for Joan Shearer
From six hours away,
she holds my hand.
Tonight when my ship
has no anchor, she meets
me in the waves and
floats with me there.
Not because I told her
I needed her. It’s more
that her soul is ever ready
to bob in the swells.
We drift. We say nothing,
but I don’t feel alone.
We’re alive in the silence
that weaves through all sound,
connected by the invisible
currents that govern whatever
is real. What is real: letting
another person feel what they feel.
And being there with them,
saying “I love being with you like this,”
sharing the fullness so present
even from six hours away.
Archive for March, 2023
From Six Hours Away
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged connection, friendship, silence on March 30, 2023| 2 Comments »
Beyond Beautiful
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged augusta kantra, love, woman on March 30, 2023| 6 Comments »
for Augusta
She is the hot rod engine,
the fuel, the transmission.
She is the race itself.
She is the door,
the picker of locks,
the opening swing, the courage
to step through the frame.
She’s the path. The steepest road.
The gentle country lane.
The quiet when the sun goes down.
The warmth when it rises gain.
She is the still of shavasana,
the leap in the merry heart.
She is the immeasurable dark,
the faithful moon,
a kite, a riotous wind.
She’s candle and constellation,
bonfire, firefly, comet that crashes the sky.
She is sky. She is faint scent of rain.
The sweet of satsuma,
the double bloom of camellia,
the nothing you can’t quite touch.
She is the key that opens your thoughts,
the song that grows your soul.
She’s the beacon at the bay,
the pelican deep dive,
the ever present tide of the seas.
She’s the luck that makes itself,
the wildflower that blooms
wherever its seeded,
the prayer that slips itself into your heart
in exactly the moment you need it.
Unscheduled
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged bunny, busy-ness, time, wonder on March 29, 2023| 3 Comments »
No matter the day is already planned
to the minute. No matter how pressing
the deadline, the must do, the should.
It takes only a second to look out the window
and see the brown bunny in the brown grass.
It takes only a second to fall in love
with the twitchy nose, the nervous eyes,
the lumpy shape of bunny.
How quickly the known world cants toward awe
when wonder slips in—wonder forged
not from epiphany or greatness
but from the barest instant of meeting what is real.
Impossible Generosity
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged daughter, generosity, grief, love, parenting on March 27, 2023| 12 Comments »
for my daughter
I want to give you what I could not give you,
a world where there is no hurt or grief.
a world where you don’t know
ravaged and sleepless nights,
don’t know mornings too quiet
or the color of dirt in the cemetery.
Because I cannot give you this,
I want to give you the certainty
that you can live fully in a world
where there is hurt and grief,
that you can meet what is most painful
and at the same time
turn toward what is beautiful.
I want to give you a love so safe
that you grow into yourself
certain that there is nothing
you can do or not do
that could keep me from loving you.
I have been loved like this, too,
and did not know the enormity of the gift
until I longed to give it to you.
I want you to take it for granted
that love is so vast, so unshakeable,
so true. I want to give you the belief
in your resilience, want you to know yourself
as a flower that grows more vigorously
after it’s been cut back.
I would keep the hands from cutting you,
but since I can’t do that,
I want to be the soil, the rain, the sun.
I want to give you what cannot be given,
want to give you what you have given me—
the astonishment of living with you
in a time of hurt and grief
and the miracle of watching you grow.
New Poetry Collection! All the Honey
Posted in Uncategorized on March 26, 2023| 7 Comments »
Oh friends. I am so excited to share with you that I have a new collection of poems, thanks to the amazing Samara Press: All the Honey. It is a full-spectrum collection forged from great love, filled with devotion, loss, humor, devastation, joy, grief, epiphany, exhaustion, and all in between. It comes out April 18.
On the day of the launch, I hope you will join me, Tuesday, April 18, 11 mountain time, for a very special “lunch launch” hosted by Mythica and my beloved friend Kayleen Asbo. I will read poems from the book, and Kayleen and I will converse about poetry and how creativity can alchemically transform the pain of profound loss into a source of brave beauty that calls us into deeper relationship with all that is.
For more information and to register for this donation-based program, visit here.
*
All the Honey is available for pre-purchase at Bookshop.org
Or from Amazon.
Or at your own local bookseller.
OR
If you would like a book signed and/or personalized, please order it from Telluride Bookstore. (There is a big blank space at the end of the online order form where you can say who it is for, and if it is a gift, please also say who it is from). Please note, however, that Telluride Bookstore will be closed for the month of April and will not be taking orders during this month. SO if you wish to order from them, please do so BEFORE April 1 or AFTER May 1. In all cases, books ordered before publication date will be sent after May 1. This offer for book signing and personalization is good until June 1. Giant thank yous to the owners Jennifer and Brad Ball for making this possible!
If you live nearby, I will be doing an in person reading for All the Honey in Ridgway on April 25 at 7 p.m. at the Sherbino Theater featuring music by Ford & Fitzroy. And on May 2 in Telluride at Telluride Arts on Main at 5:30. More info TBA.
Two Months after My Son Died
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged generosity, grief, light, Mirabai Starr, silence on March 26, 2023| 3 Comments »
for MS
She gave me an hour.
Since then, every minute
has grown from the soil
of that time.
She gave me silence.
It was the wisest teaching.
She did not know me.
She deeply understood my heart.
There was a time
when she, too,
was met with unthinkable loss.
Now she knows
to say the name
of the one who is gone.
She knows not to fix.
She knows the gift
of being seen.
She asked for nothing
in return.
Over a year later,
I remember how she listened
with her eyes.
I remember the generosity
of her gaze.
She lit a candle for my child,
a golden light
on a bed of amethyst.
With that flame,
she has lit hundreds more
through my hand.
Sometimes I wonder
where her flame began,
I think of all the hands
lighting all the candles.
How beautiful that light.
How far we have come
from the dark we have known.
One Everyday Life
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged daily, meaning, mother, transcendence on March 26, 2023| Leave a Comment »
this errand, too
a quest for transcendence—
taking my girl for a haircut
What the Heart Would Keep of Today
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged communion, grief, meter, mothers, sorrow, time on March 25, 2023| 3 Comments »
for Naomi
Into this time capsule
of our conversation
I add a shovel and two trees,
a candle (of course),
a black and white button,
a closing door,
an inner knocking,
a cat box, tears,
wise words from a monk,
what isn’t here,
a dissolving dream,
long ribbon of laughter,
a letter that survived
four years of weather,
books we’ll never read,
the great hole inside,
sorrow that will be with us
until we die, and …
and whoever finds this capsule
couldn’t possibly guess
how this strange collection
nourished two friends.
It just looks like a shovel
and some other strange things—
but for an hour,
oh friend, we had wings.
Bonding After My Son’s Death
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged chemistry, friendship, grief on March 23, 2023| 2 Comments »
for Summer and Autumn
Tonight, while buying bread,
I saw my son’s beloved friends—
and as I held them in my arms
and thrilled at the connection,
I imagined how my friendship
with them is a kind of covalent bond—
we join just as atoms are held
together through shared electrons.
My sweet son is the electron.
To anyone else watching,
it might have looked like a hug,
but I know with all my matter,
this energy (I call it love)
this is how the world was made.
Breathing Wind Podcast: Honoring the Full Range of Grief
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged All the Honey, breathing wind, grief, podcast on March 21, 2023| 4 Comments »
Oh friends. I was interviewed by the most beautiful cohosts for the most moving podcast. Breathing Wind is, as they say, like an audible hug–warm, moving, intimate conversations about grief. The episode that came out today is a very raw, vulnerable conversation in which we talk about losing my son, writing as part of the grief process, how love has shown up to support me, learning to trust life and love in a time of trauma, and much more. I read a few poems from my new book, All the Honey, which comes out April 18, and we talk about opening, doing nothing, being lived, saying hello to what is difficult and more. I am in awe of the grounded, gentle, loving nature of the co-hosts and have fallen in love with their podcast. I hope you will listen and subscribe–Naila and Sarah offer such a beautiful, heart-opened, loving way to feel connected in a time of loss.
The Mystery
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged beauty, daughter, falling in love with the world, mystery on March 21, 2023| 1 Comment »
By now I know it’s impossible
to make someone else
fall in love with the world,
so when you say to me,
Look, Mom, the sky, it’s so beautiful,
and you stand there in the glow of sunset,
soft pink shining on your face,
I fall more in love not only with you
but with whatever it is
that opens us to wonder—
whatever grand mystery it is
that breathes warmth on our tight scales
and whispers to us, open,
then helps us get out of our own way
as one by one the petals unfurl,
and my god, the beauty,
the mystery, the beauty.
A Blessing
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged dream, grief, loss, love, presence, time on March 20, 2023| 8 Comments »
In the dream, you are ten
and your slender body
curls into my side. We
lie on a purple bed.
Our awareness wings
at the edge of sleep,
our bodies more stone
than bird, your head
on my arm as heavy as time,
and I think, I love this
sweet sapling boy.
In the dream, you are alive,
and I sink all the way
into the sweetness
of the moment
the way I sometimes don’t
in life. I sink full weight
into the tender present
and no part of me wishes
to be anywhere but
in the low golden dream light,
your body warm and gentled,
my body quiet and easy.
Two days later,
I feel it still, the heft of love
unending and generous
close against my side.
It invites me to be more here
with the ones I am with.
With that same arm that held you,
I hold them. Time lifts.
Launch Day! The Poetic Path on the Ritual App
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged audio poem, The Poetic Path on March 20, 2023| 9 Comments »
When we show up every day with poems, it changes the way we see the world. That’s the premise for “The Poetic Path,” a new daily audio poetry program I am hosting. It’s available on your phone using the Ritual app.
Since last October, I’ve been talking with the good folks at Ritual, a fabulous app of wellbeing practices led by compassionate leaders in self-care, faith, and culture. Guides include New York Times best-selling authors, Olympic gold medalists, and renowned self-care experts (Alex Elle, Parker Palmer, Simone Manuel, Sharon Salzberg)–and now me!
As you know, friends, I’ve been writing a poem every day for over 15 years, and this practice has changed everything about how I live my life. I’ll bring that experience to the daily segments–they run around 6 minutes each. Every day on Ritual, I will read a poem I have written (not the same one from the daily blog), talk about where it came from, read it again, then offer optional ideas for conversation, thinking or your own writing. The whole idea is simply to show up and listen. That’s it. From my experience, daily engagement with poems changes how we meet our day, how we frame our choices, and how we engage with others in our lives. Poems make us laugh. They punch us in the gut. They make us cry. And help us embrace paradox.
I hope you’ll join me on The Poetic Path, and start meeting the same world in a new way.
To sign up for Ritual and listen daily to The Poetic Path, using your phone, visit here.
While Doing Laundry
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged grief, laundry, trash on March 19, 2023| 3 Comments »
this wrinkled yellow candy wrapper
found in the pocket
of your old blue coat
suddenly precious
because once you touched it
Two Days Before Spring
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged bird, blessings, bluebird, luck, waking on March 19, 2023| 6 Comments »
Without knowing it this morning,
I woke to the day
the bluebirds returned.
Every morning it is like this—
the chance to rise into a day
of unexpected blessings.
All afternoon the bluebirds weave
through the field, perch on the roof,
bob in the grass.
I marvel at how easily
beauty slips in to help me
fall in love with not knowing.
All day I feel lucky,
like a woman given
a truth so precious
not because she deserved it
but because she woke up
and met the day.
On Language
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged communication, grammar, language on March 17, 2023| 6 Comments »
You, language, that rises
out of quiet air, from where?
How syllable? How syntax?
From whence come gifts
of fricative and nasal,
glide and vowel? From where
these translations of mood
into ooo and thhhh
and mmmmm and ah?
Sweet miracle, language,
the kindness of phonemes
the sweet generosity
of grammar—glorious
as a cherry tree in spring—
that teaches us to say
I am, you are, we have been,
we will be, we are going
to be, we might, we are;
all those truths spilling
from our mouths
that escape the known
like petals that form,
then flutter away
from the bough
into silence.
The Great Reframe
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged communion, frame, grief, love, reframe on March 16, 2023| 11 Comments »
Let this sorrow
that has opened me
to love
be like a frame
that has no photo—
so I might know
how to be this broken open,
this tender, this compassionate
with anything,
not only toward the one
who first filled the frame.
Let me not try to control
what is worthy of framing.
Let me trust everything
is worthy of prayer,
of consideration.
Let sorrow continue
to teach me generosity.
Let the frame be big enough
to hold it all.
While I Sit Quietly
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged healing, inner child, Rumi, spinning, whirling on March 15, 2023| 7 Comments »
The child inside me is spinning. She
loves the way her skirt rises
as she twirls. She knows nothing
of the Coriolis force
that acts on objects
in motion. She knows only
that she is in motion. She knows
her skirt rises higher and whirls more
the faster she goes, and she
likes it, the way it ripples
and flows, how it swirls around
her legs in a happy yellow
froth. She likes it so much
that she spins and spins
until she is dizzy and
stumbling, spins ’til she drops
in a laughing yellow heap on
the floor. She loves her new
discovery. She is eager and
silly, alive in her body. She jumps up
and spins again. And what of the woman
with graying hair, the woman
sitting quietly in the soft green
chair. She appears still, but
what no one can see—on
the inside she spins like
a dervish, a hypnotic whirling
born of grief that helps her meet
the illusion of separation, she
spins like the earth itself is spinning, spins
while her center stays still, and
what rises is peace, flaring
around her in long white waves
and she doesn’t lose her balance, and
the laughter of fifty years ago escapes
through her lips and
ripples, amazed, through
the silence.
Love Letters for Vincent: An online celebration of music, poetry & art
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged Kayleen Asbo, Van Gogh on March 14, 2023| 2 Comments »
featuring Kayleen Asbo on piano, Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer poetry and the art of Vincent van Gogh
Friday, March 31
10 a.m.-noon PDT; 11 a.m.-1 p.m. MDT, 1 a.m.-3 p.m. EDT
Last year, the incredible composer and cultural historian Kayleen Asbo completed an astonishing suite of piano pieces inspired by the work and life of Vincent van Gogh. Rosemerry worked from her pieces and the art to create a body of poems that weave the paintings, the music, van Gogh’s life, and Rosemerry’s own story of losing a loved one to death at his own hand. The works were performed live last November in Petaluma, CA, and we will be sharing the video of that collaboration in this online salon of love and memory on the anniversary of Vincent Van Gogh’s birth. We will close with a heartfelt communal ritual of creativity.
“I don’t know what to call this because I’ve never experienced anything like this before. What I do know is that this is one of the most beautiful, healing and heart-opening experiences I’ve ever had. In my entire life. “
-Audience Member from the summer productionTickets available on a sliding scale donation. The program will be recorded for later viewing.
To register visit here.
