It was like an ice floe in December,
when the river builds up a dam of ice
and then backs up,
and the pressure builds
until the river is powerful enough
to break the dam down.
This is how it was when,
sitting beside you in the car
and longing for closeness,
I felt it, my inner river churning
against the wall between us,
and I realized I’d created it
with my own coldness—
and then came the rush of warm tears
and the gush of a desperate “I’m sorry.”
And in an instant
the dam broke
and the car was bank full
with thick currents of laughter
and I was so grateful
for the one brave second
when the heart knew the truth—
how we move forward
when we see how we’ve made
obstacles of ourselves
and then use everything we’ve got
to bring them down.
Archive for December, 2023
It Was Impossible Until It Wasn’t
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged apology, obstacle, river on December 10, 2023| 5 Comments »
Trust
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged connection, conversation, daughter, mother on December 10, 2023| 8 Comments »
Sometimes you spill your fears
into the room and there is no place on earth
then more holy as your words unfurl like curls
of incense in fractaled unspiraling,
each sob, each murmur a tendril of smoke
I follow until it disappears.
How I treasure these times
when you let me meet all of you.
When I leave, I look the same,
the scent of truth clinging to my skin.
But I am rearranged within.
In a Circle of Trust
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged circle, communion, community, connection, silence, trust on December 9, 2023| 8 Comments »
I love these fierce and gentle hours
when the silence between us
blooms between voices
as deeply, as profusely
as the pale pink blossoms
that flourish in pavement cracks.
I did not know how much
I longed for this silence,
Did not know how the silence would honor
each voice the way a frame holds a portrait,
bringing value and beauty to the art inside,
didn’t know how shining it could be
with its infrangible truth,
how silence invites a deepening of self
the way a river deepens and changes the canyon,
even as the river itself is changed.
Smack Dab in the Middle of a Thursday
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged gratefulness, life, miracle, softening, sunlight on December 7, 2023| 10 Comments »
Why do I resist calling it a miracle,
this light that streams now through my window,
this light that has travelled ninety-three million miles
through solar wind particles and radiation
and countless numbers of solar neutrinos
to land here on my living room floor.
As if because it can be measured
and tracked it is any less divine.
As if, just because it’s been happening
for four point five billion years
it is any less extraordinary,
this journey of warmth and radiance.
I let the light-loving animal of my being
curl into the spaces of the room
where the sunlight pools in bright invitation,
and I soften, soften into my breath,
soften into the wonder
of being alive in this very moment
in this very body with this very heart
meeting this very gentle amazement
at how very good it can be, this life.
Tender Presence
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged grief, love, roses, scent on December 7, 2023| 10 Comments »
In those days when I didn’t know
how to live, a friend gave me
a cream of whipped roses
to smooth into my cheeks.
The scent helped me be
in my own skin.
Years later, it still comforts me,
scent of rose, palmarosa,
rose geranium.
It smells like resilience,
like generosity,
like love that continues to grow,
like a prayer carried by the wind.
Self-Portrait as Tuning Fork
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged eternity, resonane, self, truth on December 5, 2023| 18 Comments »
I am what continues.
—Joi Sharp
There is, perhaps you’ve felt it,
a moment when the day falls away
and your name falls away and
everything you thought you knew
falls away and for a moment
you know yourself only
as whatever it is
that continues—
your whole body abuzz
with the eternity of it—
and you quiver
as if struck by the great hand
of what is true,
becoming pure tone,
more vibration than flesh,
a human-shaped resonator
tuned to the frequency
of life itself,
and though later you might try
to dissect what happened,
in that moment you’re too abloom
to wonder how or why,
you simply are
this ecstatic unfolding
knowing the self as I am,
so alive and so infinite
you tremble like a song.
In This Tender Silence
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged breath, consolation, friendship, grief, Rilke, silence, song on December 5, 2023| 2 Comments »
Offer your beauty always without calculation or defense.
—Rainer Maria Rilke, “Initial,” trans. Mark S. Burrows
Oh friend, it’s true. These dark hours
can crumple us, can press.
No way to escape their crush.
How merciless it can be,
the fist of grief,
how strong the squeeze,
how difficult to believe
we’ll survive.
Today, it is enough
to offer the world
only the simplest song—
the wordless, tuneless
song of beingness.
How beautiful it is,
this offering,
your breath against my cheek.
Kabocha
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged food, Kabocha, squash, surprise on December 4, 2023| 10 Comments »
Hiding inside the tough and blotchy skin,
is bright orange flesh that turns velvety,
creamy, fluffy and sweet when roasted
or baked or steamed. On this cold day,
the kabocha squash feels like proof
that goodness exists in places
we might not have predicted.
Hard places. Dull places.
Knobby and squat places.
I want to sing kabocha.
I want a voice that orange.
I want a trust in life
that earthy, that sweet.
On Any Given Day
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged communion, evolution, seamlessness on December 3, 2023| 17 Comments »
How easily I forget
I contain the story
of the universe.
Easier sometimes
to feel alone,
as if I am not connected
to every single atom
around me, as if
I am separate
from the shimmer
that made it all,
as if I am not
also you.
One Centration
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged Centration on December 2, 2023| 6 Comments »
13.7 billion years
to evolve this four-chambered organ
beating this moment for you
To Face the Dark–Poetry Video
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged dark praise, poetry video on December 1, 2023| 9 Comments »
How do we face the dark? As we meet these darker days, it’s a powerful time to explore our relationship with darkness. This is the final track on DARK PRAISE, a spoken-word album on endarkenment–exploring the ways the dark nourishes us. The track, and the whole album, are available on Spotify, Apple Music, or anywhere you listen to music. You can also purchase the album to support its makers on Bandcamp.
Poetry by Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer
Music by Steve Law
Art by Marisa S. White, “Grace & Gravity”
Video by Tony Jeannette
To Face the Dark
To face the dark,
one does not need a light.
Nor does one need a watch,
a feather, a melody, a sword, a pen.
One doesn’t even need a friend.
To face the dark,
one needs only to face the dark.
There is something easier then
about the facing, when we know
we need no preparation.
Nothing is asked of us except
the willingness to face the dark,
the willingness to pause
in that moment when we
cannot see, cannot know,
cannot float on the sea of habit,
cannot fly on the feathers of routine.
But already, I’ve taken this too far.
It’s so simple, the invitation,
that it’s easy to miss what is asked.
Not a journey. Not even a step.
Just the chance to face the dark,
to meet yourself in that facing—
and to notice what being erased
and what’s doing the erasing.