The heart circulates blood through the body
a thousand times a day and not once
do I give it a thought. Not once do I think
of those four chambers, flooding and releasing,
the valves opening and closing to keep blood flowing.
It does this while I eat, while I crumple, while I teach.
It does this while I hold my daughter as she weeps,
while I stumble, while I fall apart, while I sleep.
Oh body, though I speak of being broken hearted
and the gifts that come in the breaking, meanwhile,
you go on with your ceaseless heart work, the work
of flow, the work of current, the work of push through,
of never saying no, the work of life, the necessary work
that allows all the beautiful breaking open to happen.
Archive for April, 2023
Doing the Heart Work
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged body, breaking open, heart on April 30, 2023| 10 Comments »
Timeless
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged opposition, paradox, time on April 29, 2023| 15 Comments »
after Ruth Stone, “Train Ride”
There are not enough hours to walk by the river,
not enough hours to work and make soup
and dream and sit and do nothing at all.
Is it true there is not enough time?
There is time for every word
you have written, every petunia you’ve planted,
for every path you have walked,
for every lover you’ve kissed
and kissed and kissed there is enough time.
No. Not enough. Not enough time for reading
the tall stack of books on the desk.
Not enough time for making the pie crust
from scratch. Not enough time for wandering
in the forest with the soft green hanging moss
until you, too, remember you are a tree.
And yet you have read tall stacks of books.
Many, many tall stacks.
You have made cherry pies and rhubarb pies
and pumpkin pies from scratch.
You have wandered for hours through dappled glades
and draped your hair with moss.
There is enough time for everything you have ever done
and for every moment spent doing nothing at all.
How is it you feel such lack?
Here is the moment. Open it.
One Path Toward Intimacy
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged brokenness, connection, intimacy, puzzle on April 29, 2023| 4 Comments »
Sometimes
a piece
from another
who is broken
finds its way
into my frame,
and our shattered
bits fit
with each other.
Perfectly.
And I am
forever changed.
Wordlessly
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged grief, holding, marriage, touch on April 27, 2023| 12 Comments »
With such gentleness,
he stood behind me
and held me as I wept,
held me the way a pond holds a lotus,
the way a scarf holds perfume,
the way a man who has lost his child
holds the mother of the child,
his hands so light on my hands
as our fingers laced into a tender weave,
held me the way the pericardium holds the heart,
the way the eye holds a tear
then lets it slip away.
The Call
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged awakening, bird, dawn, geese, messenger, sleep, waking on April 26, 2023| 4 Comments »
Dawn, and the geese announce
their landing on the pond—
and though the reluctant body says sleep,
the heart rouses to attend their arrival.
So many awakenings seem to happen like this:
when I feel least ready, least willing, most averse,
something demands I rise—
something strident, insistent, wildly alive,
saying, Now! It’s time! You’re here.
One Late-Night Conversation
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged conversation, friendship, time on April 26, 2023| 2 Comments »
as if we had eternity
we spend it together
this hour
When Everything Is Field
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged connection, Earth Day, field, love, nature on April 24, 2023| 13 Comments »
Again I fall in love with the field
as if for the first time—the first time
I ever saw a pair of geese land there
then waddle through tall dry grass;
the first time I ever watched it transform
from drab ocher to brilliant green;
the first time I ever felt its spaciousness—
how it becomes a basin for light.
Every day I fall in love again with the field,
many times a day. Every day, I marvel
there are new ways to fall in love.
Once, I didn’t know how intimate it was,
this relationship to the land.
Now I know it as the truest thing.
Inevitable, this love affair with color,
texture, change, scent, the sound
of grass moving against grass.
Inevitable, the love that rises
out of dew, out of frost, out of vastness,
out of wholeness, out of loss,
and reteaches me what it is to love, to be loved.
On Earth Day
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged Earth Day, letting go, nature on April 23, 2023| 2 Comments »
We walk on the back road
through ponderosa forest
laughing and singing for hours,
and the sky comes down
in tiny white balls
shaped like flowers
that land in our hands
and melt into our gloves.
We don’t get to hold anything
for long—not the snow,
not this fabulous day
with its freedom,
its braiding streams, its mud.
We don’t even get to hold
each other, not forever,
though we try—
but for these hours,
surrounded by trickle and trill,
I feel how surely we are held
by the scent of spring,
by the shadows, by the deer,
by the jay’s bright squawk,
by the sun breaking through.
Why I Watch Raiders of the Lost Ark Again (and Again
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged daughter, family, intimacy, movie on April 21, 2023| 2 Comments »
I already know Indy will be trapped
in an ancient room full of snakes
and survive, but I watch again, anyway,
though I wince, because my husband
is on my left and my daughter is on my right
and the cat curls under the blanket
on my lap, and though I hate
how my heartrate skyrockets
when Indy is dragged on a rope
behind a military jeep, I would
watch it all again another thousand times
for just that moment when
my girl snuggles deeper into my side
and rests her head on my shoulder,
yes I would watch any night
the melting flesh when the ark is opened
just to hear beneath the soaring theme
the quiet soundtrack of her breath.
Two New Podcasts
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged podcast on April 21, 2023| Leave a Comment »
How to Embrace Life’s Paradoxes with Eric Zimmer: On The One You Feed
How do we trust life when even the worst things come true? That’s one of many threads I follow with Eric Zimmer on his fabulous podcast The One You Feed–an hour of exploring how to meet what scares us, embrace the unknown, curiosity and openness. Listen here on his website or anywhere you listen to podcasts.
*
Finding Your Voice in the Void with Laura Tohe: on Emerging Form
In honor of National Poetry Month, Christie Aschwanden and I were lucky enough to speak with Navajo Nation Poet Laureate Laura Tohe about her experiences growing up without access to books written by Natives or about themes that resonated with her–and how she eventually found a community of writers who encouraged and supported her to write her stories. Listen here on our Emerging Form website or anywhere you listen to podcasts.
Walking to the Grave
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged cemetery, grief, name on April 20, 2023| 8 Comments »
Now, when I walk
through the cemetery,
I say aloud the names
of the dead as I pass.
Elma. Clara. Brooke. Millie.
Now I know the gift
of saying the name,
how the syllables invite
an honoring of the life.
Rose. Charles. Harry.
There is one gray stone
that simply says brother.
Brother, I say as I pass.
By the time I reach
the marker for my son,
the air is alive with names.
Finn, I say, as I kneel
in the dirt. Finn.
Sometimes, when I pray,
it’s the only word
I know how to say.
The Sleekest Grief
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged cars, grief on April 19, 2023| 6 Comments »
I stared through the glass
at the turquoise and low slung
Nio EP9—a battery-powered
two-seat sports car. Zero to sixty
in two point seven seconds.
Separate motor and transmission
for every wheel. Advance
torque vector system,
whatever that means.
But I knew you would know.
Though I care nothing for chassis
and Vmax speeds, I stared at that car
like a boy dreaming of Christmas morning,
like a mother dreaming of a boy
who still can dream,
stared until its aero-efficient lines
blurred and swam, my heart
revving silent in my chest.
Of Tenderness
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged Clementine, communication, fruit, trust on April 19, 2023| 7 Comments »
So easily the thin rind
pulls away from the Clementine
to reveal what is soft,
what is sweet.
It matters, I think,
the way we offer
ourselves to each other.
I think of how it falls open,
the peel of the ripe clementine.
I think of how sometimes,
when I ask how you are,
you, too, fall open
and give me everything.
What a gift
when I don’t need to pry.
What a gift, the bright scent
of conversation,
how the tang of it
lingers in the air.
I long to open
for you this way, too.
Trust begins here.
A Shimmer of Poems
Posted in Uncategorized on April 17, 2023| Leave a Comment »
While I was away in the early April chill of the Baltic region, I was lucky enough to have a lot of poems come out in various fabulous venues–and I’d love to share them with you–the poems & THE AMAZING VENUES … I highly recommend hanging out in ONE ART, Vox Populi, Grateful Living and Turning Towards Life. They are all amazing purveyors of poetry (and much more!)
- Ever fear that you are not good enough? Me, too. Read “When She Was Afraid She Wasn’t Good Enough” on Vox Populi
- Will we ever become who we are meant to be? And what does that look like, anyway? Read “Ambition” on ONE ART
- Feeling grateful for Spring? Read “In Case I Forget to Say It Enough” published on “Grateful Living”
- And for a fabulous deep dive into the sacredness of uncertainty, listen to the Turning Towards Life podcast, in which Lizzy and Justin discuss “Never the Same”
- If you could go back in time and tell yourself something about the future, would you? Watch “Twenty Years Ago, Ten Years Ago, Last Week,” promoting a new anthology “Poetry Treasures 3”
Traveling to Scandinavia in Spring
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged Scandinavia, spring, travel, winter on April 17, 2023| 3 Comments »
After the long winter,
we choose to travel north,
choose to move deeper into winter
to wander fjords and cobblestones.
We choose again the gray,
the ice, the snow, the cold.
Now I know there is something freeing
about choosing to explore
what isn’t easy.
There’s release, somehow,
in being on the path less warm
when it’s a path
I feel I’ve selected.
So I don again the coat,
the hat, the down.
I wander the streets
with their chill winds
and think, I want to be here.
And it’s true.
There is joy then,
in the bite, though some days
it goes deep.
Joy in being so present
in winter I forget
I could choose something else.
All the Honey Launch April 18
Posted in Uncategorized on April 16, 2023| 6 Comments »
I am so excited! Please join me for an online book launch for my new collection, All the Honey, on Tuesday, April 18 at 11 mountain time. It’s a book that reaches at the same time toward loss and laughter, toward despair and delight. There’s more information about the book at this link (where you can also register).
http://events.r20.constantcontact.com/register/event?oeidk=a07ejpazn3w202d3ba4&llr=q9rr4nabb
It’s free. I’ll read for about 35-40 minutes and there will be a brief conversation with my beloved friend and artistic collaborator (and the generous host of this program!) Kayleen Asbo. We will converse about how creativity calls us into deeper relationship with all that is.
*
To hear more about the book & how it came to be, listen to this most recent podcast of Emerging Form where Christie Aschwanden and I talk about its genesis and execution and the origins for some of the poems in specific.
*
To read a review of All the Honey (that came out two weeks ago in Panorama thanks to Steven Law!) visit here.
To pre-order All the Honey you can buy it on Bookshop.org or Amazon or your local bookseller. After May 1, you can order from Telluride Bookstore, and from May 1-June 1, I will be able to go into the store and sign copies. (But they are closed for orders from now until May 1–it’s a ski-town thing.) I will send a link out again when they re-open.
Big Bouquet of Baltic & Scandic Poems
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged haikulings, Scandinavia, travel on April 16, 2023| 16 Comments »
Dear Friends,
I’m back from two weeks in Estonia, Finland & Norway where my husband and daughter and I stayed in a medieval village (in Tallinn) and spoke with shopkeepers who remember the Singing Revolution of the 1990s when Tallinn became an independent country again … and then in Finland with my host sister and her family (I was an exchange student for a year in Espoo in the late 1980s) … and then in the fjords of Norway. it was such a wonderful rich time. Every day I wrote a short poem and here is a large bouquet of 17 of them–and now we will return to our regular routine of me sending daily poems!
In the meantime, so much happened–I have podcasts and poems and videos and so much to share with you! BUT MOST IMPORTANT!!! In two days, on Tuesday, my new book, All the Honey launches, and I hope you will join me and my beloved friend Kayleen Asbo for the lunch launch, 11 a.m. mountain time, Tuesday, online. There is much more about All the Honey, plus the link to the lunch launch in this email just below the big bouquet of poems. Please scroll all the way to the bottom for lots of goodies!
with love,
Rosemerry
Baltic and Scandic Bouquet
poems from Tallinn, Estonia; Espoo & Helsinki, Finland; and Tau & Oslo, Norway
beside the eight-hundred-year-old wall
this yellow crocus
hours old
*
slipping into
the stone fortress windows—
thick scent of spring
*
medieval cobblestone streets—
how many dreams
fell through these cracks?
*
in the fuchsia voice
of the old shopkeeper
memories of gray
*
in the bay
the sea moans beneath melting ice—
perhaps forgiveness sounds like this
*
inside me
scent of cardamom and coffee—
our conversation delicious
*
swimming in the ice
with my sister—
our hearts impossibly warm
*
beneath these umbrellas
walk thousands of life stories
I’ll never know
*
stranger in this beauty—
every step a chance
to risk opening the heart
*
in the ancient church
saying the prayers
only silence can speak
*
every day it’s new
this ache
of missing you
*
after the hike
is over
enjoying it
*
gray spring day
all the leaves still dreaming of green
this bush an insurgence of pink
*
and if tonight
it hurts to be alive—
then be alive, heart, be alive
*
full moon
above the fjord—
even loneliness falls in love
*
calling card
of some unseen angel—
this white feather on my sleeve
*
letting it scour me
this ferocious wind—
becoming the white space of a poem
Thank You Letter (Poem) to Spring Published on Gratefulness.org
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged gratefulness.org on April 1, 2023| 4 Comments »
What a joy to find that the wonderful Gratefulness.org published a poem of mine that thrills in Spring … “In Case I Forget to Say It Enough.” The world really does, as Mary Oliver says, “offer itself to our attention” … and this poem celebrates some of the beauty and wonder that spring brings.
In Case I Forget to Say It Enough
Thank you for this day made
of wind and rain and sun and the scent
of old-fashioned lilacs. Thank you
for the pond and the slippery tadpole
and the wild iris that opened beside the pond
last week, so pale, so nearly purple,
their stems already flagged and bent.
Thank you for the yellow morels hiding in the field grass,
the ones we can only see when we are already
on our knees. And thank you for the humming
that rises out of the morning as if mornings
are simply reasons to hum. What a gift,
this being alive, this chance to encounter the world.
What a gift, this being a witness to spring—
spring in everything. Spring in the way
that we greet each other. Spring in the way the golden eagle
takes to the thermals and spirals up to where
we can barely see the great span of its wings.
Spring in the words we have known
since our births. Like glory. Like celebrate.
Published in Gratefulness.org on April 1, 2023
Image by Valeri Terziyski/Unsplash
Review for ALL THE HONEY in Panorama Journal
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged Book Review on April 1, 2023| 8 Comments »
I am so grateful to poet and storyteller Steven Law for the thoughtful review of my new poetry collection All the Honey; what a joy to read this response to a book that is open to devastating grief and great joy and pleasure.
Here’s an excerpt:
One of Trommer’s greatest gifts is her willingness and capacity to inhabit a selected space – whether it’s a car ride with her daughter or slipping through broken slats of a fence to sit alone in an abandoned field – and gather from it everything that is beautiful and noteworthy. An environment, a situation, a moment, an emotion, Trommer gives that space her full attention. Sometimes her attentiveness is that of a camera with its aperture set to f/64, bringing everything near and far simultaneously into focus. Sometimes she uses a poetic macro lens to zoom in on a moment’s smallest, finest details.
To read the whole review, visit Panorama Journal. (Issue 8)