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Archive for February, 2024

Nightly Encounter

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , on February 29, 2024| 14 Comments »


 
 
In the dark, she finds her way to me,
this cat who never deigns to sit
on my lap in the day.
I delight in this moment
when, just before sleep takes me,
I feel the thump of her landing,
the exploratory nudge of her head,
the tentative paws as they knead
into the covers, into my belly,
I love being the place
she chooses to rest—
in the moment, this honor
as important as any degree,
any title, any prize.
It’s so easy then, to love my body
when I am her cushion,
my softness in service
to her softness, my warmth
in service to her warmth,
my breath her rocking chair.
And any harshness I might
have for myself softens
in this humble moment
when I am deemed worthy
of her weight, this heavenly heaviness,
her sweet purr into my ribs
so quiet not even
the night can hear.

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Ode to Late Night Scrolling on Instagram

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on February 27, 2024| 4 Comments »


 
 
To each clip of two teenage boys who dance
together in public places, joy
in their serious faces, joy
in each articulated twist of neck,
each synchronized pop of wrist and knee.
To the librarian, his dark hair a wild and
curly halo surrounding his angelic face
as he narrates of kids helping each other.
To each second spent listening
to the mischievous bass player
in his small kitchen with friends
as they saute noodles
and belt out Fly Me to the Moon.
To my daughter who sends me
cats crawling into impossibly small spaces
and finding happiness there,
the way I, even now, I climb into
this small rectangle in my hand
and curl into the surprising happiness
of a red-headed boy with a lilting voice
in a bright yellow raincoat
walking me through a forest
and showing me hen of the woods
and a clutch of orange mushrooms,
life thriving in a world so damp somehow
my own cheeks are now wet.
 

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Like the Peony

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on February 27, 2024| 12 Comments »


 
Like the peony that opens
and opens and opens,
this is how I want to meet life—
surviving the cold
then returning to bloom
again. Again.
That vibrant. That many-petaled.
Embarrassingly fulsome,
as if life just can’t
get enough of itself.
I know how winter ravages.
Sounds like a metaphor?
Truth is life cuts you to the ground
and you lose all but the roots.
Sometimes those, too.
How is it, then, comes
the chance to bloom again,
to be less master of life,
and more servant
to the life that pushes through.
I want to be fluent in blooming.
I want to trust the possibility
of sweet spring perfume
as much as I trust
the inevitability of frost.
I am so grateful for beauty,
albeit brief,
for the chance to be naked,
tender, soft.
 
 *

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After Talking About Vulnerability

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on February 25, 2024| 6 Comments »

 
I just want something
I can hang my hat on, she said.
But the mortarboard didn’t hang on education.
The government’s white wig fell off.
The tiara slipped from beauty.
The skullcap blew off the church.
No hat she hung could stay.
The ball cap fell off the firm body.
Art couldn’t keep the beret.
Even the mesh net
of the beekeeper’s wide brim
fell away, fell away, it all falls away.
Which is to say nothing stays.
Not the dodo. Not the dino.
Not the houses we live in.
Not our firm young skin.
Not a father, not a son.
Not sunshine. Not rain.
Not empires. Not cats.
Not the first crushing fist of heartbreak.
Not nightmares. Not bruises.
Not hats.
She let herself drift
in what was left, her head bare,
hands empty, heart open,
eyes wide. The sun stroked
her shoulder. She breathed in
the musky scent that arrives
on the wind just before spring.
Nothing was certain. She stood alone
at the edge of every possible thing
no hat in hand, and listened 
to the chickadee sing.

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Writing with Dante starts Feb. 29

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , on February 25, 2024| 8 Comments »

The Journey Begins with Catastrophe
a one-hour preview of a journey with Dante
Kayleen Asbo & Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer
February 29, 11-noon Mountain Time, zoom

How did Dante get to the place where he wrote the Divine Comedy? Have you ever wholly lost your way? Found yourself on the shores of humility? Join me and my amazing and beloved friend Kayleen Asbo, cultural historian, musician, and art historian, for a 60-minute preview of our new collaboration, Writing with Dante, a three-part workshop. This first one-hour program on Feb. 29 is free, though donations are gratefully accepted.

Kayleen will lead us by the hand to explore connect our lives with the psychological landscapes of Dante’s Divine Comedy through a feast of art, music and storytelling. I’ll guide writing and sharing to help weave our conversations, questions and explorations into our own lives. 

The series continues: 
March 7 10 a.m.-2:30 p.m. mountain time, In the Dark Woods: Reading and writing into Dante’s Inferno

April 4 10 a.m – 2:30 p.m. mountain time, The Mountain of Hope: Reading and writing into Dante’s Puragatory

May 2 10 a.m. – 2:30 p.m. Coming Home to a Place of Belonging: Reading and writing into Dante’s Paradise

To register for this free preview, visit here

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One Beyond Practical

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , on February 25, 2024| Leave a Comment »

for KC
 
 
an umbrella of song—
sure we got wet,
but man, did we smile

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Beyond Quiet

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on February 24, 2024| 6 Comments »


 
 
From bare branch to bare branch
kingfishers weave the dry tick
of their call through morning—
as if sticks are rattling,
as if stones are clattering—
and whatever part of me
that is longing for quiet
is invited into the racket.
I say I want peace,
but what the heart really wants
is to know itself
as part of everything,
to belong to the world
of grinding and trilling,
scolding and chattering,
to knit itself into this raucous day,
strident and so alive.
 

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Gold Medal

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , on February 22, 2024| 11 Comments »

 
 
I’ve beaten my own record. Again.
Most tears shed while thinking
of people who are kind.
First tears in the audience
at an elementary choir concert.
Longest number of days in a row
weeping for any reason.
If crying were a sport,
I’d be a contender.
Furthest distance
for projectile tears.
Most Kleenex’s used
while reading a single poem.
Greatest variety of emotions
that might inspire weeping.
I did have a good coach
in my mother. My grandfather.
My aunt. They modeled
crying for love, for grief,
for sincerity, for prayer.
I’m a legacy, really,
natural talent, plus
practicing all the time.
Blue sky? Bawling. Brave kids?
Sobbing. Great loss?
I’ve been a puddle for years.
And to think I used to try
to stop the tears.
As if they were something
to be ashamed of.
As if they didn’t make me
a real winner.

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The Teacher

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on February 21, 2024| 6 Comments »


for Joi Sharp
 
 
In the garden of wisdom,
she did not step in as head gardener.
Instead, she tended her own planting.
She showed me how to weed
the stories we tell ourselves,
how inner spaciousness
is the richest soil for growth.
She did not do the tilling for me.
Inquiry became my hoe.
She offered questions free
as rain water.
And when it was time to sow,
from her own rows she gathered seeds.
She did not do the planting.
She handed the seeds to me.
 

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When It Looks As If I’m Talking to Myself

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , on February 21, 2024| 8 Comments »

 
I’m talking to the dead.
Oh, look at the bunny,
I say to the empty kitchen.
I didn’t know I would be
the kind of woman
who talks to the dead,
who narrates the day,
who believes they hear me
after midnight when I whisper
I miss you.
I say I love you
as I walk in the spruce
and falling snow,
say isn’t it beautiful
into the crystalline air,
and the scene is more beautiful
for the sharing.
When I am alone,
I am always talking to the dead
about what it’s like to be here
in their absence.
How strangely wondrous
life can be after a loss.
I feel their presence
in the listening,
feel how the listening wraps
its tender arms around me,
feel how gently the listening
leans in to cradle my face
with silence.
 

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