Posted in Uncategorized on June 30, 2022| Leave a Comment »
Explore mindfulness and writing in a monthly online community. Join me and my fabulous co-host Augusta Kantra for inspiration, connection and heart-awakening conversation in Soul Writers Circle. We have several openings for our fourth season. It’s a six-month commitment to yourself and the group, a chance to find support in endeavors that are often solitary. Our new season begins July 17. Let’s play!
For more information and to register: click here
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged beauty, friendship, love, opening, saxifrage, wildflower on June 30, 2022| 4 Comments »
for Andrea Bird
A person, once a stranger,
can slip into your life,
unplanned, of course,
as if brought by the wind
in much the same way
a seed of spotted saxifrage
can slip by happenstance
into a crack in a rock
then root and grow.
Eventually, the saxifrage
will split the rock open.
By then, it will be full,
its flowers prolific
and beautiful.
If you are lucky,
this once stranger
will do in time
the same to you—
will be alive in you,
crack you open
with their beauty,
make you grateful
to be so broken.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged ekphrasis, Kayleen Asbo, rain, Van Gogh on June 29, 2022| 4 Comments »
inspired by Landscape at Auvers in the Rain by Vincent van Gogh and Rain at Auvers by Kayleen Asbo
Sometimes when it rains
I forget it will ever stop raining.
The rain, it falls,
it falls for days, it falls,
and the rain becomes
a metric imperative,
insistent as a stop watch,
familiar as the pulsing
of blood in the heart,
a throbbing, a beat so adamant
I forget any other tune.
Did you forget, Vincent,
the rain would stop?
Did you feel inside you
a storm as urgent, as bold,
as the rain you painted
long diagonal strokes?
I can’t look at your painting
without feeling inside me the rain,
the rain, feel it slant across my world
in thick dark lines.
I can’t look at the purples
and yellows of Auvers
without remembering how days
after you painted these hues,
you would take your life.
But how could I vilify the storm
even knowing what I do?
You found in the tumult
light.
You fueled the dampened, darkened world
with ecstatic gold.
You didn’t push the storm away, Vincent.
You let it drench you.
You shared with us all
how struggle, too,
is so terribly, terribly
beautiful.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged difficulty, eye, heart, love, opening on June 28, 2022| 4 Comments »
If the eyes
can adjust
to the dark,
the iris expanding
the pupil
as wide
as possible
to open to light
and enhance
sensitivity,
then dear
heart, how
might you,
too, adjust?
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged daughter, fear, mother, trust, water on June 27, 2022| 12 Comments »
My heart races like a plane
traveling 575 miles per hour
to a country beset with flooding
landslides and significant damage
to roads, homes and buildings.
I watch myself rise from the table
and start to pace the house.
Are you really going to freak out?
I ask myself. I watch myself act out the answer.
Anxiety rushes in, bringing with it
the detritus of recent trauma.
I can’t lose another child, I think.
The idea floats atop wave after wave of fear.
You’re not being rational, says the mind,
but the adrenal medullas above my kidneys
start pumping hormones into the bloodstream,
And I pace the rooms of the house
as panic rises in me like tropical rainwater
gushing over riverbanks.
I hear an inner voice that says,
Even if she is not okay,
you will be able to meet whatever comes.
But I do not want to.
My lungs can’t get enough air.
I want promises she will be safe.
I want guarantees she will be protected
from harm. I want her wrapped in my arms.
My friends says, There are a lot of other mothers
in the world for our babies,
And I think of how I trust
the woman my daughter is with.
I think how I trust my daughter.
But the world, can I trust the world?
My friend listens when I tell her
I have never been a worrier,
but now I know too well the stakes.
She says to me,
You are not the same woman you were.
In that moment, I sit in the lap
of the truth, and though I don’t like it,
it comforts me, holds me
the way I wish I could hold my daughter.
I am a woman who knows
what it is to lose a child.
And I am a woman who
has been carried by love
when I could not carry myself.
I notice the panic and do not wish it away.
Of course it is here.
I feel cradled by my humanness.
I breathe out and in, out and in.
find the current in my breath—
sometimes a torrent, sometimes a stream.
I let myself ride on it.
Posted in Uncategorized on June 27, 2022| Leave a Comment »
singing for hours—
our aching hearts
harmonize
Posted in Uncategorized on June 27, 2022| Leave a Comment »
dancing under stars—
these living bones
made of old stars
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged light, pica, solstice, summer on June 24, 2022| 2 Comments »
I find myself storing up on light
the way pikas store summer grass—
leaving it out to dry
in front of their rocky homes.
I store light in poems,
in photographs. I stand
bare skinned in the sun
and store it in memories.
There will be a day five months from now
when I will desperately want to remember
how it feels to stand naked
in the field, held by the warmth
of the sun. So I stand naked in the field,
and if I were a pika, there would be
in front of my door a stack
of golden rays and a dozen
long and sun-drenched days
and the scent of an almost rain.
I know the winter is long. I remember.
I gather more light, more light.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged exhaustion on June 22, 2022| 4 Comments »
ransacking the stars—
surely some of that shine
will stick to me?
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged dark, light, patience, solstice on June 22, 2022| 8 Comments »
There is comfort in knowing
that every year
since the earth was made
there has been
a longest day of the year—
a day when half of all life
wakes to an abundance of light
and then in that moment
of greatness leans again
toward the dark.
There is comfort in knowing
the light comes, the light leaves,
the light comes, the light leaves,
comfort in knowing
all the light that is
reaches toward us,
whether we can see it or not.
It is simply a matter
of staying out of our own way,
and if we can’t do that,
well, that is what patience is for.
Posted in Uncategorized on June 21, 2022| Leave a Comment »
Wednesday, June 22, 6-6:45 p.m. mountain time
Reading and writing poems about the natural world can invite a deeper relationship with the earth and teach us so much about what it means to be alive. In this 45-minute webinar-style thoughtshop, Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer will share poems about the natural world and its flora and fauna—poems that help us pay attention, or as Rumi would say, open the sail, so we can keep our hearts and heads where our bodies are, returning us to the present moment again and again. With each poem she shares and discusses, Rosemerry will offer prompts for participants to write their own poems that explore their relationships to the world around them.
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.
To purchase a ticket: When you click register, you will be prompted to create an online account with Mindbody. Simply use your email and a password you would like to use. If you have an account but forgot your password, select “forgot password” and follow the prompts.
If you have any issues signing up, please call us at (720) 486-9798. Beth will get back to you within 48 hours and always by the day of the workshop.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged joy, nature, small things on June 21, 2022| 8 Comments »
It can be so small, what saves me.
Like the crow that arrives every day
in the same green spot in the yard.
Like the baby bunny that lives
beneath our porch who locks eyes
with me every morning.
Like skinny dipping with Corinne
in a frigid alpine lake. Bite of radish
just picked from the garden.
Scent of wild roses on the trail.
It does not make sense that pleasures
so small could somehow stand up
to a ransacked heart, and yet
when I hear the whir of hummingbird wings
or see the tiny purple of a Lady Slipper
rising out of the dirt,
I notice the dogged joy in me,
how it glimmers against the dark
like the shooting star I saw tonight,
long and brilliant and red,
or like the owl in the spruce trees
that with only a handful
of low and sonorous notes,
redefines the night with song.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged daughter, father, Father's Day, grief, loss on June 20, 2022| 8 Comments »
Perhaps you listen again and again
to his favorite song. Maybe you look
at photos of him and remember
birthdays and Tuesdays and boat trips
and snuggling on the couch.
Maybe you reach out to touch his head,
miss the soft fuzz of his buzz cut.
You might light a candle and say his name
as you have nearly every day since he died.
Of course, he loved “What a Wonderful World.”
And the world is wonderful, though damn,
what you wouldn’t give to hear him
say your name or your nickname,
to hear the sunshine in his voice—
how it touches your heart like sunrise on water.
You might walk out into the night
and converse with the stars as if he were listening.
Maybe you feel the strangest infusion of love,
as if your arms are tingling
and your chest is tingling
and you can’t explain it
but your whole body’s humming.
Perhaps you cry, but there is no way to know
what percentage of the tears is sadness
and what percentage is gratitude.
Perhaps you think of all the other daughters and sons
who have lost their fathers
and you open your heart to their loss.
You decide, again, to honor him
by living a life he’d be proud of.
Your father, perhaps you think
of the last day you saw him alive,
how he lifted his hands,
his eyes tracking something you couldn’t see.
Perhaps you practice remembering him—
his laughter, his fury, his advice, his silence—
and you notice how, each time you practice,
he is so close to you, as close as breath.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged cinema, grave, grief, holding, painting, self-forgiveness on June 19, 2022| 10 Comments »
This morning I painted
a wooden marker for your grave—
a slender plank to hold the space
until the stone arrives.
I wanted it to be perfect,
but I am not a painter.
I am a mother painting
a wooden marker
for the grave of her son,
but there is devotion
in the uneven blue coat,
devotion in the crooked silver lettering,
devotion in every brush stroke of white.
In the movie of me,
I watched as the lens zoomed in
on my awkward hands
to show their slow and loyal work.
Then the frame widened
to include the quiet rooms in the house,
widened more to comprise the summer field,
then panned and tilted to the sky
to show the gathering rain.
After the fade to gray,
I was still here, sitting at the table,
paint on my dress,
my life not a movie but my life—
every day the chance to live into it.
I flashed back to sitting
at this same table
where you learned to write your letters,
then learned to write your name.
Fast forwarded through thousands
of family dinners.
Flashed to this morning
as I finished the grave marker,
shaping the letters of your name through tears.
Though a camera couldn’t show it,
I forgave myself
for not being a better painter.
I told myself I did the best I could.
It was hours before the rain began to fall.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged abundance, dream, grief, scarcity on June 17, 2022| 8 Comments »
Why do I resist this room
with its wall of windows,
its low-angled light,
the tables all laden
with apples and mangos
and long braids of bread?
Why do I feel myself
leaning away
from miraculous abundance,
white linen cloths,
and pale yellow bouquets?
This cake is sweet
but I cannot taste it.
Surrounded by food,
I have a different hunger.
Surrounded with lushness,
I feel a different need.
Sometimes what the heart
most craves is
nothing—
the fast between the feasts,
the spaciousness
filled only by love.
I am not afraid
of emptiness.
I need what I need,
and it’s spare.
Thank you for the feast—
I don’t mean to be ungrateful.
There is beauty, too,
in barrenness.
I don’t want to fill
this hole.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged James Joyce, literature, ulysses, yes on June 17, 2022| 4 Comments »
a musing on Bloomsday, June 16
That was the first time
I fully understood
the sway of yes—
how what Joyce called
“the female word”
could seduce, could affirm,
could acquiesce,
could mountain flower,
could undress a grown man,
could slowly caress
others’ tenderest parts,
could trespass like perfume,
could rewrite the past.
Joyce said it signaled
“the end of all resistance,”
and I who tried
to be good, to be tame,
to do right, read Molly
and lusted to be
the one in the red yes
who lives with abandon
and recklessness,
and yes, I thought, yes
I could live into yes,
I slipped into the word
like a silken digression,
and thirty years later,
I still dream in yes,
my heart beating mad,
a riotous clash
when I yes, pulse with yes
did it enter you, too,
this radiant yes,
beating yes,
oh this yes.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged beauty, depression, ekphrasis, Kayleen Asbo, Van Gogh on June 16, 2022| 9 Comments »
inspired by Eternity’s Gate by Vincent van Gogh and a piano composition by the same name by Kayleen Asbo, with quotes from van Gogh’s writings about the painting
Perhaps you, too, have sat
in the corner of a room,
back bent like winter grass,
elbows on your knees,
head weighty in your hands.
Spent. Exhausted.
Unsure how to live
another minute.
This is perhaps
the moment
we least want to be seen,
but if we are lucky,
perhaps an artist
with an eye for eternity
will feel it his duty
to find in our ruin
something precious,
something noble,
something unutterably moving
something to help us
know ourselves
as a part of infinity,
our life a brief song,
unbearably beautiful,
a masterpiece,
dark and descending
though it is.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged beauty, priorities on June 15, 2022| 2 Comments »
hiking to the waterfall
my priorities rearrange themselves
promptness? or bright pink primrose?
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged death, gratitude, grief, home, loss, mother, self-talk, son on June 14, 2022| 13 Comments »
Because I can, I carry the box with your ashes
around the house as if you’re a baby on my hip.
I point out things and explain them,
just as I did when you were young and alive.
There, I say, there is where you practiced piano.
Here, I say, is where you sat at the counter
and wept when I told you the story
of Cinderella. And here is the wall
where we hung all your artwork.
And here is the room where you slept.
Here’s the plant you gave me last year—
see how it’s doubled in size?
And here’s the new couch in the place
where the old couch once was,
the one on which we snuggled each morning
before school. I walk the floor as I did
when you were young and fussy and needed
touch and movement to calm you.
Now I am the one who is calmed by the walking.
So familiar, these steps around the kitchen island,
these steps around the table.
So familiar, this weight on my hip.
Soon we will place this small wooden box
in the ground, so while I still can, I carry you.
Oh sweetheart, how is it I’m thriving amidst this gravity?
It is, I am sure, because I, too, am deeply companioned,
carried from moment to moment, from space to space.
And though I don’t hear it, there is perhaps a voice
that says to me, Here is where you lit
a candle every day. Here is where you practiced
to love in new ways. And here is where
you did not judge yourself as you wept.
Here is the place where you did nothing but breathe.
And here is where you thought of all the people
who have carried you.
And here is where you said thank you.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged field, grief, mowing, oregano, yard on June 13, 2022| 4 Comments »
with a line from Albert Huffstickler, “The Cure”
The oregano escaped the garden
almost twenty years ago
and now it grows in such abundance
I mow it with the rest of the field grass—
oh wild scent of earth and mint,
a feral goodness, an untamable joy.
It always grows back, only more so.
It’s like the memories of you
that now grow so rampant
they help define the field.
I could never contain them
or eradicate them,
nor would I try—not even
the memories that hurt.
I am willing to meet what hurts—
it’s so like oregano. Pungent.
strong, astringent, too much
when encountered alone,
but when blended, it’s a bitterness
that enhances the world.
How strange that what hurts us
can nourish us.
How strange our lives are recast by grief—
a gradual transformation,
ordinary as the field,
natural as a leaf.