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.
Archive for May, 2024
The Waking
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged marriage, silence, trust, waking on May 16, 2024| 7 Comments »
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.
What’s Left
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged crow, excuses, haikuling, willingness on May 13, 2024| 2 Comments »
all my excuses
disappear on black wings—
crows scattering from the field
I Live for This Moment
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged daughter, love, microcosm, mother, mother's day on May 12, 2024| 8 Comments »
when my daughter stumbles
sleepy-eyed from her room
and no matter what I’m doing,
I stop and move to the corner
of the couch so she can settle
her whole weight on me.
Maybe we speak of dreams.
Maybe we converse with the cat.
Maybe we plan the day.
Maybe we say nothing at all.
All that matters is that
she is close and I nuzzle my face
into her hair and wrap an arm
around her chest and know
this is the beginning of everything,
the seed, the cosmic swirl,
the headline that’s never written.
To foster one moment of trust
and love is to belong
to a crucial revolution.
It matters, how we hold each other.
What happens everywhere
starts right here.
Legacy
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged daughter, love, mom, mother's day on May 11, 2024| 10 Comments »
Far away my mother
reaches across the bed
for my father’s hand
that isn’t there. Still,
she says, she almost
feels it, just as I almost,
even now, feel her hand
rubbing the gentle pad
of her thumb across
my own thumbnail.
Perhaps someday
when I am gone,
my daughter, too,
will almost feel a whisper
of a kiss on her brow
that reminds her how
I kiss her tonight,
as always, with my lips
pressed to that place
just above her eyes
as I murmur that I love her.
Perhaps it will surprise
her how real it still feels,
the words no longer audible,
but I hope by then
she will know them by heart.
Two Days Before Mother’s Day I Visit Your Grave
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged artificial flowers, bereaved mother's day, fading, flowers, grave, grief, love on May 11, 2024| 6 Comments »
They are faded, the pink roses
made of fabric someone left
at your grave, and the leaves,
once green, are faint shades
of yellow, and I love them,
these petals that are so much more
than frayed polyester,
transformed as they are
into remembrance. Someone
else misses you, too.
Why does this move me so?
I, too, am fraying. Fading.
Being unmade. I do not mind
the undoing, the new way of being
less interested in perfection.
It’s what happens,
the price for choosing
to show up in all weather
to honor who we love.
I weep for a while beside
the granite with your name in it.
As always, you’re still with me
when I go.
In Hand
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged hands, love, marriage on May 9, 2024| 12 Comments »
Each night before dinner
I slide my hand, palm up,
across the table toward yours,
and always, you rest your hand on mine,
the way a petal might land on a leaf,
the way a leaf might land on grass.
So gentle your hand
that is equally at home in my hand
as it is in the engine of an old Toyota truck
or tightening a valve on the irrigation pump,
wielding a chainsaw or dripping hot wax
onto a ski before scraping it off.
So many ways I don’t know your hands—
how they fidgeted when you were a child,
how they fumbled when you first tied a shoe,
what they clutched when you felt alone.
But now, they are nearly as familiar to me
as my own hands—how your hands
flutter up to press to your lips,
how they cup each other to create
a small cave you breathe into when thinking,
how they pull through my hair
when I lay my head in your lap,
how they help me to know my own shape,
how one hand of yours will rest
against one hand of mine
to tether us even in sleep.
You Belong
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged belonging, friendship, grass, love, meadow on May 8, 2024| 4 Comments »
The way grass belongs to the meadow—
how without it, the meadow
would not be a meadow—
this is the way you belong in my heart.
Not that I’ve made a space for you here,
more that you’ve helped make my heart what it is,
and without you, my heart is not my heart.
I cradle you here as in a nest of wheat—
soft home, humble home, ever rewoven
to fit the exact shape of you.
It’s not true our hearts are our own—
they’re symbiotic as meadows in spring.
The heart exists for who grows in it.
You belong here like sunshine, like grass, like wind.