Any chemistry student
can tell you: a substance
that undergoes transformation
must first be torn apart.
I have been torn apart.
I have felt the breaking,
the rearranging,
and now the rebuilding
of my bonds. I marvel
at the brand new molecules—
how they transform
from despair to openness.
Though I look the same
and sound the same,
there is no mistaking
I am forever changed—
but not by sorrow, no.
Sorrow is the catalyst
that speeds it all up.
But it is love absorbed
that is breaking the bonds,
and love that evolves
as new bonds are made.
Some days I feel it,
I am less what I was and more
whatever it is that drives
the autumn, the spring.
Every day the chance
for love to find its way in.
And each time love helps me
to meet the unmeetable,
the reactant of self
becomes offering.
Archive for May, 2022
Catalysis
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged chemical reaction, chemistry, grief, love, sorrow, transformation on May 12, 2022| 6 Comments »
No Way to Anchor
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged daughter, play, time on May 11, 2022| 6 Comments »
While our bodies curl
into each other on the couch,
Vivian grabs my resting hand
and begins to smack it
into my chin.
Why are you hitting yourself?
she asks as my limp hand
repeatedly hits my jaw.
Why are you hitting yourself?
And we’re laughing and
I squirm and squeak
and she grins as she keeps up
her one-line interrogation.
I want to hold this giggling moment,
want to linger here
where the truth
that we hurt ourselves
becomes play,
where the trust
that we will do our best
to not hurt each other
runs deep, deep as the current
that drags this moment
with it through time,
even as I squeal Stop,
knowing how it goes on.
Grief and Grace: An online poetry thoughtshop
Posted in Uncategorized on May 10, 2022| Leave a Comment »
May 18, 6 p.m mountain time, $12.
Loss and grief break us open. Perhaps you, too, find yourself leaning into this vulnerable, tender place. In this 45-minute webinar-style poetry thoughtshop, Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer will share poems that explore this broken-hearted terrain, poems of sorrow, compassion, love, peace and healing, poems that help us remember our loved ones and re-encounter the world and ourselves without their physical presence. She will share poetry to help us open our hearts, to lean deeper into paradox, to dance with uncertainty, and to find words that help meet the complex terrains of grief. For each poem Rosemerry discusses, she will also offer prompts to help you write poems to give voice to your own sorrows.
Hosted by SHFYT at Mile High, this program is held on zoom. Once you register, you will receive a link. After the event, participants receive a link to the video, plus links to find all the poems.
A Song in the Dark
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged community, helping, light, lunar halo, moon, sharing, shine on May 10, 2022| 15 Comments »
It’s tiny hexagonal ice crystals
in the earth’s atmosphere
that create the bright halo
around the moon.
Think of it,
so many scraps of borrowed light—
so that I shine
becomes the song
of something
with no glow of its own.
Just because its science—
refraction and reflection—
doesn’t mean it’s not a miracle.
Just ask anyone who, for a time,
has lost their own light
then receives it from another
who received it from another,
and soon they find themselves
part of a radiant circle of light
where before
there was only ice.
Calling My Mother on Mother’s Day
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged daughter, grief, mother, mother's day on May 8, 2022| 15 Comments »
thank you, Mom
And though she is now late for church
and though she is still getting dressed
and though we had already said goodbye
and had nearly hung up,
my mother sits in her rocker
and gives me her full attention
as I cry. This, she says, is exactly
what Mother’s Day is for.
And part of me wants to let her go,
and part of me is so grateful
she stays with me, holding me
with her being. For though
there are no words that bring comfort,
her silence and presence do,
and though I am no longer
a little girl who can curl into her lap,
that’s what I do. I feel myself cradled
and fall all the way into her love
and it feels good to be a daughter
on this day when it’s not easy
to be a mother. It feels good
for a moment to not be the one
doing the holding. To not be the one
who is strong. To be the one
who nestles deeper in,
so deep
I can meet the unmeetable.
Poem for Mothers Who Have Recently Lost a Child
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged grief, mother, mother's day on May 8, 2022| 12 Comments »
with gratitude for all who have gone before
Now I know there is a circle of love—
a circle formed not only by the great remaking of self
when a child is born
but also by the great remaking of self
when a child dies.
It doesn’t matter how old the child
or how they died. It doesn’t matter
if the loss happens today or seventy years ago.
It doesn’t matter if they live next door
or Peru or Israel or South Africa.
Now I know there is a circle
of women who have died themselves
and found a way to keep living.
They are among us at the grocery store,
in restaurants, on the street.
They look like our sister, our boss,
our lover, our student, our friend.
They find us. They say, “I am here.”
They offer to climb into bed with us
on the days we can’t get out.
They know to say the name of our child.
They speak in the present tense.
Perhaps they light candles.
Perhaps they make meals.
Perhaps they pray for us without telling us so.
Now I know there’s a circle of love
that surrounds this circle—
a circle of others who carry us
whether we ask them to or not,
who hold us as if we are treasure,
who remind us we are deeply connected,
who weave us back into the greater cloth.
Now I know the broken heart
can be a heart that expands, a heart that widens,
a heart that meets suffering and stays open.
Now I know the broken heart will do whatever it does.
And grief is a bond
not only to the one who is gone,
but to those who remain.
I know love grows in the deepest wounds.
We go on. Like love itself, we go on.
Because my heart is where you now dwell,
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged death, grief, heart, love on May 7, 2022| 12 Comments »
inspired by Leigh Gage
I try to make it beautiful—a spacious place
with room enough for blue birds to migrate,
where whole herds of elk can bed down,
and with fields so vast they hold
every memory of you—
not just the warmhearted memories,
but the hardest ones, too.
Those I hold up to the soft light of morning,
grateful for room enough to walk around them
and give them the space they need.
Those I hold up to the sharp light of noon
and say, yes, yes, it was like that.
I fill my heart with the scent of apple pie and cinnamon,
lemon zest and the river in spring.
Sometimes, when I am most vulnerable,
there’s a floral fragrance of forgiving.
I try to keep my heart soft. I try not to clench,
not to harden, not to set. I try to create
a place where you can rest, where you can stay.
It is full of blank books, each one waiting to be filled
with stories of how it is with you living here in my heart,
this place where you have always lived,
this place even death cannot take away—
this place death has made more holy, more real.
One Transposition
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged compassion, connection, empathy, heart on May 5, 2022| 2 Comments »
feeling it inside me
tender and tired
your heart
May 4, 2022
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged grief, missing, ordinary on May 4, 2022| 14 Comments »
It wasn’t that anything special happened today.
No holiday. No giant rainbow. No astonishment
of bloom. Though in years past we would have said,
May the Fourth be with you.
It wasn’t that I made an extraordinary meal,
though you did love the thin-sliced roasted potatoes
I made tonight, and they did turn out good,
slightly bubbled and browned.
It wasn’t that there was a bobcat on the porch.
And the morels aren’t out just yet.
And Mother’s Day is not until this weekend.
But I missed you. I missed you not because it was
the first May 4 since you were gone, I missed you
simply because you are gone. Sometimes,
getting through any ordinary day
is like trying to play Scrabble alone.
It’s like singing a lullaby to an empty bed.
It’s like not making your lunch.
It’s like not worrying how you’re doing.
It’s like lighting a candle and letting it burn to the end.
The Bailiff of the Heart
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged bailiff, court, heart, love on May 3, 2022| 8 Comments »
The Bailiff of the Heart wears comfortable shoes—
she knows she’ll be standing
outside the heart’s door
for a long, long time,
while inside the many voices of love deliberate.
It’s never so simple as innocent or guilty.
The heart is full of what ifs and if onlys
and the jury’s aware of what’s at stake—
nothing less than everything.
The bailiff doesn’t mind.
She can hear them in there bellowing,
pleading, reasoning, stonewalling.
She gets them water. She tells the court to wait.
It’s her job to protect their conversation.
She long ago gave up believing in justice.
Still, she believes in love.