Since you died, every shooting star is you.
Not a sign, exactly, more like a reminder
you came into my life brilliant and brief.
More like a reminder to say your name out loud.
As if I don’t already say your name out loud
at least a dozen times a day.
Tonight while walking in the cold
I saw two shooting stars,
and it reminded me of a warmer night
when you and your sister and I
stretched our bodies side by side
on the cool pavement and stared up at the sky
hoping for meteors.
Did we see any? I don’t recall.
I only remember how happy I was then.
A small bit of that happiness
reaches through the loss.
It takes me by the hand,
walks with me through the dark.
Archive for November, 2022
Leonids
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged dark, death, grief, happiness, meteor, shooting star, walk on November 30, 2022| 4 Comments »
One Secret
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged darkness, night, wishing on November 30, 2022| 4 Comments »
not the brilliant stars
but the infinite dark
what I wish on
The Mother Stands in the Doorway
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged breath, death, door, doorway, grief, loss, mother, silence, son on November 28, 2022| 12 Comments »
Because you are gone,
I will never again stand
in your doorway and listen
to the sound of your breath
as you sleep.
I can remember the way
it used to calm me—
the slow, even rhythm
that proved you were alive.
I used to laugh at myself.
As if you wouldn’t be alive.
How farfetched it felt,
the idea of your death.
Now, I hear the absence
of your breath everywhere—
everywhere is a doorway
where I find you are not.
And so I listen.
Sometimes it seems as if a silence
is breathing me,
and somehow, you live in that silence.
I don’t know how it works.
I only know that since you are gone,
sometimes listening feels like communion.
Sometimes when I am very quiet,
when there is no sound at all,
I hear you say nothing.
It’s everything.
In the Look
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged bunny, gaze, memory, rabbit, seeing, watching on November 27, 2022| 7 Comments »
A bunny knows when it’s being watched,
as if attention itself has a weight.
As if it feels my stare like a rush,
like a threatening hand, like a stroke.
But when I graze the bunny
with a brush of a glance
and with half-lidded eyes,
my body faintly angled to the side,
the bunny will bear
the gravity of my notice
and I may watch all I want
as it nibbles and twitches,
hops and rests.
And so it is I learn to meet my past
with a softened gaze, with gauzy eyes,
to meet a memory slant.
The memories let me linger now,
increasingly unskittish.
I do not try to touch them.
They multiply like rabbits.
Deeper into the Dark Playshop & Performance, Denver, December 3
Posted in Uncategorized on November 27, 2022| 1 Comment »
Come explore our relationship with darkness in a “playshop” and an in-person reading by Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer on Saturday, December 3. Both events are at Shyft at Mile High, at 1401 Zuni St, Suite 106, close to downtown Denver. No previous writing experience is needed. Registration and ticket information is below.
| Poet Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer will have two in-person events on December 3 in Denver, both devoted to exploring our relationship with darkness. The four-hour writing playshop (more fun than a workshop) is from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Later that night, Trommer will perform poems about darkness and light from 6-7:30 p.m., accompanied by guitarist Steve Law. Both events take place at SHYFT at Mile High. Please call 720-486-9798 or email hello@shyftatmilehigh.org with questions. These events will not be live streamed or recorded. |
1. DEEPER INTO THE DARK: An In-Person Playshop with Rosemerry Trommer DATE: Saturday, Dec 3TIME: 11am – 3 pmLOCATION: Shyft at Mile HighPrice: $100/$125/$150Register: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/poetry-workshop-with-rosemerry-trommer-deeper-into-the-dark-tickets-428893330497 Our relationship with darkness is one of the most lush and powerful subjects of poetry. In this time of deepening darkness, spend four hours exploring the dark through language. What is possible only in the dark? What aspects of our life are nourished by darkness? What does it have to teach us?No writing or poetry experience is necessary, and sharing is always optional.LIMITED SPACE AVAILABLEPlease call 720-486-9798 or email hello@shyftatmilehigh.org with questions. This event will not be live streamed or recorded. |
| 2. DEEPER INTO THE DARK: An In-Person Performance with Rosemerry Trommer & Guitarist Steve Law DATE: Saturday, Dec 3rdTIME: 6:00 – 7:30pmLOCATION: Shyft at Mile HighPrice: $12Register: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/poetry-performance-with-rosemerry-trommer-deeper-into-the-dark-tickets-428906981327An evening of poems celebrating the dark, and perhaps a little light.… there are many ways to face the dark. One is to hide. One is to prowl. One is to bring the bright music of your body and offer it to the night. –Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer, from “Crickets” Join Rosemerry for an evening of poems that celebrate these lengthening nights and all the dark has to teach us. An intimate, mystical, heart-opening evening of poetry performance and music.Please call 720-486-9798 or email hello@shyftatmilehigh.org with questions. This event will not be live streamed or recorded. |
Big Picture
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged evolution, friendship, geology, hearing, San Miguel River Canyon, singing, song, Ulli Sir Jesse on November 27, 2022| 13 Comments »
On a rocky white outcrop,
Ulli and I stand in silence
at the edge of the canyon,
held by layers that range
from the Permian to the Cretaceous,
and Ulli begins to sing
a song we sang twenty years ago
and, from the strata of memory,
I unearth the German lyric,
excavate the harmony,
and we join our voices
to the structuring of time,
just one more arrangement
of temporal events
added to the linear record
since the singularity.
And the sound waves tremble
in the sensitive membrane drum
between the middle ear
and the cochlea—
a song of connection,
a song of fading light,
a song that somehow
has origins in the Ichthyostega
that crawled from the sea,
the development of Broca’s area
in the left frontal lobe of the brain,
the mountaineers who would sing
to each other across the Alps at dusk,
and this wonderful woman who
brought these words and this tune from Europe
and taught them to me in Colorado
so that decades later
we might stand side by side on this cliff
and know ourselves lucky—
after all that has happened—
lucky to find ourselves in the same remote place
singing the same familiar song,
the molecules a spiraling ricochet of praise,
our song itself part of the matter
that makes the world,
part of a pattern that is ever overlapping.
Is it any wonder
I cried?
The Path
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged fortune, future, path, san francisco, the present on November 25, 2022| 2 Comments »
And again, I did not visit the psychic
on Columbus Avenue.
Again, I did not sit with her
in her high-back chairs,
plush with bright red upholstery
and shining gold filigree.
Did not offer her my palm.
Did not choose cards from her deck.
Did not listen to her soothing tones.
Not that I don’t have questions.
Not that I don’t believe in her.
Not that I don’t want to sit
in those extravagant chairs
and take a small break,
to rest these tired feet.
It was the path itself
that seemed to say
it did not wish to be seen
more clearly.
So I stopped and stared longingly
through the wide store window,
took in the warm bright room,
then continued to walk the path.
The path is a metaphor, but no less real
than the window, the glorious chair.
I was not clear where I was going.
I kissed the morning air.
The path, I swear, it smiled.
Family Recipe
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged dad, recipe, san francisco, secret, thanksgiving on November 25, 2022| 7 Comments »
All day, I search for it,
the secret ingredient—
something my father
believed in. He always
made stuffing
with something extra,
something special,
then made us guess
what the secret was.
All day, I notice
what goes into a day—
a total of 86,400 seconds,
and in every second
a choice of how
we will meet that second.
If the day is stuffing,
then this day has
some unusual ingredients:
a couple dozen folks
in swimsuits on the sidewalk,
one woman with a dying parrot
she has tucked in her sweater,
a whole garden full of lemon trees,
one ripe hour alone
in the sunshine on a rooftop,
a generous measure of laughter
as my daughter and husband and I
climb a near-vertical hill,
and bittersweet tears
as I think of Dad
and his love of secret ingredients.
All day, the world
shows off its flavors.
All day, I revel in the recipe,
this extraordinary day,
something that can never
be made the same way again.
Thanks
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged palace of fine arts, san francisco, thank you, thanksgiving on November 23, 2022| 14 Comments »
Inside each honest thank you
is a giant open-air pavilion
beside a curving and generous pond
that reflects the sky and is home
to cormorants, white egrets,
turtles, and humble ducks.
There is laughter that rings
through the archways,
wonder that wanders the paths.
There are angels that circle
each thank you spoken with love,
whether we believe in angels or not.
Every sincere expression of thanks
is a choice to meet what is good in the world
and to honor it with our attention.
There are thousands and thousands
of reasons to forget we are grateful,
and yet just one genuine thank you
builds an improbable palace
out of the moment, fills it with beauty,
shares it with the world, asks nothing in return.
So Real, the Dream
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged cable car, dream, love, reality, san francisco, trust on November 23, 2022| 6 Comments »
In the dream, it was clear,
I am the cable car
and love itself is the cable
beneath the streets,
that pulls me along
up the steepest of hills,
requiring nothing
except I hold on.
Though I can’t see it, it’s there.
Though I must sometimes let go,
I must always return to holding it.
When I woke,
the dream was fuzzy,
but the truth no less clear:
love has carried me.
All day I marvel
at the strength of the cable.
All day I am grateful
for love beyond understanding:
invisible love, powerful love,
a continuous unbroken loop.
Even now, I hear it
singing in its motion,
song of constancy,
song of trust.
On the Anniversary of My Father’s Death, I Go to the Shakespeare Garden
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged begonia, father, flower, garden, loss, love, san francisco on November 22, 2022| 10 Comments »
A whole garden of begonias
blesses me this day,
this double-edged day
in which I find myself
in a long and generous park
with my husband and daughter,
and I also find myself
in a small room one year ago
when I last heard your voice,
when I last felt you squeeze my hand.
How strange and honest it is,
this living in two days at once.
Why was I drawn to walk
to this unfamiliar place
where thousands of white
and red begonias bloom,
undeterred by longer nights,
by shade?
You loved this flower.
For you, every flower,
no matter its real name,
was begonia.
I meet the coincidence
as if it’s a generous sign
you still guide me
in ways I do not understand.
Each begonia petal is a key
to pick the locks of my rational mind.
Today, the doors of love
are visible everywhere.
I open them every time
and all the world’s begonia.
Interview with Raghu Markus
Posted in Uncategorized on November 20, 2022| 7 Comments »
Speaking about silence? A paradox, of course, but a joyful exploration. I had the chance to join the thoughtful Raghu Markus on the Be Here Now Network for Mind Rolling, an hour-long podcast in which we speak about poetry as a spiritual path, meeting loss, transformation and trust, and being a “wide-open listener,” a term he used that i absolutely love–how might we become more wide-open listeners? We read lots of poems, many of mine, plus Raghu reads several by Stephen Levine–such a treat.
Quince
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged friendship, fruit, newness, perfume, quince on November 18, 2022| 6 Comments »
for Christie
Shaggy and mottled,
lumpy as an old woman’s thighs,
five quince recline in the shallow bowl
and all day I marvel
as the delicate scent opens,
exotic and fragrant,
like guava, like honey,
like citrus, vanilla.
Every year my friend
harvests me quince from her tree,
and every year they somehow
astonish me again.
As if I didn’t know.
As if their sweetness is new.
Perhaps the annual forgetting is a gift,
because what joy
in falling in love with them
again each year,
their bright yellow scent,
the honest perfume of friendship,
the thrill in their ripening.
What No One Knew Tonight
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged oud, perfume, scent, secret on November 18, 2022| 4 Comments »
for Shushana Castle
Anyone with a link
could watch the pixels of her
as they streamed through the ether,
but no one in the world knew she wore oud,
a musky, pungent, smoky scent
that comes from the agar tree.
A scent said to carry prayers.
A scent said to bring serenity.
A scent derived from resin
that appears only when the heartwood of agar
has been infected by fungus, attacked.
It is not lost on her she wears
the perfume of a wounded heart—
rich and heavy, warm and animalistic.
It fills her nose with an olfactory story
that says, I have survived, and damned
if I won’t make of the wound something sweet.
She dons the gift like a secret worn on her sleeve—
something anyone could perceive
if only they come close enough—
there’s so much more than what one can see.
Reading with Jon Lee & Sandra Gill
Posted in Uncategorized on November 18, 2022| 2 Comments »
I learned more about my own poems by watching ASL interpreter Joe Moore bring them into their face & hands and body. What a gift to watch them and another interpreter, too, Nico, accompany me, Sandra Gill and Jon Lee in an evening of poems that touch on family, history, tradition, connection, love, loss and opening. My own poems, starting around 1:05:00, focus on grief and gratefulness. I am so grateful for Kari Gunter-Seymour who curated this program and to Stuart’s Opera House for hosting Spoken & Heard on November 17, 2022.
Once Upon a Night
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged dance, daughter, mother, play on November 17, 2022| 7 Comments »
In the living room after dinner, my daughter
plays Tchaikovsky on Alexa
and dances every character in Sleeping Beauty—
Aurora, the prince, the evil fairy,
the lilac fairy, the bluebird, the jewels—
she leaps and lifts, she jumps
and twirls and raises her arms
with a delicate twist of each wrist.
She is more wing than limb,
more song than blood,
more frolic than bone.
To watch her is holy business
as she learns to make each step beautiful.
Unsolid
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged body, daughter, music, stone, wind on November 16, 2022| 11 Comments »
After I’ve spent a whole day being stone,
my daughter plays our song on the stereo
and my body is whirlwind, a column of air
spinning round and round, gaining momentum,
and what once was sandstone in me is now dervish,
is dust devil, is momentary phenomenon,
and I barely recall what it’s like to be dense
as I sing and my arms rise and twirl
and I swirl through the room around my girl
thrilling in being this woman on this night,
this spinning delight, this whirling release,
short lived, perhaps, but oh for this twinkling,
I’m windborne, I’m dancing across the horizon
and the wind says, remember, remember this.
Randomized
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged experiment, science, self-perception, who am I on November 14, 2022| 9 Comments »
I feel like I’m this experiment called Joi.
—Joi Sharp
Now that we’re calling this life an experiment,
it’s suddenly more fun to notice
what makes a Rosemerry angry?
How does a Rosemerry learn?
Can we make her annoyed?
What if we frustrate her with insurance claims?
With slow traffic? With politics?
With fill in the blank?
What conditions help her forgive?
How quickly might a Rosemerry
be moved to tears?
What makes her want to cast blame?
What if she meets guilt in a crowded room?
What if she has nowhere to hide?
What makes her feel small?
What makes her feel vast?
How does a Rosemerry
heal from a wound?
What happens when she is infused with love?
What if it’s more than she can hold?
What inspires a Rosemerry to laugh?
What if she deviates from her thoughts?
If we minimize the variables,
can we predict what brings her peace?
If we control confounding factors,
can we repeat our findings?
Faced with the data,
can she still embrace the unknown?
Can she stay open to possibility?
Lose her attachment to outcomes?
Such a curious subject,
elusive as a song.
What if we change the stimulus again?
Who is she now?