Trust is a porcupine
sitting on the highway
in the middle of the night
not bothering to raise
even one of his
thirty-thousand quills,
choosing instead to look
right into the oncoming
traffic, the shine
of a direct gaze
more effective
communication
than any sharpness,
any barb.
Archive for April, 2026
When Times Are Dark
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged connection, eye contact, porcupine, self-protection on April 30, 2026| Leave a Comment »
May You Be Happy
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged blessing, fussy, happiness on April 29, 2026| 4 Comments »
When I cannot
offer you this most
simple blessing,
it’s because I’ve
forgotten
for this moment
who I am.
I remember now.
Child of sunrise.
Beloved of the rain.
Sibling of silence.
Lost one who rows
through oceans of stars.
Found one who
has been forgiven
when forgiveness
seemed impossible.
What I mean to say—
I am grouchy.
Still. I am trying.
What I mean to say—
cursing the drought
has never once
made it rain.
What I mean to say—
may you be happy.
How Things Change
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged aspen, diversity, regeneration, softness, trees, worthiness on April 28, 2026| 7 Comments »
Most of the time, an aspen stand regenerates itself through cloning from its extensive underground connected root structure. But, sometimes, given very specific conditions, they can introduce genetic diversity through seed germination.
from Traveling Nature Journal, October 4, 2020
In the spirit of diversity
the aspen catkins
appear on the passes,
gathering low light
into acres of radiance
as they dangle
from bare limbs
in long clusters of gray fuzz
and all I want
for the rest of my life
is to be worthy of living
in a world with such
potent softness, such promise.
Seeing Through the Story
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged otter, perspective, story on April 27, 2026| 5 Comments »
What I wanted was to snuggle.
What I wanted was to greet
the morning wrapped in warmth.
What was here was coolness.
I spooled myself in a gloomy story wondering
what I’d done wrong to find myself alone.
Two days before, when I was radiant
with joy in a circle of friends,
I pulled an otter card from a deck
and felt wildly attuned with the otter’s spirit
of contentment and “unobstructed joy.”
The wisdom of otter says stop making
“silly excuses.” The wisdom of otter
says “celebrate.” It was only after
I rose from the bed and walked into
the damp chill of a misty spring morning—
the air alive with the song of chickadees,
the harsh calls of the jays, the rapid twittering
of the violet green swallows—
it was only then I felt the possibility of reverence
and celebration. And then, how silly I felt, somehow
seeing through the layer of story I added
to the morning, as if waking alone
was some kind of problem. How easy
it was then to celebrate walking alone
in the soft green of spring, my feet wet
in the grass, chill bumps on my arms.
Sweet woman, it’s okay you forgot
the chance for reverence was always here.
It is always the time for waking.
See now what was truly here this morning:
the room so quiet, the sheets so cool,
the soft gray light streaming in.
Maximum Strength
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged connection, duct tape, kindness, Moudi Sbeity, travel on April 26, 2026| 18 Comments »
for Moudi and Taylor
Starting the long drive home,
I do not turn on the radio
to hear news of the broken world.
My father taught me every broken thing,
from coolers to car doors to roofs,
could be fixed with silver duct tape,
at least for a while.
How big would the roll have to be,
America? On the seat beside me,
a green and white striped bag
is filled with hummus and cheesy crackers,
chocolates filled with coconut and pistachio,
oat protein bars, dried mango strips
plus a small baggie of pretzel twists,
a road-food care package my friends
prepared for me in the middle of the night
so it would be on the counter waiting for me
to find when I left their home at dawn.
Perhaps kindness is a kind of duct tape—
which is to say it doesn’t actually fix things,
but it does help us go on. What is broken
is still broken, but I can taste the adhesion
in the coffee they ground for me last night
so I could be awake for this morning’s drive—
hints of cinnamon, dark chocolate, toffee,
love. I feel how their kindness holds me together
this morning. How sticky it is, the message
they wrote for me in sand: you are loved.
The message will fade, but as the world
goes on breaking, I feel surrounded
by their kindness all the way home.
When I Feel I Do Not Belong
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged belonging, parts of self on April 26, 2026| 7 Comments »
When I feel I do not belong in the world,
when I walk past raspberry brambles
and my attention somehow fails to be snagged
by their clever thorns and the warm,
woody scent of their leaves,
when I curse the wind instead of turning
toward it, arms flung wide as if to fly,
in those moments there’s no poem, no prayer,
no book, no speech beautiful or fierce enough
to remind me I belong to all.
How is it so convincing, that numbness,
that doubt I could ever be worthy?
And how is it this late April morning
I tremble at the smallest beauty,
astonished by the elegant reach
of slender bamboo, the leggy twining
of wild honey suckle, the thready,
rhythmic peeps of the chicks
in my stepdaughter’s yard, the whine
of her dog as she watches the chicks.
In this moment, I can almost not believe
I could ever feel separate from the world,
though I know such moments are true.
So I wrap my arms around that lonely version
of myself, and marvel how the part of me
who believes I could never belong,
that part belongs here, too.
Waking to Twenty-Two Degrees on April 24
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged acceptance, frost, spring on April 25, 2026| 8 Comments »
I don’t want to curse the frost
that settles into the morning,
even as it continues to kill
every blossoming thing.
Nor do I want to be numb.
I want to feel the loss
of the lilac buds that will not
fill the spring with dark purple sweetness,
want to feel the loss of the apple blossoms
that tomorrow will be wilted and brown.
It does no good to shout blame at the sky.
More than once, I have tried.
I want to practice weaving the ache
into a day also filled with singing.
The stakes only get higher.
The frost will come again.
I want to love what is here.
I left the ocean
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged ocean, time on April 23, 2026| 13 Comments »
but the ocean followed me
to the mountains, bringing
its vastness to the day.
Sometimes it takes me a whole hour
to swim to the other side of a minute.
When I arrive, somehow dry,
at my desk in my chair,
there is salt on my skin, currents
in my breath, scent of brine
still tangled in my hair.
Letter to an Unnamed Star
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged becoming, gravity, patience, star, wish on April 22, 2026| 8 Comments »
How could you prepare yourself
for the pressure of the wishes?
How to prepare for the burden
when any given person on earth
might choose, at last, out of desperation
most likely, to look up and notice you shining
in the great vast dark and pin on you
their greatest hope grown like a weed
from the seeds of their greatest fear?
You, formed from a cloud unimaginably cold,
were never prepared to receive such longing,
such ache, such stubborn, relentless faith.
The fact we can see you at all means
you survived a battle in which gravity
wins. What do you have to teach us
of wishes? Perhaps the wisdom of falling
in on ourselves, faster and faster;
how we must give away enormous energy
in order to stabilize our core. You model
how we must give ourselves to a process
of becoming. Are you fighting for it?
I imagine you might ask, as you, too,
battle against pressure and what’s happening
in the field beyond your control.
Have you learned yet to power yourself?
you might ask as you spontaneously fuse
hydrogen atoms to form helium. And somewhere
in the midst of the forty million years
of becoming a star, you might ask of us wishers,
Have you learned yet anything of patience,
how much brightness it can bring?
Not Too Late?
Posted in Uncategorized on April 21, 2026| 3 Comments »
She wants to dance.
To know her body as urgent verb.
To dance. Here. In this room. Any room.
To dance while her legs still bend and leap.
To dance while her arms still lift. Dance
while she still has wrists to twist. While
she still has neck and ribs and hips.
What is she afraid of?
She was never a very good dancer.
But has she not been laughed at before?
And what is the cost if she doesn’t whirl and wheel
through Tuesday, through noon, through now?
And what if she bows right now to herself,
offers herself her own open hand,
then rises and leaps and spins through the room
saying yes, I thought you’d never ask.
Big Bouquet of Poems, Podcast & Poems in ONE ART
Posted in Uncategorized on April 20, 2026| 12 Comments »
Hi friends,
Thank you for your patience as I took a couple weeks off from sending out poems to spend time with my family. Here are many poems written during the days I was gone. Please go to the bottom to see my interview that came out last week with singer Carrie Newcomer and activist and author Parker J Palmer, and four poems that came out last weekend in ONE ART. And now, we return to sending poems out daily! I missed you!
Rosemerry
Twenty Seven Haikulings from Costa Rica and Nicaragua
How many times have you noticed that it’s the little quiet moments in the midst of life that seem to give the rest extra-special meaning?
—Fred Rogers
it’s not quite doing nothing
this watching sky go from blue
to pink to dark
*
every wave, shell, shoreline, human
breaks and breaks and breaks—
shattering into wholeness
*
as if this time
I’ll finally stand on the board
I paddle again toward shore
*
no word for the way
evening light gathers in the waves—
oh how the nameless shines
*
this moment
a red hibiscus
about to open
*
as he drives his two-oxen cart
on the two-lane highway,
how straight the young man’s back
*
no star tonight
to wish on—
wishing on your eyes
*
walking the long sand beach
silent and hand in hand
gloriously alive with heartache
*
with each laughing failure to stand
on a board in the surf
I am somehow more myself
*
the way the ocean leaves a shell on the sand
then rushes up to grab it back
I don’t quite let you go
*
thrilling in the drum
of each exultant wave,
dog-earring the silence after
*
slipping my hand
beneath the memory of his hand
I tether myself here
*
at the same time
we travel through the Nicaraguan forest
the Baltimore Oriole and I
*
aimless, barefoot days
anchored by love
thousands of miles away
*
white scent of jasmine
slipping between branches
this talking to the dead
*
yes, I tumbled again,
but oh, for a few moments
the ocean carried me as I stood
*
with molten thread
the magma, red and pulsing,
stitches me into its heartbeat
*
momenting, orchiding
lushing, dusking, realing, kinning,
nothinging, everythinging,
*
watching the sloth
not move for hours
no fine print
*
in the old cathedral in Granada
I breathe in five hundred years of prayers
breathe out one more
*
leaving the sleeve
of my skin to become for an hour
a wave
*
at the base of the great blue wet cathedral
a plaque written in cursive—
hermit crab trails in the sand
*
whisper of shells scraping
as each wave recedes,
scratching the back of eternity
*
hidden in the dried tamarind pod
a love note written
in sweet amber goo
*
the sloth I saw this morning
surely still draped on the same branch
as my airplane lifts its nose
*
such a patient
homeland—
silence
*
losing the self
let me be surpassed
by love for this world
—Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer
Four Poems Published in ONE ART
What should you do if an alligator chases you? What is your current hyperfixation? How can looking out the window save your life? And what do you do when someone compliments you on your costume? These are the themes of the four poems that came out in ONE ART: a journal of poetry. I hope they make you laugh and feel a little warmer and lighter …
The Growing Edge Podcast
It was incredible to be in conversation with two of my heart heroes, singer and poet Carrie Newcomer and author, activist and educator Parker J Palmer, and oh, such a conversation! I love The Growing Edge podcast, filled with humor and sorrow and outrage and openness. We talk about the role of the artist in difficult times, why poems matter, and the importance of showing up–on the page, on the street, and in our own lives. And also, we talk a lot about saying no–which is, it turns out, my growing edge. Listen Here.
Two-Week Hiatus in Posting Poems and Lots of Upcoming Programs in Person and Online
Posted in Uncategorized on April 4, 2026| 6 Comments »
Every year, I take a two-week break from sending poems so I can be away from the computer and focus on being with my family. I will write poems the old fashioned way–in my note book. And there they will stay until April 20 when I return to the computer and sending out daily poems. At that point I will send you a big bouquet of poems I wrote in the meantime! And then we’ll return to the regular daily poem routine.
If you want poems during this hiatus, please visit my blog, A Hundred Falling Veils, where you can find poems from the past 15 years or so. (https://ahundredfallingveils.com/)
Or subscribe to my daily audio poetry program, The Poetic Path, found on the Ritual app on your phone. (The Poetic Path)
And please plan to join me in person or online when I get back!
More poems soon!
Rosemerry
*
Upcoming Events Online
April 25
Poetic Medicine Summit 2026
Writing Ourselves into Wonder: Meeting Difficult Times with Poetry
10 a.m.-2 p.m. mountain time
For more info and register, visit here or write summit@poeticmedicine.org
May 6
The Mystery of Grief: Writing into the Loss
5-7 p.m. mountain time
recorded
For more info and to register, visit here.
*
Upcoming Events In Person
April 24, 25, 26
Ars Nova, Shared Visions
Lakewood and Boulder, CO
To purchase tickets and for more information, visit HERE.
April 30, 6 p.m.
Word Sharks: Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer, Art Goodtimes & David Feela
Dolores Public Library, 1002 Railroad Avenue, Dolores, CO
Contact Jillian at jillian@doloreslibrary.org
June 14-19
Regenerating Joy: Poetry as a Practice for Difficult Times Retreat with James Crews
Omega Institute, Rhinebeck New York
To register, click HERE
August 6-9
Poetry Inspired By Nature Retreat at High Camp Hut
Telluride, CO
For more information, visit
https://www.highcamphut.com/poetry
Head Down
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged beauty, irony, work on April 4, 2026| 2 Comments »
so focused
on writing
about beauty
I almost
didn’t notice
the round
green scent
of aliveness
flourishing wildly
all around me
At the Senior Dance Recital
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged ballet, dance, daughter, mother on April 2, 2026| 4 Comments »
After fourteen years of pink leotards
and bobby pins, sewing ribbons
on pointe shoes and driving home late
from rehearsals, she dances tonight
with feline ease, confidence in the curl
of her fingers, grace in her glance
as she follows the gentle lift of her arm,
and instead of trying to capture
this final recital in pixels, I bid myself
to be completely here, following her
leaps and feeling the fierce inner deluge
of joy and pride and love and thrill
as for one last time she smiles
from the stage and I see her as
the small white-winged angel who could
barely plié, and I see her now as she soars,
almost flies, before, with a wave of her arm,
she bows, turns toward the wings, disappears.
On Any Given Wednesday
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged choices, marriage on April 2, 2026| 8 Comments »
After the lunch has been made and the breakfast done
and the cats are fed and the child has left for school,
it’s no small thing to slide back into bed with your partner.
Before coffee. Before the day takes you separate ways.
Before phone, before bills, before the endless list.
With the earth ever spinning toward tomorrow,
it’s no small thing to eschew the work, the work out, the walk,
and choose instead to map your naked body to his, to reenter
the realm of rumpled sheets and meet in the temple of touch.
Decades of choices, most of them small. This is how a life
is made, the clothes in a heap on the floor, the air in the room
so quiet, so cool, your bodies together so warm.