx talk The Art of Changing Metaphors: TEDX Rosemerry Trommer
Hiding Comes Out
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged hiding, truth on January 27, 2021| 2 Comments »
The hiding doesn’t want to hide anymore.
It’s done with shadows and corners and masks.
All it wants is to show up. To step out.
To be seen. There was a time
when everything frightened it, when hiding
was desperate for a veil, a shroud, a disguise.
Hiding doesn’t remember what changed.
It only knows that one day it was no longer content
with holing up. Couldn’t. It no longer fit in its hole.
It wants big sky and meadows and space.
It wants to skip down main street.
Naked. It wants to know itself and be known,
to be as out there as exposé, as confession,
as a kiss on the sidewalk at noon. It wants
headlines. Declarations. Independence.
It knows things might get messy.
That’s why it brought a broom,
but damned if it will wear gloves.
It wants to get all that dirt in its fingernails.
It wants the callouses that come with revelation.
More
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged aspen, emptiness, love, sunset, trees, winter on January 26, 2021| Leave a Comment »
Inspired by dark and naked aspen,
she’s been practicing emptiness—
perhaps you, too, have seen the way
that barren arms can better hold
the changing colors of the sky.
The less she holds, the more love
seems to fill her, pours into her
like the winter sunset, vast and brilliant.
All these years she thought the point
was to be full. Now she marvels
at how resonant she is without
so much clutter—how resounding,
the honest beating of her heart.
Two Upcoming Readings!
Posted in Uncategorized on January 25, 2021| 2 Comments »
This Thursday, January 28 at 6 mountain time, join me and my poetry friend Megan E. Freeman as we talk stages of survival and poetry. Megan has written an incredible new novel in verse, Alone, for middle grade readers–think Island of the Blue Dolphins in Colorado. We’ll be reading poems and talking survival, poetry, craft and following your dreams. Free. On FB. For more information, click here.
*
On Monday, February 8, 6 p.m. mountain time, join me for Stubborn Praise, an evening of poetry with my co-host James Crews and our special guest Naomi Shihab Nye! Hosted by SHYFT at Mile High. It’s a free evening of meeting the moment, but you do need to register by visiting here.
Momentum
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged choice, cliff, path, step on January 25, 2021| Leave a Comment »
Only after I step one foot over the cliff
do I realize the drop is so deep
and the pool in the river below so small
that the chances of hitting the water at all
seem infinitesimal.
I thought nothing could stop me from my course,
but seeing the rocks so far below
and knowing how likely it is I would hit them,
now I stand one foot on the desperate edge.
The other foot, free as a prophecy, hovers in the air.
Seventeen Snapshots
Posted in Uncategorized on January 24, 2021| 10 Comments »
Dear friends,
I’m back from my writing retreat–it was so successful and wonderful! I have been working on fiction, and poetry took a bit of a back seat, but I did write a short poem every day (plus a few longer ones also posted separately). Plus every day I took sunset walks–I will post some of those literal snapshots beneath these poetry snapshots.
And now–back to our regularly scheduled daily poems.
Rosemerry
pulling the short end
of the wishbone—
taking the wish into my own hands
*
one dropper of red
turns the whole bowl red—
why I share love poems
*
in my own once upon a time
surprised to find
I am the stranger
*
new lemongrass tea
steaming in a new clay mug—
old friendship steeps
*
lost in the day—
your laughter
true north
*
like trying to hold a waterfall—
loving this
growing girl
*
cupping the truth
lightly in my hands
wings beating against my palms
*
transplanting it from the shadows
into the sunshine
this stubborn sunflower
*
me the vase
with a thousand thin fractures
you the slightest touch
*
in the oil slick
covered in crude
hope with its great white wings
*
slipping all these distractions
into a straightjacket—
still they’re able sing to me
*
bow string taut
what finally sets this arrow free
gratefulness
*
down at the heel,
shabby, used-up tread—
and yet I take another step
*
on amazon
trying to buy a backbone—
today only $20.21
*
holding onto this dream–
hugging
a cloud
*
wanting to break
so you’ll mend me again
with gold
*
hitting my head
against the wall
until I walk around the wall
Things to Do While Trapped in a Cage with a Lion
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged danger, entrapment, lion, presence on January 24, 2021| 4 Comments »
Notice his teeth. Know that they could shred you
at any time. Wonder why you didn’t stay on the other side
where it was safe. Remember how boring safe was.
Feel the blood thrumming inside you, how your heart pounds
like the waves on the beach you might never see again.
Pray, though you long ago stopped remembering how,
and notice how faith feels so necessary now. Practice
saying Nice kitty, nice kitty, as if renaming the lion
could change anything. It doesn’t, of course, but
there is something soothing about the tone you are using.
Use the same tone to speak to yourself. Nice human,
nice human, though you’d rather curse yourself
for putting yourself in this position.
Witness how the longer you stay here
the easier it is to breathe, though the danger
is no less real. Now you can even notice the sky—
how blue it is above you, fathomless,
bluer somehow than you’ve ever seen it before,
rising as it does above the golden mane,
the shockingly beautiful amber eyes.