my daughter’s tears
find their way
into my eyes
Archive for August, 2024
One While Watching the Film
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged connection, daughter, empathy, film, tears on August 31, 2024| 3 Comments »
The Unsheathed
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged connection, peach, peaches, tenderness, vulnerability on August 29, 2024| 5 Comments »
Like skinning a peach,
I sometimes want to peel back
the masks of the world and myself
to uncover in each other what is
naked and glistening—
an essential sweetness
that can no longer be contained.
If it is wrong to wish this, I wish
it anyway, wish to meet each other
defenseless, with softness,
so moved by proof of how easily
our flesh is bruised, reminded
how tender with each other we must be.
One Inner Revolution
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged personal growth, transformation on August 29, 2024| 4 Comments »
these places
I once dreaded
now my playground
Freezing the Peaches
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged love, memory, peaches on August 27, 2024| Leave a Comment »
For hours today, I hold
the sweet weight
of ripe peaches
in my palm, and
with the other hand,
I slice into the fruit,
the golden juice streaming
between my fingers,
sticky, delicious,
before I drop the slices
into the bags for the freezer.
What is it in the body
that knows to gather
what is ripe and preserve it
for a time in the future
when the world is barren?
I have tried to do this
with love. Sometimes,
midwinter, I pull out
a memory. I swear
sometimes it’s even
sweeter, but sometimes
it leaves me
ravenous.
Beyond Sight
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged control, dream, god, hand, surrender, trust on August 26, 2024| 5 Comments »
All around me, the world
was normal—people eating dinner
or walking down the street—
but my world?
Some massive, invisible hand
kept capturing me, then
tossing me into the air.
And I’d somersault
and fall and be caught,
then placed upright again
on the ground. All night
it went on like this.
I’d be walking and then
I’d be flying and then
I’d be falling and then
I’d be caught, until finally,
by morning, we couldn’t say
that it wasn’t disconcerting,
but we could say I
had become more fluent
in this strange upheaval.
We could say I
had begun to trust
the same hand that tossed me
would catch me.
We could say that when
I woke up, I was still myself
and nothing felt the same.
And though my feet
never left the ground today,
I was tossed.
And then I was caught.
Even now, I almost feel them
around my chest,
those great fingers
as they set me on my feet again.
Bowing at the Feet of the Ordinary
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged belonging, blessing, car, daughter, love, mother, self blessing on August 25, 2024| 9 Comments »
Bowing at the Feet of the Ordinary
May I remember this day
with its two-hundred twenty two
miles of pavement and my
daughter beside me and both
of us singing her favorite songs.
Remember this day not because
it was special but because
it was the way it always is,
with us laughing and talking
and sitting in easy silence.
With a stop at the car wash
and her grumbling about vacuuming,
then doing it anyway. With
a stop at the coffee shop
and me grumbling about
cake pops, then buying one
anyway. With the sweetness
of ripe Cresthaven peaches
we bought at the roadside stand—
how the juice dripped down our chins.
With the rich green of late summer
a blur out the window. The day
so infused with commonplace
love I never once doubted
I belonged with my girl, in that car,
in the world, in the universe,
the days getting shorter
but still so luminous, so warm.
The Night the Piano Fell Apart
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged breaking, music, performance, piano, resilience on August 23, 2024| 8 Comments »
listening to Trio Duende play Allegro con Brio, from Piano Trio 1 in B Major
Once, on a rainy night, I sat in the home
of a family I did not know and listened
to a trio playing Brahms. Though
it is only hours later, I unwrap
the memory as if it is tied with silk ribbons
and wrapped in gold tissue—something
precious as a time-smoothed stone
on the banks of a slender river. Unlike
a museum piece, this memory wants
to be opened, to be held, to be touched,
to be cradled by bare hands. Wants
my finger prints all over it—
the memory of how beauty swells in us
and then breaks us, breaks us
the way the piano itself broke apart tonight—
the pedal rods clattering to the ground
mid-movement. Beauty bids us play on
as the pianist did tonight. Play on.
Though broken. Though we know
the work eventually ends in a minor key.
Play on, as if we trust the line of beauty
will not be broken. No matter how intense
it gets. Even if the world explodes.
The Very Sorry Magician
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged humor, magician, rhyme, second chance on August 22, 2024| 5 Comments »
Said the man in the cape
and the big black hat
to the top of the woman
he’d just sawn in half,
But it usually works.
He looked askance.
Do you think I could have
a second chance?
Paradise
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged garden, paradise, paradox, pleasure on August 21, 2024| 9 Comments »
after “Pleasure” by Rick Barot
It was a garden, they said,
with an apple tree and one
man and one woman,
always blissful.
And while I don’t doubt
this, too, is paradise,
I know well the paradise
when one woman is alone
in the garden pulling up
bindweed by the roots,
knowing she’ll never get it all.
And somehow there is pleasure
in the endless pulling.
I know the paradise
when fifty-thousand people
sing together a song
about heartbreak.
And the paradise of a lover’s
arms when I’m weeping
is somehow even more paradisical
than when the world feels easy.
I’m not saying I want
things to go wrong.
I, too, pray for peace.
But I know now that pain
does not preclude paradise.
The bruised apple
makes a sweet sauce.
The arm that aches
still holds the beloved child.
And after a fire,
the world grows back
with such startling green.
Looking at the Bouquet on My Counter
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged beauty, flower, garden on August 19, 2024| 4 Comments »
Like tiny, earthbound fireworks
that flourish in my garden,
the flowers of wild bergamot
flare purple, their slender petals
curl back, and I am reminded
how small it can be, our chance
to blaze, to be beautiful, to spread
our sweet perfume, and still make—
at least in one life—a real difference.
What a Friendship Can Do
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged beauty, connection, daughter, friendship, love, mother on August 18, 2024| 7 Comments »
for V, L, C and M
They know they are beautiful.
The way late-summer snapdragons
know they are beautiful, whether
they’re budded or blossoming
or making new seed. The way
the sky knows it’s beautiful whether
it’s wearing the pink silks of dawn,
the deep blue shift of midday or
the soft black drapes of night.
They walk down the street and
a wake of laughter follows them.
Even their shadows, joined
by the hip, are beautiful.
Everywhere they go, the world
seems to open. They are not beautiful
the way cruelty is sometimes beautiful—
shiny, powerful, seductive.
They are beautiful the way only
love is beautiful—as if there is
a golden thread that connects them
to each other, to everything they touch.
Hallelujah
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged music, silence, singing on August 18, 2024| 3 Comments »
after singing in the stadium
with fifty thousand other voices
emerging into the night
to find my own ecstatic
silence
Things to Do While Trapped in a Bank Vault
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged bank, entrapment, genie, money, wishes on August 17, 2024| 6 Comments »
Count the cash. Make stacks of cash.
Tall, teetering towers of cash.
Watch them crash. Build them again.
Whole green cities of cash.
This was what you dreamed of, yes?
Wish you had a sandwich. Maybe
a glass of wine. Heck, how about
a glass of water? Tap water’s fine.
Notice your stomach grumbling.
Think about eating a dollar.
Decide you’re not that hungry yet.
Make the bills into fans.
Fan yourself like the queen of cash.
Wish someone else were here
to join this dream. Is this a dream?
Please let this be a dream.
Wish you could use all this cash
to buy something. Like a sandwich.
Like a ticket to Hamilton. Like a key
to get you out of this vault.
Like a glass of tap water.
Like a window to see the sky.
Why did you ever think you’d trade
what you had for all this cash?
What you wouldn’t give now
just to lie in summer grass.
And eat a peanut butter sandwich.
And stare at the sky as it changes colors.
That genie was right.
Be careful what you wish for.
*
This poem was inspired by Things to Do in the Belly of the Whale by Dan Albergotti. It’s a lot of fun … just imagine yourself trapped in an unlikely place and give yourself a list of things to do …
The Moments Between Mosquito Bites
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged awareness, mosquitoes, peace on August 16, 2024| 7 Comments »
I am learning to notice them. Easier
to be attentive when I’m being bitten;
easier to focus on the sharp, quick sting.
Harder to observe the spans of time
when my skin feels nothing but air.
How is it moments of ease disappear?
I want to practice witnessing peace,
to fully inhabit the time between slaps,
want to rest in the gaps when all is well.
There. I will build a nest there.
I wrote this poem based on a prompt from James Crews in his Weekly Pause. You can find his poem, the prompt (and subscribe) here.
PLUS, James and I will be doing a program together next week:
Stubborn Praise with James Crews
Tuesday, August 27
5:30 p.m. mountain time
Zoom
Please join beloved poet and anthologist James Crews and me for our next conversation and reading around the theme of Ripening Into Being. The event will be recorded. There’s a small cost. Sign up here, and we hope you’ll join us for this heart-centered and soulful conversation!
Poem & thank you
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged beauty, death anniversary, love, mother, walking on August 14, 2024| 26 Comments »
Dear Friends,
Three years ago today I wrote a letter saying that a terrible tragedy had happened to our family. Two weeks after, I shared this letter about the death of our son. Since that day, I have felt so much love, so much support, so much kindness, so much compassion from you. And today I can see so so clearly how you carried me through this most difficult time with your love, prayers, letters. Thank you. Thank you. I am so grateful for every one of you that has sent love, silence, words, thoughtfulness. It has meant so much to me. I thank you. I honor you. I wish you deep peace. Thank you. Thank you.
Love,
Rosemerry
*
On the Anniversary of Your Death
Your dad and I walked. Walked
for hours. Walked through deep woods.
Walked to tree line. Walked higher
than that to the place where larkspur
still bloom late summer, where
the paintbrush are still dusky pink
and creamy white, where marmots
sit atop tall rocks and squeak. We walked
and I could not not see the beauty.
Everywhere, the deep purple gentian
unfolding. Everywhere, the melted snow
flowing. Everywhere, beauty, so much beauty.
As I walked, I invited the past to join me.
Memories of tears, police and silence waded
with me through wildflowers up to my shoulders
and skinny-dipped beside purple penstemon
in the high alpine stream. Memories
of you as newborn, you as a boy, you
as a teen, they all joined me in eating
wild raspberries more tart than sweet.
Memories of how your sisters and father
and I have stayed alive hiked with me
beneath waterfalls and along sheer cliffs.
And so it is your death is always
here and not here. I saw myself
a gentian, opening, though frost
is coming soon. I saw myself a rivulet
that flows through it all. I saw myself
as mother, and marveled how you
are all ages at once to me now.
And when I cried, I kept walking.
Except when I stopped to cry.
All day, I put one foot in front of the other.
There is no wonder in this, and yet,
all day, the ache of it, the wonder.
Permanent
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged death, grief, tattoo on August 13, 2024| 10 Comments »
It will not last,
this tattoo on my wrist
of a swirling comet
and two fixed stars.
The stain of henna
will fade, will diminish.
Not like his death,
which teaches me
forever every day.
But his life is ever here,
tattooed into my blood.
Every pulse remembers
how he entered my world
and changed everything.
There is no ink so enduring
as love.
Putting My Daughter on the Plane to Guatemala
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged being present, daughter, fear, letting go, parenting, travel, trust on August 12, 2024| 9 Comments »
I would like to say I wasn’t afraid,
but I was. I know too well how a plane
can fall from the sky. How terrible
things happen to innocent people.
How even when we try our hardest
to keep others safe, they can die.
Driving toward home, I was a snail
without its shell, a seed without its husk,
a woman alone in the dark with her fear.
I remember thinking if I needed to,
I could live through any future disaster,
even my worst nightmare.
But what I really needed was
to live in that very moment.
The more I was right where I was,
the more I felt the mystery around
and inside me, swirling until I was bigger
somehow, no less afraid but more spacious,
And though the world did not comfort me,
I felt myself soften as I flowed toward
the inevitable—flowed the way a river flows,
moved the way the wind moves,
grew the way a woman grows
when she meets the world that is here.
—Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer
Trust
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged acceptance, openness, rain, trust on August 11, 2024| 6 Comments »
Let the rain fall as it will
and fill the ditches and
flood the paths. Let it
pour from the gutters
and spill from the eaves.
Let the gulleys be gushing
and roiling with rain.
Let it rain. Let it rain as if
it will never stop raining.
Let it rain until everything
glistens and shines.
Even the sunflowers,
gold petals now limp.
Even my longing
for sunnier days.
Even my longing
to push it away.
Remember when
I prayed for rain?
Let it rain as long as it rains.
Let it rain and let me
laugh in the rain,
let me dance in the rain,
let me cry until
my tears rhyme with rain.
And let me be soft
in the rain. Let wonder
be present as rain—
driving rain, gentle rain,
long and relentless rain—
the rain I know by another name.
This poem is not
about the rain.
But because it is about to rain,
let the heart exclaim,
Let it rain.