Baking Cake on Dec. 27
Dear Kyra,
Here you are in the scent of chocolate beet cake
that lingers in the kitchen hours after the cake is done—
as if the world conspires to prove how something
we can’t see or touch can still be so present.
I remember the first time you made the recipe for us—
how outrageous it seemed to add roasted beets to a cake.
Now it’s our favorite, dark and rich with deep pink frosting.
Every time we make it, we think of you. Like tonight.
As Vivian and I bake a birthday cake for Timothée Chalamet,
we celebrate his life even as we mourn your death.
Isn’t it always all of it all at once? For days,
I’ve been lighting candles for you in the windows,
letting time blow them out. Tonight, I trace
your handwritten notes on the recipe with my fingertips—
like using less sugar and subbing coconut oil for butter,
plus suggestions for how to make the frosting more fancy.
I feel as if you’ve left handwritten notes in my heart—
like bake more cakes, substitute kindness for annoyance,
plus suggestions for how to make music in the hardest times.
I don’t know how it works, but if you can make a wish,
these candles are for you. I will keep lighting them.
It’s dark, my dear, and your life is still so bright.
—Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer
Dear friends,
My beloved friend Kyra Kopestonsky died on Dec. 23, 2025, at 5:25 p.m. of complications due to breast cancer. She was one of the most kind, generous, loving, peaceful, humble, creative humans I know. In dozens of my books, she’s left me little love notes over the years. She would make our family certificates for sweet and silly things, and we have them hanging on the wall. She made us strange and lovely new foods–like chocolate beet cake–and would leave them labeled in our fridge. She was a talented musician who used to play piano for a living, then left that work to be more of a vagabond, traveling with her cello and playing roadside and on mountainsides. She accompanied me on so many trips to play cello with me as I performed poetry, and for many years she was the host of the “Poetry Drop Box” beside the highway–a way for people to exchange poems. She would play cello on top of people as a way to heal them, and for my birthday, she would always play me a Russian death song–haunting and minor and slow. Being Kyra’s friend is one of the greatest gifts of my life. May we all carry a bit of Kyra’s love light and shine it forward into the world.
Below are links to other poems about her–and here is a link to her official obituary.
https://ahundredfallingveils.com/2020/02/26/olfactory/
https://ahundredfallingveils.com/2020/01/18/how-to-slice-open-an-avocado/
https://ahundredfallingveils.com/2017/11/03/on-my-birthday-a-death-song/
https://ahundredfallingveils.com/2025/01/29/stage-4/
https://ahundredfallingveils.com/2024/09/14/before-turning-toward-light-again/
https://ahundredfallingveils.com/2019/02/05/one-friendship/
https://ahundredfallingveils.com/2025/12/24/lit/
Oh Rosemerry, I just want you to know that my heart reaches for your heart. Maybe to just sooth and ease it a bit and say, yes, YES! She is still so present. I am so sorry for the earthly loss of your wonderful friend. This must be the reason I woke so early and then found myself looking through 154 photos of Kyra’s beautiful life. Reading your words of her in your life. I now carry a little spark of her light. Sending peace, Monica (from Kripalu)
Thank you dear Monica, how beautiful to hear from you, thank you for honoring Kyra’s life and for your kind words. Thank you for carrying her spark!
You shared that cake recipe with me years ago, and I immediately loved the notes in the margins, and the food smears that always prove a favorite and used recipe.
May her notes on your heart abide there with her love light.
Your poem is a lovely tribute.
Thank you dear Heidi, I love that you remember it! Still stained with chocolate now tears, too
What a moving tribute to your dear friend Rosemerry. You bring her spirit to life and share the loss of her being in this world, even as you help keep her memory alive. Blessings.
Thank you dear Jan… she is such a glorious human, such a spirit. Thank you for your kind words.
A beautiful honoring of her life. I’m sending you warm thoughts for your heartbreak. And a prayer for her. And a secret wish I’ll get to taste this chocolate beet cake.
Oh dear man, it is delicious. And you and Kyra would have LOVED each other. and I will send you the recipe.
HI Rosemerry my beloved Poet! We are having a special Satsang tonight…. I will place the Spirit of Kyra and you in our mantra.
Much Light & Love
j
thank you, dear Joanne … I am grateful for you bringing light to her and receiving her light, too …
Oh,Dear Rosemerry, from your poems dedicated to Kyra, I have fallen in love with her. I am shocked to learn of her passing. Thank you for sharing her with us. My heart goes out to you.
Thank you, dear Ann … she was such a love. Thank you for carrying her love light.
So happy to learn of Kyra and all the light and life you have shared with her and will continue to share with others in her lovely wake.
Thank you, Tom, for entering into her light with me.