More than twenty years ago,
I planted several wild iris beside the pond.
Today, I sit beside a generous patch
of fluttering blue flags and watch
a gold-dusted bumblebee clumsily
swerve from bloom to bloom to bloom.
Such joy they bring, these wild iris that rise
and multiply every spring. They remind me of how
kindness, too, is rhizomic, how
years ago you planted in me
something beautiful before you left.
If you came again to my shores,
would you be surprised to see
how your kindness continues to spread?
Archive for May, 2024
What We Sow
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged bees, flowers, kindness, wild iris on May 31, 2024| 8 Comments »
Christie Sends Me a Photo
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged clothes, friendship, habits, humor, laughter, patterns, solids on May 29, 2024| 7 Comments »
Her head is pasted onto my body
wearing a very plain black dress.
My head’s pasted onto her body
wearing a flamboyant jumpsuit
with pixilated technicolor chaos,
a jumpsuit she’s tried to get me
to wear for months.
She knows wearing patterns
makes me queasy. And what
is it in us that loves to make
our beloveds squirm?
I’m an easy target.
She knows I will squeal and
splutter and rail, so when I call
in a righteous outrage
over how she’s dressed my likeness
in a blenderized rainbow,
she laughs and I laugh
and something is so right
with the world then—
this goofy, giddy moment
when the stakes are low
and I am uncomfortable and prickly
and feel so deeply seen,
so able to laugh at the lines I draw.
I fall inside the laughter,
feel it wrap around me
bright as that flashy jumpsuit.
And I, who crave what is solid,
I dissolve into that brightness.
Getting Close
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged dance, grief, love, mother, photograph, son, suicide on May 28, 2024| 15 Comments »
In the photo he is dancing,
his arms a strong diagonal,
his tie flying forward
even as he comes to a still point
balanced for a moment
on the toes of his tap shoes,
his body a lightning bolt
in a crisp white shirt.
I focus on his face,
see the will it takes
to make his body stop in time,
see his easy smile,
the invitation in his eyes,
a blend of pride and play.
I lean in until his face is a blur,
as if by coming closer,
I might feel the breath
that isn’t there, breathe in
the warmth of his being.
I love entering
this photo sometimes,
or more rightly,
love the way this photo
enters me until
I ring with the truth
of how it is to love
this boy who did not
become a man,
this boy who chose
to make his body
stop in time,
this lightning bolt
captured on film,
unpredictable, powerful,
something no one
could hold forever,
this love that strikes me
every time I think of him,
I still feel it, the charge.
Love, Like Water
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged grief, love, water on May 27, 2024| 8 Comments »
We could say the pain
was a block so great
it could not be moved.
We could say love
did not try to move it.
Love simply dissolved the mass
and surrounded it
the way water meets a block of salt,
breaking apart each ionic bond
until every atom of sodium and chloride
is surrounded by molecules of water.
And in this way,
and sooner than you’d think,
the pain was rearranged
into minuscule bits,
and there was no part of the pain
that was not touched by love.
The pain was no less, it’s true.
But mixed with love, dispersed,
the pain became something new.
Something vital that encouraged
a different kind of life,
a substance that supported buoyancy—
a medium to carry me.
On Memorial Day
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged fighting, goodness, memorial day, peace, war on May 26, 2024| 7 Comments »
after watching Porcelain War
I think of every human
who has given their life
to fight not for war
but for peace. I think
of every mother and father
and son and daughter,
every baker and painter
and teacher and builder
who has learned to use
a weapon to save
the people and places
they love. I think of love—
how the Ukrainian woman
said tonight she had
never been more aware
of how good humans can be—
and how she’s learned this
midst bombs and blood
and broken trust and shattered
glass. I think of how peace
is a choice we make with
every smallest action we take.
I think of the pen in my own hand.
What will I do with it?
Make a Wish
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged birthday, candle, friendship, kindness, light on May 25, 2024| Leave a Comment »
for JS
No cake and no you.
Still, I light a candle
on your birthday
and notice the way
one small flame
changes the feel
of a whole room.
I think of your light
and how many
gather around it,
how quietly you invite
the shadows to dance,
how gently one person
can change the world.
THREE ONLINE PROGRAMS! JOIN ME!
Posted in Uncategorized on May 25, 2024| Leave a Comment »
All of them will raise funds for these nonprofits …
June 3
Poetry as Portal
hosted by WholeHeart
WholeHeart facilitators frequently use meaningful and evocative poetry in their programs and events as portals into deeper listening. Poetry can be a powerful tool to help participants listen to themselves and access new reservoirs of inner knowing as they hold life questions. This new offering, Poetry As Portal, will highlight some of the poets whose work is among our favorites! Each 90-minute evening will feature: 3-4 original poems read aloud by the poet; a conversation with the poet about their own listening process, as well as some fun background about the pieces they have produced; reflection and small-group time with one of the featured poems to spark our own insights; community sharing to nourish our personal practices.
register here
June 5
The Mystery of Grief: Writing Into the Loss
hosted by Evermore
When we lose loved ones, writing can be a powerful tool for helping us remember them, helping us re-encounter the world without them, and helping us re-know ourselves as the loss transforms us.In this two-hour online program, Evermore Poet Laureate Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer will offer a few suggestions for writing. Together, we will read poems about grief and discuss them. We will have chances to do our own writing, there will be optional time for sharing what we wrote, and we will have time to reflect on the effect writing has on us. The poems we read and write won’t be able to hold all the feelings, but they will offer us a way to touch our grief, to connect with the lives and deaths of our loved ones, to give voice to our anguish, to find compassion for each other, to fall in love with the world that is left, to express our heartache, and to explore the landscape of our hearts.
register here
June 26
Escaping Into the Present: Poetry as a Practice for Reseeing the World
hosted by ONE ART
The act of writing a poem can bring us more closely to the essence of the moment, can help us exist in immediacy. In this two-hour online playshop, both practical and playful, we’ll sharpen our observational skills to engage with the poetry that lives in everything—objects, locations, situations, conversations. We’ll practice meeting what Hopkins calls “thisness.” As Mary Oliver writes, “the world offers itself to your attention, over and over.” Let’s meet it together, pen in hand. All levels of experience welcome.
register here
The Choosing
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged authenticity, connection, daughter, grief, happiness, intimacy, love, mother, vulnerability on May 25, 2024| 10 Comments »
Perhaps I no longer believe in happiness
as the goal. Not that I am against happiness,
but being in this very uncomfortable moment
with little light and a vicious chill, my arms wrapped
around my growing girl, both our hearts breaking
from sorrow and fear, both of us too well aware
of what can be lost, well, I would not trade this moment
for any wide-grinned hour of beach and sun,
wouldn’t rather be anywhere else with anyone—
I would choose again and again to be here
on the dark sidewalk with my girl in my arms,
our hearts so raw, the space between us so warm.
Not a Still Life
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged aliveness, birds, life, may, spring on May 23, 2024| 10 Comments »
As if they’d been waiting for the wild wind to wane,
the mother and father goose guide their goslings
on a walk through the field, a dozen small graylings
bumbling between them, and the May evening light
has not dulled yet to dim so every new birch leaf
and every spring blade and every bright red willow stem
seems to outgleam itself with aliveness, and the air
blurs with hummingbirds, whirls with violet-green swallows,
and it’s spring, my god, it’s thrumming inside me, this life saying
Live, live, live, live, as everything I am unfurls and expands,
even the parts I thought seemed dead, yes even the sticks
now swell into bud, erupt into reckless bloom.
Coming Home the First Time after Our Son Died
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged compassion, connection, friendship, grief, help, loss, love, receiving on May 22, 2024| 20 Comments »
Someone had taken small rocks and shaped them
into a heart in the center of our drive
so when we arrived, we knew we were not alone.
At the front door, we stepped over
another small heart made of stones
filled with blue petals of larkspur,
golden petals of sunflowers,
the tiny red petals of geranium.
We walked into our home
to find wildflowers in a vase on the counter,
our fridge filled with fruit, soymilk and hummus,
the shelves lined with cans and boxes of tissues.
There were love letters tucked into every room.
The house itself was quiet,
too quiet without the boy who wasn’t there,
but it was not a lonely silence.
Those were the days when I learned
to say okay every time someone offered help.
Can I bring you lavender lotion? Okay.
Can I make you a meal? Okay.
Can I pick up your mail? Okay. Okay.
What a gift to be carried by others,
to learn by heart the sacred bond
between those who are broken
and those who offer their hands
to cradle the ones who are broken.
Years later, those same small stones
still grace our front porch,
though the shape of the heart
has been rearranged many times.
As has mine. I want to remember
how we need each other.
The petals I add never stay.
The love infused here has never gone away.
Upcoming Live Events in Colorado
Posted in Uncategorized on May 22, 2024| Leave a Comment »
A Blissful Evening of Poetry, Music & Wine
May 28, 6 p.m.
Palisade, CO
The Ordinary Fellow Winery
Free
Join me for a fun evening where we’ll remember just how good it is to be alive. Opening music by guitarist Geoff Crumbaugh and an optional open mic after I read. For more information and to register sign up HERE
*
Ars Nova Singers: Fruition
June 8 Denver, Central Presbyterian Church (also livestreamed) 7:30 p.m.
June 9 Boulder, The Dairy Arts Center 7 p.m.
$30 ($10/student)
Join me for Shared Visions—a remarkable interdisciplinary collaboration that brings together artists from across Colorado. Four artists, four poets, four composers, and some of the finest singers in Colorado! It’s also showing June 7 in Longmont, but I won’t be there. Find more information about the event, the artists, the singers and the collaboration, plus tickets here.
*
6 Creative Writing Workshop
Tuesdays June 11-25 10:30 a.m. – noon
Tuesdays July 9-23 10:30 a.m. – noon
Lone Cone Library, Norwood, CO
hosted by Think 360
Free
Writing to Remember (6/11, 6/18, 6/25)
What do memories of our youth have to teach us now? If we could speak to our younger selves, what would we say? In this three-week class, we explore how reading and writing poems helps us to be curious about our stories and see them in a new way.
Writing the Land (7/9, 7/16, 7/23)
How does living on Wright’s Mesa inform who you are? How does it influence the way you see the world? What thrills you about it? What keeps you here? What makes you want to leave? In this three-week class, we’ll read and write poems that help us explore our relationship to this place we call home.Come to as many as you can, but no obligation to make them all. All levels of experience and inexperience welcome. For info, visit here
When Molly held out her tight leather vest
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged clothes, friendship, generosity, giving, kindness, Molly Venter, receiving, vest on May 21, 2024| 9 Comments »
with its two-foot-long green fringe
and suggested I could borrow it,
I felt that long familiar clench in my chest
as the word no puckered on my lips.
The clench said, who was I
to borrow clothes from Molly Venter?
It said who was I to wear
flirty and sexy green leather fringe?
It said, can’t you dress yourself?
I don’t know why I held out my hand,
but as soon as I did, I relaxed.
That whole night, as the long green fringe
swished and swayed all flirty around my thighs
no one else knew I was dressed in kindness.
No one knew I was alive with the blessing
of new friendship. But perhaps they could sense
I was honey-blissed on the inside with the thrill
of wearing Molly Venter’s vest,
so much more than just a sleeveless scrap of fabric—
I was wrapped in the velvet of her voice,
the willow tree of her wisdom,
the raw delight in her guitar
and the freedom that comes when
we receive the gifts of others.
Days later, dressed a slouchy cardigan,
I’m still wearing the generosity I saw in her eyes
as she handed me the vest—
I feel that fringe swish with every step I take.
The Mystery of Grief: Writing into the Loss
Posted in Uncategorized on May 20, 2024| Leave a Comment »
June 5, 2024
7-9pm ET, 6-8pm CT, 5-7pm MT, 4-6pm PT
hosted by Evermore on Zoom
When we lose loved ones, writing can be a powerful tool for helping us remember them, helping us re-encounter the world without them, and helping us re-know ourselves as the loss transforms us.
In this two-hour online program, Evermore Poet Laureate Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer will offer a few suggestions for writing. Together, we will read poems about grief and discuss them. We will have chances to do our own writing, there will be optional time for sharing what we wrote, and we will have time to reflect on the effect writing has on us.
The poems we read and write won’t be able to hold all the feelings, but they will offer us a way to touch our grief, to connect with the lives and deaths of our loved ones, to give voice to our anguish, to find compassion for each other, to fall in love with the world that is left, to express our heartache, and to explore the landscape of our hearts.
All registrants will receive a recording
Each workshop will offer new, inspirational poems and invitations to write.
If you need an angel ticket or have any questions, please contact jena@evermore.org To register, visit Evermore
The Tender Gap
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged arrow, buddhist teaching, gap, pain, self-compassion on May 20, 2024| 8 Comments »
If an arrow strikes you, you feel pain where it enters. If a second arrow strikes the same place, the pain is greatly intensified. The first arrow represents unwelcome events, such as rejection, loss, failure and injury. The second arrow represents our reaction to these events, such as worry, fear, anger, criticism and despair.
—gloss of the Buddhist teaching from the Sallatha Sutta, “The Arrow”
In the moment after the first arrow has hit
is a small gap in which I sit and reel
from the pain of the tip.
How raw I am then, stunned
by the burn, by the sting.
How easy in that moment
to wound myself again
with second arrows
fashioned of shame and blame.
As if it’s wrong to be hurt.
As if I should have evaded being hit.
In that gap before I raise my own bow,
before I nock the arrow,
before the tension builds in my arm
from pulling back the string,
there, I want to build a nest,
a safe and spacious place to rest,
a place where I feel the pain
and treat myself with the same gentleness
I would offer anyone else who is hurting.
I want to weave in blue and green ribbons
of tenderness and let my body feel what it feels.
I want to curl into that gap
with all my senses open,
want to let the throb be throb,
let the ache be ache,
and surround it with enough softness
that it can heal.
Such a sacred gap, that moment
in which I choose to let my arms hang by my sides,
choose to put down the arrow
and weave the bowstring
into the nest.
All the Excuses
Posted in Uncategorized on May 19, 2024| 3 Comments »
At the entrance to City Market,
the man in the ripped yellow shirt
called out to the cars
with maniacal glee,
his laughter a symphony of madness
his smile gaping wide to reveal
missing teeth, his eyes flared
as if daring conversation. If he had
a cardboard sign with a few words
in permanent marker
to tell his story, I did not see it.
Why did I not stop at the curb
beside him and roll down my window
and ask him what he needed?
There he was in the rearview mirror,
still waving his arms as if begging
the whole world to wave back.
Self-Compassion
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged parts of self, peace, self, self-compassion, war on May 19, 2024| 16 Comments »
On a day when I am at war with myself,
when I battle my own humanness
in a longing to be good, to be better
than good, to be perfect,
when I point to myself with a snarl
and a sneer as if I am my own enemy,
then I notice how my whole body contracts
and I’m a crumpled up map, a gray lump in the throat,
a stone in the gut, a crumpled wing in the chest.
And it’s hard to breathe. And it’s hard to move.
That is when I’m grateful to have a body,
grateful for the way it helps me remember
I have a choice to meet this moment with kindness.
It’s as if, mid-combat, I’m delivered a postcard
with a forever stamp sent from my wisest self saying,
Dear woman who thinks she is not good enough,
I see you. It’s okay to feel this way.
And what looked like a battlefield a blink ago
now looks more like a vast green meadow filled
with low golden light where all parts of me
are welcome—the one who makes mistakes,
the one who judges, the one who longs to be good,
the one who thinks she shouldn’t have to learn
the same lesson again. There is no part of me then
that is not welcome, that cannot be loved,
and my body expands like a great alpine basin,
unfurls like an unending white flag.
How easy it is then to stand with all of my selves
in that field and know what it means to be home.
Anxiety
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged anxiety, cat on May 17, 2024| 7 Comments »
Like a cat that finds
the lap of the person
who doesn’t want it,
anxiety keeps nudging me,
leaping up to my lap,
curling deeper in,
and no matter how
many times I push it
away, anxiety returns,
kneads into the parts
of me that are soft,
as if it knows it could be
so comfortable here
if only I’d stop
all this flailing.
The Waking
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged marriage, silence, trust, waking on May 16, 2024| 8 Comments »
When I wake, it’s your silence
beside me that invites me
to wake into my own silence,
and I begin the day with listening.
By heart I know the difference
between the quiet of your sleep
and the quiet of you dreaming.
and it is by tuning to the gentle
hinge of your breath that I
relearn my place in the world.
Even before my eyes are open
I greet the dawn-drenched day,
not with an alarm but through a doorway
of trust. How quietly opening happens.
LIVE, May 18: Moonshine Family Traveling Medicine Show!!
Posted in Uncategorized on May 15, 2024| 2 Comments »
I am just so darn excited for Saturday! I’ll be sharing the stage with some of my musical heroes–Molly Venter & Eben Pariser of Goodnight Moonshine, my amazing guitar player Steve Law, and my soul-brother storyteller & wonderhuman Craig Childs. Plus a preconcert writing playshop at the wonderful KVNF radio station hosted by Paonia Books.
Saturday, May 18
12-2 p.m.
A Poetry Writing Workshop with spoken word poet/musician Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer
Presented by: Paonia Books
Risking Love: Writing Poems that Help Us Fall in Love In With the World as It Is
AT KVNF Community Room 233 Grand Ave, Paonia
Visit: https://www.paoniabooks.com/classes to register.
8:30-10:30pm
Moonshine Family Traveling Medicine Show feat. Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer & Steve Law
with Special Guest Craig Childs
Presented by Pickin Productions
Blue Sage Center for the Arts, 228 Grand Ave, Paonia Co
Acoustic Duo Goodnight Moonshine combines the evocative voice and songwriting of Molly Venter, with Eben Pariser’s adventurous guitar playing. The result is folk music with a depth of improvisation usually reserved for jazz. For one night only, they will be joined by poet, Rosemerry Trommer, guitarist Steve Law, and special guest Craig Childs for an evening of guitar picking, storytelling, poetry, and mind altering hypnotic inductions.Tickets Available at: pickinproductions.com
The Radiant Now
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged birds, breakfast, marriage, present, spring, time on May 15, 2024| 6 Comments »
Beside the flower bed, still unplanted,
we sit on the porch with coffee and toast
and watch the field where the swallows
swoop and dive in their own ritual of breakfast.
Hummingbirds chase each other across the grass,
small bodies like darts that pin us
to this moment. Would I, if I could, pin us
to this radiant now when the whole world
is greening and the morning sun paints
gold on every surface? Or is its value
partly based in how quickly it passes?
So while I can, I sink into this measure
of bliss, cup still warm in my hand,
and breathe in the sweet, sharp scent of grass.
Someday soon, there will be flowers.