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