All those words
I was afraid to say,
I gave them wings—
dark ink black wings—
and watched them
fly away, watched them
dive and circle,
swoop and soar,
enchanted by their flight.
The cage of shame
I’d kept them in,
it disappeared,
till all that was left
in me was sky.
Archive for August, 2023
Freedom Night
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged fear, shame, spaciousness, speaking, truth, words on August 23, 2023| 4 Comments »
What Holds Things Together
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged entropy, love, rangers, winter, yosemite on August 21, 2023| 10 Comments »
for Karen, Lindsay, Sarah, and the other Rangers and Volunteers in Tuolomne Meadows
Marcelo says he’s interested in fasteners,
in nails. He likes thinking about how things
hold together. He’s a carpenter and a poet,
and it follows, his fascination with structure.
Because I am me, I think about love.
I think of the ranger station I saw at Yosemite,
the roof collapsed by heavy snows. I think
of the heap of picnic tables I saw,
metal legs twisted like pipe cleaners,
unable to hold up the weight of long winter.
Things fall apart. And yet.
I think of the rangers who love this place,
who return every year to shovel, to teach,
to clean, to rebuild, to organize, to guide—
their devotion essential as any screws,
as any glue, as mighty as high alpine weather.
Love, the force resilient enough
as the world falls apart
to hold what’s been broken together.
The Day Before the Hurricane
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged being present, nature, yosemite on August 21, 2023| 4 Comments »
Tuolomne Meadows, Yosemite
The meadow is a vast embrace for light
and does not prepare for predicted rain.
White slabs of granite gather warmth
in their mass with no thought
of storm, and for a sun-drunk moment,
unshackled from purpose,
I’m undone from myself,
more becoming, less someone,
less trajectory, more field,
more attention to cinquefoil, dragonfly,
thin sweetness of mountain air.
In loving the world that is, I am exactly here
Buzz of fly. Beat of heart. Path of ant.
Beat of heart. Dry needles. Dry moss.
Beat of heart. Beat of heart.
Sage. Beat of heart. Stone. Beat
of heart. Deep spring. Tall pine.
Beat of heart. Beat of heart.
One Way to See One of the Most Beautiful Places in the World
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged beauty, dark, driving, vacation, yosemite on August 21, 2023| 4 Comments »
The rental car headlights shine
on parallel white and yellow lines
as they curve and hairpin
and scale and wind
through moonless forests
and unlit glades. Beyond them,
I feel what I cannot see—
abysses that yawn beyond vision—
and I climb, and I climb,
I cling to my lines. I attend
the soft hymns of my daughter’s breath,
my husband’s breath.
Somewhere out there, a great
granite dome. Somewhere
out there, a meadow
with bubbling soda springs.
Somewhere, a valley
with hundreds of thousands of gallons
of clear water pluming and pouring,
a glorious roaring.
For hours, we twist through
invisible cliffs, my eyes trained
to the pavement before us.
Sometimes, a pinecone.
Sometimes, a branch. Sometimes,
a white flash of headlights.
I follow the lines as they turn,
as they swerve. We arrive
at a small room across the pass
with only the beauty we are.
Back from Yosemite
Posted in Uncategorized on August 21, 2023| 6 Comments »
Hi friends–
sorry for the radio silence for four days–it was a WHIRLWIND trip to Yosemite, in which my husband and daughter and I had SO MUCH FUN, even as (in part because) things were, um, crazy, and include airport closures, leaving a phone on the plane, leaving Fresno at midnight to drive four hours through Yosemite over Tioga Pass in the dark to arrive at our hotel at 4 a.m., my daughter had food poisoning and was up all night sick, and returning to Fresno to wake up at 3:30 a.m. for our flight home … sooooooo you see why I wasn’t sending out poems!!!
But here they are …
and now we return to our regularly scheduled daily sending of poems!!
Hugs to you,
Rosemerry
One Remembering
after a four-hour delay
staring out the round window at stars—
forgetting what time is
Il Poggione Brunello di Montalcino, 2004
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged complexity, container, gift, memory, wine on August 17, 2023| 14 Comments »
with thanks to Rae
Inside the glass bottle,
the wine from Sangiovese grapes—
aged in oak barrels for three years—
continues to age,
losing its youthful fruitiness,
becoming more heady,
more sour cherry, more rose.
A glass of such wine is like
a drinkable love letter to change.
So when the sommelier’s wife
gifts me a vintage from the year
my son was born,
I taste more than raspberry,
dried flowers, coconut and tobacco.
I taste deep red.
I taste rolling down grassy hills
and painting our faces with mud.
I taste sleepless nights and midnight fears.
Homework at the table.
Camping in the desert.
The vinosity of devotion.
Late summer swims in the pond.
The glass empty long before
I wish it were done.
Once Upon a Song
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged heart, river, song, tears on August 16, 2023| 14 Comments »
While dancing barefoot in wet grass
with the dark all around us and
the star-bright sky above
and a song in the air and joy
and sorrow crashing through me
in equal force, it is only now
with tears running down my face
I realize the tears themselves
are the river where I can lay down
my burdens, these tears are the stream
that will never run dry, these tears
are the river where I will again
and again and again return to pray,
Oh sister, let’s go down, come on down,
and Hallelujah, at last I know the river
is nowhere if not in my heart,
and if there’s a river here,
then every moment is a baptism,
every moment a chance to be lifted,
to be healed.
One Journey
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged driving, home, journey, travel on August 15, 2023| 3 Comments »
driving three hundred eleven miles—
learning to call every inch of the trip
home
Thank You & a Poem of Surrender
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged amusement park, choice, family, grief, rollercoaster, surrender on August 14, 2023| 21 Comments »
Dear Friends,
It has been two years today since I wrote you to say that we had a family emergency and it would be some time before I wrote again. Several weeks after that I wrote to explain my son Finn, nearly 17, had chosen to take his life. And it was several weeks after that before I began writing the daily poems again. During these two years, I have received so much love, and I thank you. I thank every one of you who has lit a candle, said a prayer, thought good thoughts, did something nice for someone else who was grieving. I thank every one of you who held me and my family in your hearts. I am so grateful. As it is, it’s been the hardest thing I have ever done–meeting this loss. I honor every other person who has lost a beloved. I honor every other heart that has grieved. It is so hard, and without an enormous upswelling of love, I don’t know how anyone would do it. Your words, your thoughts, your blessings have carried me, and I thank you. Thank you for all the letters and notes today and this week–I read every single one out loud. I thank every one of you by name. I am sorry that I am not able to write everyone back individually–your words matter to me. It matters to me that you reach back. It matters to me that you let me know the poems matter to you. Thank you. Thank you. I can’t imagine doing this without your support.
Today our family decided to honor Finn’s life by going to the amusement park where we had a lot of fun as he was growing up–and one of my friends pointed out after we’d made our plan, “Life’s a rollercoaster,” and isn’t that an apt metaphor.
As you ride your own rollercoasters, friends, I wish that you, too, feel carried by love. I wish that peace finds you and makes a home in you.
with love,
Rosemerry
Riding Rollercoasters on a Difficult Day
The moment we entered the queue
for The Boomerang, we already knew
we’d be turned upside down and whirled around,
and by the time our chests were restrained
in our seats, we knew we’d consented to free fall,
to be shaken and twisted and then do it all again
backwards, but it wasn’t until the ride began,
clackity, clackity, clackity, clackity, clackity
EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!
it was only then, when we laughed
the whole time we screamed,
it was only then we surrendered.
The Swirl
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged death, dream, grief, son on August 13, 2023| 29 Comments »
We’re traveling together, you,
me, your father, your sister. And
we’re laughing. You’re talking
about your classes for college,
and you’re nervous about seeing
a girl again, and I have this bright feeling
that you’ve passed some threshold.
You’re a firecracker, wild with potential,
and I can’t understand this swirl of worry
that churns through me like smoke.
It’s only after you race down the concourse
showing off your speed,
arms pumping, legs a blur,
your body quick and slender verb,
it’s only then when you don’t come back
I remember you already made a choice to die,
and in the dream I wail, battered again
by the bludgeon of immediate loss.
When I wake, I’m still wearing
the sweet perfume of promise and hope,
even as tears slip hot to the sheets.
It’s not easy, today, to rise, to step
into this world of heartache and courage,
this world you left, this world I love.