May there always be inside me
a little old man with scuffed up shoes,
a hobble in his step,
and hands upturned in wonder.
May he shuffle along
behind me wherever I am
and whisper in awe,
again and again,
“Isn’t it beautiful?”
And may he always
be telling the truth—
may he never be
a parrot for beauty,
but a real witness—
able to see
what I in my sad stupor cannot.
May he find glitter in frost,
the curl in the steam that rises from rot,
the deep rose in the sunset
on the day the boy was shot.
And let me not ignore him
especially when I want to.
Let me hear him and be moved
to open my hands in amazement, too.
And when my own thoughts
are too loud,
when I can’t hear
his quiet, urgent sincerity,
let him bump into me
as passes me by,
let him lead me with his wonder,
both of us limping
toward the light.
To read Ross Gay’s poem, visit here
Archive for October, 2023
After Reading Ross Gay’s “Overheard”
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged beauty, inner world, Ross Gay, wonder on October 31, 2023| 11 Comments »
Principle
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged buoyancy, choice, density, mother, resilience, science on October 30, 2023| 8 Comments »
for my mother
She could have sunk,
the way a stone
falls to the bottom
of the pond.
But she didn’t.
She floated like wood,
like cork, like ice.
Floated like a ball
tossed in an angry sea.
Density alone
is simple math:
mass divided
by volume.
But density
of spirit is,
perhaps, a choice.
As if we exist
to be tossed
again and again
into the waters
of difficulty,
each toss
another chance
to practice
buoyancy.
FOUR UPCOMING CHANCES TO PLAY ONLINE,PLUS INVITATION TO A GROUP POEM–A POETRY MALA FOR PEACE
Posted in Uncategorized on October 29, 2023| Leave a Comment »
The Table of Loss and Love: A writing ritual for Samhain
Nov. 1, 6-8 p.m. MDT
An evening of ritual remembering our loved ones who are no longer with us in body—ritual, reading poems, writing and sharing. With Kayleen Asbo. For more information, visit here.
Love, Sex, Death and Everything: A Creativity Playshop with Gustav Klimt
Nov. 3, 10, 17, 11a.m. -1 p.m. MDT
Three weeks of exploring what lurks in the depths of humanity. Each class begins with a deep Jungian-oriented dive into music and myths behind Klimts images led by Kayleen Asbo, then Rosemerry leads an hour of exploring mortality, passion, terror and beauty in your own creative writing practice. For more information and to register, visit here.
Hello Death: A Poetry Thoughtshop on Meeting Our Own Mortality
Nov. 14, 6-7 p.m. MDT
Part of showing up for our own lives is considering our own deaths. How might poetry help us explore mortality with grace, humor, honesty and wonder? This 50-minute webinar Rosemerry reads poems and shares many invitations for writing on your own. For more information and to register, visit here.
Sitting in the Midst of It All
Dec. 7 & 8
Join Courage & Renewal facilitator Marcia Eames-Sheavly and Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer for a mini-retreat—a day and a half of self-care, wonder, quietude, gentleness, acceptance and connection. For more information, visit here.
Making a Poetry Mala
(the following note is from my friend Jess Stevens)
Dear Friends,
Two days ago Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer published a series of short poems titled “Three Prayer Beads after Reading the News” which inspired me to write my own prayer bead… and then imagine an infinite strand of prayer beads. IMO, it is just this kind of witnessing and participation (among others) that we desperately need right now. Below you will find her poems, followed by mine. So I am trying to create the thread on which the beads might be knotted together, one after the other.
If you feel inspired to add one, or a small few, email them to me HERE. Please try to fit yours into a three line freeform haiku (as demonstrated below) so that, like a strand of prayer beads, all voices will be approximately the same size and create a certain resonance.
You can click HERE to read the entire mala-in-progress
(But remember, it will not grow without contribution. So please consider taking a moment to sit well, open your heart and write… and check back periodically to read new additions)
With love and gratitude,
Jess Stevens
*****
from one gun shot
across the world,
millions more wounded
*
translating “number of casualties”
into daughters, sons,
lovers, friends
*
but what do I do?
I ask the leaves,
lean into the ache as I listen
*
Tiny paper cranes
keep whispering
not all of the world is a hammer
Balancing Act
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged dad, daughter, family, father, memory, support on October 29, 2023| 6 Comments »
When I was a girl, my father
would lie on his back, palms up.
I’d step barefoot into his hands
and slowly, slowly, he’d lift me.
I’d balance above him, floating
like an angel, like a circus star,
like a little girl who trusts her dad
to support her. Fifty years later,
I still feel his hands on my soles—
even this moment, I could rise.
In a Downpour
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged color, ekphrasis, encouragement, rain, smile on October 28, 2023| 6 Comments »
On an uphill slog
of a day,
your real smile
is like a single
red umbrella
in a long pageant
of black umbrellas.
Suddenly,
it’s all I can see.
Three Prayer Beads after Reading the News
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged compassion, killing, violence, war on October 27, 2023| 16 Comments »
from one gun shot
across the world,
millions more wounded
*
translating “number of casualties”
into daughters, sons,
lovers, friends
*
but what do I do?
I ask the leaves,
lean into the ache as I listen
On a Day When I’m Sure Words Won’t Make Things Better
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged Jane Hilberry, love, poetry, words on October 27, 2023| 10 Comments »
for Jane Hilberry
That is when I arrive at the home
of my college literature professor.
She welcomes me in and serves me fennel tea—
slightly bitter, slightly sweet—
and amidst talk of art and anxiety,
vulnerability and the longing
for a teacher who will stretch us,
she serves me hummus, thin slices of cucumber,
olives and plump green grapes.
She recites by heart a poem about Love
inviting in someone who feels unworthy.
And the table where we sit becomes Love’s table,
and oh, sweet alchemy of syllable and silence,
I’m opened by words written centuries ago.
They slip in my cells and warm me, transform me.
I dog-ear the moment so I can return
when I again forget what words can do.
This Is How
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged amygdala, autumn, brain, death, scent on October 25, 2023| 8 Comments »
It’s the chill air, say the scientists,
that allows the nose to delineate
the musky smell of autumn,
not like the warm summer air
that traps and mashes
all the aromatic molecules together.
No, it’s the constricting nature of cold
that lets us pick out the sweet loam
of dried grass and peaty scent of sugars
breaking down in the leaves.
But it’s memory that says,
Isn’t this smell wonderful.
It’s the amygdala that relates it
to the childhood joy
of skipping through gutters of oak leaves
and the adult joy of jumping
in great piles of cottonwood leaves
with my son.
In this golden moment,
I’m every age I’ve ever been in the fall,
and every version of me basks
in low autumn light. This is how
I breathe in the fragrance of death
and decay and moldering,
and think isn’t it wonderful, this life.
Dark Praise at the True North Gallery in Colorado Springs
Posted in Uncategorized on October 24, 2023| 4 Comments »
October 26, 6:30 p.m. LIVE EVENT!
I am so thrilled to participate in a grand gathering of the artists of “Dark Praise,” an intimate performance and album release with me, Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer, and my beloved guitarist friend, the talented Steve Law, hosted at the gallery of our amazing cover artist, Marisa S. White.
Friends, I can hardly express how excited I am about this album. I love these poems together–I love this theme. I love the music. I love the art.
Flirty. Tender. Electric. Raw. This evening of poetry and music spans the spectrum of human emotions at the same time it explores “endarkenment:” all the ways the dark nourishes us, opening us to creativity, passion, intimacy, revelation, dreaming, receptivity, self-discovery and connection. Some growth and beauty is possible only in the dark. It will be a live-version of the newly released album Dark Praise, which features a cover by gallery artist, Marisa S. White.
An optional donation at the door goes to support the artists and gallery.
Limited Seating. Max capacity = 20 guests. All are welcome. For the event, visit here.
To see the videos from this album (so far) … visit here.
To purchase the album, visit here.
To download the album for free, go to wherever you download music.
Two Upcoming Online Heart-Opening Classes
Posted in Uncategorized on October 23, 2023| Leave a Comment »
The Table of Loss and Love
November 1, 6-8 p.m. mountain time
Zoom, recorded for later viewing
sliding scale
Join Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer and Kayleen Asbo for an online writing ritual to connect us at this thin time of year with our ancestors and lost loved ones. Bring a writing journal, light a candle and set a place at the table for those who have passed in a poetic feast of love and memory. Available on a sliding scale and recorded for later viewing.
To register and for more information, visit here.
Love, Sex, Death and Everything:
A Creative Workshop with Gustav Klimt
Nov. 3, 10, 17 11 a.m. – 1p.m. mountain time
zoom, recorded for later viewing
How on earth do we face the grief and fear that confronts us every day right now? One way is by turning to the artists, poets and composers who have found their own way through tragedy and terror to a place of integration while offering the world sublime beauty. Perhaps no artist held the polarities of life and death with greater courage and raw honesty than Gustav Klimt, and so it is that I turn to the incredible cultural historian, musician and master of ritual Kayleen Asbo with whom I am offering a three-week writing workshop entitled “Love, Sex, Death and Everything.” Each two-hour class begins with a deep dive into the music, myth and life events that provided the genesis for Klimt’s works–such inspiration–followed by a guided writing practice as we unveil our own naked truths, with time at the close for group sharing. This is a class for anyone in need of creative inspiration or a sense of deep artistic community. for more information, to see the syllabus, and to register, visit here
Going Deeper Into the Mystery
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged blame, failure, grace, grief, humanness on October 23, 2023| 18 Comments »
I don’t know why I did not see
my son’s choice to take his life as a failure.
Not as his failure. Not as mine.
Not the failure of the world.
Not the failure of his friends.
It’s not as if I’m a stranger to failure—
I who can endlessly beat myself up
just for failing to remember to return a call.
I don’t know why I did not need to blame.
Don’t know why I didn’t rail at God.
Why I didn’t contract
into a crumpled ball of shame.
I don’t know what grace stepped in
and turned my heart again and again
toward compassion, toward humanness.
Don’t know why it only occurred to me
to love him. To be gentle with myself.
I don’t know why the world
met my broken heart with such generosity,
obliterating any walls of failure
before I could even fashion the bricks.
I don’t know how it works,
this mystery of acceptance,
but it saved me,
never trying to rewrite the story,
asking nothing of me except
that I let myself be led through every moment
by what I cannot know.
Dear Failure,
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged failure on October 22, 2023| 17 Comments »
It is easy to meet you in meditation.
Today, when I failed to focus on my breath,
I kept breathing anyway. Easy to meet you
in the garden where I planted the green beans too late
and harvestless, bought some at the store.
Harder to meet you when I fear
I am failing as a wife because
I missed my anniversary
to stay bedside with my mother.
Harder to meet you when I am afraid
I am failing as a daughter
when I leave my mother’s bed
to go to my own daughter.
I so want to get it right,
this showing up for the people I love.
I so want to get it right,
this longing to be enough.
Oh failure, I have not wanted
to learn your lessons, have wanted
to believe I could fix, could be all.
And you, great teacher, have humbled me
again and again, helping me see
how much I care.
There’s more than getting it right at stake.
You help me debunk perfection,
offering yourself as a friend.
Each time I fall,
you reach out to take my hand
saying, Fail on, sweetheart.
Wouldn’t you like
to try again with your loving?
*
Update on Mom
Oh friends, thank you thank you thank you for all the thoughtful notes. Mom and I have felt so held through all this. I left Georgia yesterday and arrived home at 2 a.m. this morning.And in the first solidly positive news in the last two weeks about mom’s health, she was released from the ICU today. And she is, as usual, amazingly upbeat, positive and full of gratefulness. It is such a relief. May this truly be the turn around point.
There was just so much difficult news the last couple of days it was hard to share about it–uncontrollable shivering, delirium, internal bleeding–but friends, mom truly does seem to be on the mend. Thank you for every candle, every prayer, every generous thought, every note. I have read aloud and thanked aloud every one of you who has written. Thank you for reaching back with your support.
On Faith
Posted in Uncategorized on October 22, 2023| 10 Comments »
This basil my mother has nurtured into a bush
seems proof that with good soil
and warmth and attention,
a seedling might grow
into something astonishing.
But come first frost,
the basil will blacken and die.
How then to explain my mother,
weakened, beleaguered,
frosted and thriving.
Vulnerable, she has never been more powerful.
Sapped, her beauty shines.
She has been nurtured by a love so great
it fuels her from within,
regardless the weather.
Love is stored in her
not like the memory of sun,
but like the sun itself still present—
something generous, unstinting,
a gravity of praise, a star of wonder,
a vigorous blessing, the legacy of faith.
The Words I Want to Embroider into Her Hospital Gown
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged compassion, geese, hospital, illness, mom, nurse, vulnerability on October 20, 2023| 15 Comments »
Thank you for helping her meet
this day, this night.
Though she needs you now
just to take a sip of water,
she was once a volunteer firefighter.
If you were grieving, she would
bake you sweet bread.
If you were struggling,
she would leave a gift at your door
with a kind letter but no name.
Thank you for being the one
who arrives to help this woman
who always rises to help another.
This is the way we guide each other,
like the geese who change leaders
at the apex of the V when one gets tired
or sick. Thank you for flying ahead today.
The distance we must go is long.
Breath by Breath, ICU
Posted in Uncategorized on October 19, 2023| 12 Comments »
How many times she has sat by my bed and run her fingers through my hair, and watched my eyes dance beneath their lids, attending me as I drift toward dreams, listening for the change in my breath as I now listen for the changes in hers— where it hitches, how it evens, how it whistles past her lips. God, I love this way her broken body still knows full well how to fly. I listen for how her breath does not stop. Such an intimate offering, this threshold between sleep and waking, between life and more life, between mother and daughter, between human and human, when each sound in the dark is a doorway, an unguarded chance to know her, and for a moment any fear is pushed aside by a love so wide it shakes my whole world. * ICU update Oh friends, thank you for every word you’ve sent in support of mom and me. Thank you for the love, the prayers, the energy, the all of it. I can’t respond personally, but I do thank everyone by name as I read your notes, and they matter, these well wishes, these blessings, they matter. We were sure mom would get out of the ICU today, and after a very stellar morning full of positive gains, we had an incident that is keeping us in the ICU at least another night. We are both positive. Small steps forward today, some large ones, too. * Some dreams are sweeter than others. Please, check out my new poetry video from the DARK PRAISE album on endarkenment. “Because Last Night I Dreamt of You” is a flirty poem well accompanied on guitar by Steve Law with with seductive art by Marisa S. White. Plus amazing video design by Tony Jeannette. * Your Life on Pop Culture Even if you haven’t watched a hit movie in ten years, your life is majorly changed by pop culture. I LOVE this new interview on Emerging Form with Pulitzer Prize winning data journalist Walter Hickey. It’s math, it’s raucous, its practical, its so so so darn fun. |
Day Seven ICU
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged healing, icu, massage, miracle, mom, touch on October 18, 2023| 21 Comments »
She lets me rub oil into her skin,
massaging it slowly into her feet
till they’re supple and warm
and the skin almost shines,
swelling gone.
She sighs in pleasure
instead of pain.
The room smells of lavender.
Lanky afternoon light
lopes through the slats
to replace the fluorescence
of the ICU.
It’s quiet.
No nurse. No doctor.
No beep to alert us her oxygen is low.
How seldom I let myself
move this slow.
I smooth her arches,
slip my fingers through her toes.
We play this little piggy goes home,
and this little piggy goes home,
and this little piggy and this little piggy
and this little piggy go whee whee whee
all the way home.
Is it strange I love this moment
in a place neither of us wants to be.
The business outside this room
will last forever.
And here we are, so alive
we slip right into the miracle.
*
Dear Friends,
thank you again for all the support, all the kind notes, all the prayers and love and healing energy. I can’t respond to them, but I read them all and let them go in … all the way in. I read mom a bunch of the notes today–and they warmed her, too. In the ICU, it seems time goes fast and healing goes slow. Mom’s improving, at last. I see a path out, albeit a long one. Wishing you all deep peace and ease in your own bodies.
Anastomosis
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged connection, daughter, healing, hospital, mom on October 17, 2023| 15 Comments »
It means “connection between two passageways.”
It means “place where two rivers meet.”
It means, “here is where necrotized intestine
can be cut away and a woman can be healed.”
It means, “seam where sepsis might begin
through the tiniest of micro perforations.”
It means, “my mother endured such pain.”
It’s so fine, the line between healing and crisis.
So elusive, the word that means
“I know my own life because it’s connected with hers.”
And I, who never before
had even heard of anastomosis,
I, who even yesterday could not spell
nor pronounce it,
I now know too well the five-syllable word
that means “fallible healer,” “essential danger,”
this word that describes the very place
where a life might be saved,
then nearly lost, then saved again.
Another Night in the ICU
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged caregiving, gentleness, hospital, icu, mom, nurse on October 16, 2023| 22 Comments »
for Ally
So tenderly, the night nurse lifts
the blankets from my mother’s limbs
and notes the drainage—
its serosanguinous color, its volume.
She checks mom’s vitals and does
whatever she does with all those plastic tubes
that now tether my mother to her life.
How quietly she moves, like a wraith,
she whispers, as if she’s a wisp,
something insubstantial, a midnight trace.
Yet the gift of her work is great
in this moment when all depends on care.
I marvel at her gentleness, her humanness,
her kindness as she works
and my mother’s chest rises and falls,
rises and falls in hard-won sleep.
Like a killdeer, able to make a nest
in bare soil, gravel, even a paved parking lot,
the night nurse makes of this sterile room
a soft-enough place, a place where my mother
can be safe. Like a mother killdeer,
the night nurse stays close to the room,
her eyes and ears trained for danger.
She’s tracking everything,
determined that all will be well tonight.
*
Dear friends,
wow, thank you for the generous outpouring of love, prayers and well wishes for my mother and for me. I read every single one and thanked everyone out loud by name, and I am sad I won’t be able to respond individually to you, but please know how your kind words and good thoughts are carrying me and Mom. I have a deep abiding peace, despite the new curveballs the day brought. She had another (third) surgery today, and I hope and pray this will be the last and she can now rest and recover. She’s been in the hospital since Oct. 6. She’s had an intestinal surgery, a cardiac event, sepsis, a vascular surgery for lack of blood flow in her arm, an ulcer in her duodenum, dangerously low blood pressure, and today a third surgery to repair perforations that occurred at the point of the original surgery. Amidst all this she is a marvel of positivity, resilience, and kindness.
And as I said last night, thank you to all who care for those who need healing. I am so so so so grateful.
The Humming
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged healing, home, icu, mom, song on October 15, 2023| 26 Comments »
And there in the ICU, amidst the tubes
and rubber gloves, amongst the pillows
and the scent of disinfectant,
we build a house of song,
a house with rafters of “Moon River”
and a foundation of “Amazing Grace.”
There are lintels of “Wild Mountain Thyme”
and a hearth of “The Water is Wide,”
For an hour, we live inside the tunes
as they surround us, familiar rooms
where laughter is welcome,
where sleep might come,
where we live not outside of time,
but inside its melodic chambers,
not escaping the fear and the pain,
but companioning it with so much love,
so much beauty that somehow,
even in the halls of distress,
we nestle deeper in and feel safe.
*
Hi friends–oh my sweet mama is having a tough time–multiple surgeries, so many side swipes. It’s been a crazy time. At this moment, she seems to be stabilizing. Tonight I am so grateful for everyone who works in the medical professions–from those who leave home in the middle of the night to do emergency surgeries to those who keep the hospital floors clean–thank you to all who help those who need healing.