for Brooke McNamara
She met me with a succulent,
a giant aloe tucked under one arm,
its long thick leaves standing tall.
How could I not think, then,
of how we are all succulents, really,
learning to evolve in times of drought.
We have learned how not to die
in times of neglect.
Discovered beyond doubt
we are survivors.
I cradled her face then,
the woman with the aloe,
grateful for whatever sweet intuition
suggested she carry an aloe
across highways, through town,
grateful she knew how to honor
what is most determined in us
to thrive, how to honor
the ways in which we carry
the medicine we most need.
I held her, then,
as if our lives depended on it,
as if touch were as essential
to growth as water.
As if, with gratefulness,
I could be sunshine for her
the way she was soil for me.
Archive for May, 2023
Aloe
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged friendship, plant, succulent on May 13, 2023| 7 Comments »
SECRET AGENTS OF CHANGE!
Posted in Uncategorized on May 11, 2023| 3 Comments »
JOIN US FOR OUR NEW MISSION!
What:
Brand NEW Mission of the Secret Agents of Change: Operation Color the World
Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer and Sherry Richert Belul invite you to participate in an oh-so-important mission on Thursday May 18th and we hope you’ll don your agent’s badge and join us.
In case you are brand new to our circle, we’re a group of people who aim to spread surreptitious joy and kindness in playful and unexpected ways.
One of the twists of what we do is that our missions are always based on one of Rosemerry’s poems. AND even those these are secret missions we do spill the (happy) beans together in our Facebook Group after the operation is complete!
When:
May 18th 8:30am PDT, 9:30am MDT, 10:30am CDT, 11:30am EDT
Where:
Join live by Zoom or join via our posted prompts on Facebook:
Join our mailing list to receive the Zoom link.
Join our Facebook Group to receive the prompts and post your story.
Live in Loveland May 12 & 13
Posted in Uncategorized on May 11, 2023| 1 Comment »
All the Honey–Live Performance
Friday, May 12 at 7 pm.
Rialto Theater, Loveland, CO
Join me live! I will read from my newest book, All the Honey, and perform poetry with live musical accompaniment. Lobby Reception at 6 pm for sale and signing of newest books
Tickets $8 Order tickets at https://www.rialtotheatercenter.org
Writing playshop:
Meeting All of It: Embracing Paradox and Opposition
Saturday, May 13 from 9:30 to 12:00 pmRialto Theater – Devereaux Room
Free, with donations welcome at the door
Suggested donations $15- $25 — will support future poetry events
No reservations needed
For a Moment
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged meditation, presence, refuge, silence on May 11, 2023| 9 Comments »
So keep this refuge in mind: the back roads of your self.
—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, trans. Gregory Hays
And so tonight I travel
the back roads of self
to a place with no shovel,
no spoon, no pen,
no wheel, no stick,
and find there
the peace that arrives
when the idea of traveler
dissolves. And then the
road. And then the self.
By the Light of the Moon
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged dream, long marriage, sleep on May 10, 2023| 11 Comments »
Such tender choreography,
the way we fall asleep,
our bodies quiet beside each other,
my hand a bird inside the nest of your hand,
and then, when you turn to one side
my body, even in sleep, will turn to curl
with yours. And later, we are again like two stems,
like two wicks, like twin streams touching.
I don’t understand how it is
our bodies know to move, to curve,
to find each other in the dark. I only know
I am grateful for these night hours
when flesh is soft and full of dream
and trust is a sweet and blooming thing
and there is a beauty that no one else sees
as we turn again, turn again.
May Again
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged eternity, may, mother, mother's day on May 9, 2023| 16 Comments »
May again, and the lilac buds
are swelling and the apple leaves
are on the verge of unfurling
and it’s almost Mother’s Day.
The geese have arrived,
and the hummingbirds weave
and the grosbeaks swarm the feeder.
On the counter, the succulents
you gave me two years ago
have doubled in size.
I treasure them beyond
their thick leaves—
treasure, more, perhaps,
their roots.
I am well aware
that although you are gone
I am no less your mom.
I want to praise what is infinite,
which I am best taught
through what doesn’t last.
What doesn’t last:
the body, the bloom,
the boy, the blood.
What lasts forever:
the growing, the breaking open,
the winging toward love.
Last Time
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged authenticity, grief, Lorrie Gardner, memory on May 8, 2023| 7 Comments »
for Lorrie Gardner
She was weeping that day,
the last day I saw her.
She stepped out of the shadow
into the late October sun,
and she held me on the sidewalk.
And I held her, too.
And we cried.
How many times
had we sat in the soft light
of her classroom
and laughed about things
the students had said?
We planned parties and
field trips and poetry lessons.
We spoke about goals for my children
and goals for ourselves
and kids losing teeth and
ways to teach vocabulary.
We spoke of divorce
and dance, jitters and singing,
ski technique and running
and feeling displaced.
On that last day I saw her,
I don’t remember what we said.
But I remember the open look of her face—
the way she didn’t try to hide her grief,
the way she didn’t try to avoid mine.
Of course we didn’t know then
it would be the last time.
Perhaps a younger version of me
would judge the memory,
would wish we had been smiling,
but I am so grateful to remember
the truth of that moment:
her broken open heart,
my broken open heart,
our arms around each other
with love so fierce, so soft.
New Trust
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged death, life, life after death, signs, trust on May 7, 2023| 5 Comments »
When the tiny white feather
floats above me in 17B,
when the full rainbow appears
as I drive from the airport,
when I feel inside me
a swelling, an opening door,
the rational part of me says,
it’s just coincidence,
but another part wades deep
in the currents of mystery
until I float on the waves
of what I do not understand—
they swirl me between worlds,
carry me homeward.
Another Reason to Marvel
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged color, flower, praise, tulip, universe, wonder on May 6, 2023| 6 Comments »
The average color of the universe
is not blue, as they thought, but beige—
or so they say after studying
two hundred thousand galaxies—
a fact that makes me stand longer today
beside this tulip as it shamelessly splays
its statistically unlikely yellow and red,
a living manual for possibility—
in all of deep space,
the chance to show up in this garden.
First Time Driving in the Berkshires
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged becoming, daughter, dreams, home, parenting on May 5, 2023| 6 Comments »
I could live here, says my daughter;
and staring into the generous green
and the time-softened hills,
she sees an open door in the landscape,
a door she could walk through
and call the new place home—
and I watch as she becomes
the hero of her own story,
watch as in the passenger seat
she grows wings, listen as she hums
like a tuning fork suddenly come alive,
struck by her own dreams,
and mygod, its beautiful watching
as aspiration slips itself into her body
and whispers possibilities
and bids her keep her eyes open.