By noon
the snow
that changed
the world
from brown
to white
in just
a day
seems gone—
the meadow
however, remembers
the gift.
Come spring,
there will
be green.
Archive for February, 2025
Poem in Which You Are Storm, I Am Meadow
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged change, love, meadow, snow, time, transformation on February 17, 2025| 6 Comments »
The Turning
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged ermine, humanity, love on February 17, 2025| 14 Comments »
I can’t think of a more powerful response to life’s sorrows than loving.
—Suleika Jaouad
When stories of the selfishness of humans
stain my thoughts like spilt gray ink, when
proofs of our cruelty grab me by the chest
and squeeze, squeeze until it hurts to breathe,
when I lament what we’re capable of,
this is when I most need to remember
it is also human to love.
Like today, when crushed by a thoughtless act,
I found myself atop a snow-covered pass
where I almost missed the sleek, white body
leaping across the vast white field,
and that chance spotting, that wonder,
that luck was all it took to fall in love again
with this world that somehow created a creature
that changes colors twice a year,
a creature that runs easily atop deep, new snow.
And as love raced through me
like a winter-white ermine, I, too,
was able to not sink in, to not get stuck
in what feels cold, dense and bottomless.
This was not a moment that will change the world,
but in this moment, loving the world changed me—
made me more than my fear and sadness,
turned me again toward the miracle.
Somehow Inside This Day
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged daughter, forever, mother, now, puzzle, time on February 16, 2025| 4 Comments »
Every day has something in it whose name is Forever.
—Mary Oliver, “Everything that was Broken”
The snow falls forever
into deepening drifts
and forever the mother
and daughter are fitting in
pieces of a puzzle that is
forever unfinished
and the cat purrs forever
in the lap of the girl
who is laughing forever
about the smallest
of things and the song
on the radio lasts forever
and the mother harmonizes
though forever she forgets
the words, and her tea
is forever not quite warm
in this sweet buried day
that she prays will last
forever though she knows
the other name for forever
is now, and now the snow
has stopped falling
and now the cat is asleep,
but how is it that
as the mother goes
to brush her teeth those
strands of forever have
stitched themselves into
her being and she carries
them into her dreams
with infinite other threads of forever,
even as forever carries her.
Love Poem to the Things I Never Dreamt I Could Love
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged change, love, opening on February 15, 2025| 4 Comments »
Here’s to the eggplant that once made me retch.
I would never have believed I would crave you.
And here’s to skiing. I remember the concussion,
the night train, and now, in my blood, the elation.
Here’s to ranch dressing, which for years I called goop.
And here’s to black licorice, which I now I call bliss.
And here’s the to the night, which once frightened me.
Here’s to fiction. Coffee. Country music.
It feels good tonight to remind myself
how completely things can change.
Like how a woman who thought she could never
wear patterns now wears striped socks
and polka dot gloves. Sometimes what we love
changes so completely we can’t imagine our minds
and hearts were once so small. Tonight I dream
of what else might change. For me. For you. For us all.
One Valentine
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged intimacy, love, scent on February 13, 2025| 8 Comments »
in a room full of roses
my favorite scent
your skin
Even in a Time of Intolerance
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged authenticity, change, intolerance, kindness, love, responsibility on February 13, 2025| 17 Comments »
“We all have a part in shifting the story.”
—Joy Harjo, 23rd US Poet Laureate
There is, in an overfull classroom,
a woman teaching not only history,
but compassion. There’s a barista
making hearts in the foam
of every cappuccino she serves.
There’s man helping another man
on crutches as he struggles to cross
the icy street. There’s a library room full of women
chanting about praying for their enemy.
There are students raising money
to help those with breast cancer and AIDS.
Two girls are laughing for the joy of laughing
’til their faces are tear-streaked
and their ribs and bellies are sore.
There’s a poet who pours courage and music
into every word she shares with the world.
And another woman hears those words
and thinks, “Me. That poet is talking to me.”
This is how we change the world one kind act,
one true word, one long laugh at a time. Because
now, that woman is ablaze with wondering:
What is my part in shifting the story?
Two Worlds, One Dancer
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged how to meet a day, opposition on February 12, 2025| 6 Comments »
I love the dark, and yet
my body wholly melted
this morning the moment
sunlight entered the room,
as if my limbs were made to receive
that warmth. Even moss,
which desperately needs
the dark, also needs the light.
How did we ever believe
we could survive without
embracing both?
Everywhere I turn,
the teaching to straddle
two opposite worlds, to find
a way to walk with one foot
in one world, one foot in the other.
No. Not just to walk that way.
To dance.
Join Me for a Thoughtshop on Falling in Love with the World in a Difficult Time
Posted in Uncategorized on February 11, 2025| 2 Comments »
Sorrom: n. a paradoxical praise for beauty, love, strength and connection that can only emerge as we wrestle with devastation, grief and the worries and pains of daily living;
a positive side-effect of surrender and trust in life and death
from sorrow + om (from Hindu religions and Buddhism), originally indicating assent or agreement, pronounced “sahr-om”
Sometimes, in our most desperate moments, we find an impossible invitation—the invitation to praise. How can this be? How, in our most desperate moments, can we celebrate some aspect of life? And how, is it possible (?), can we celebrate the desperation itself? In this one-hour webinar-style thoughtshop, join poet Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer as she reads and talks about poems that do the impossible—find praise in the midst of suffering. She will then offer invitations for you to do your own writing later. There will be time for questions and responses. After the event, all who register will receive a link to the recording, links to the poems she reads, plus the writing invitations
To register, visit here.
Perception: A Sonnet
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged moon, night, perspective, sonnet, walking on February 11, 2025| 8 Comments »
I take a walk with my whirling thoughts
and the near-full moon and the dark,
and for a time, all that seemed large
in me is no less large, but it’s also a dot,
a blip when compared to the whole
of the night, as if the entirety of my life
and the life of my country and the life
of the earth could all fit in a fourteen-line poem
with two lines left blank. Because nothing I write
seems to touch how vast, how sublime it is—
the snow moon rising above red cliffs—
only space can convey how humbling it is, the night.
.
Widening the Vision
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged anger, multitudes, perspective, rabbit, vision on February 10, 2025| 12 Comments »
Almost by accident
I saw through the blaze
of my anger and fear
to the bunny in the yard,
his sweet brown body
so still and attentive
in the short brown grass,
and it’s not that I
became any less angry,
but when I let myself be held
by his steady brown eye,
I was touched by gentleness
and remembered what else
I am capable of. Oh self, this
is how you stay whole hearted—
by keeping your eyes wide open.