after the killing of Renee Nicole Good
Into the woods I carried
my broken open heart,
knowing it rhymed with millions
of other broken open hearts,
and there, in the silence
of spruce trees and new snow
and cloudless blue sky, the heart
gaped with its relentless ache.
I so deeply loved the world and
I was so terribly upset by the world.
All this. All this. The snow was
impossibly peaceful. It softened
every broken rock, broken stick.
I felt, at the same time,
the raw wound of injustice
and the infinitude of primeval
peace, both of them saying,
remember, remember, remember.
Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category
All This
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged ache, heartache, paradox, peace, politics, snow, woods on January 11, 2026| Leave a Comment »
One in the Collapse
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged collapse, hope on January 10, 2026| 3 Comments »
rubble everywhere
and still growing in the inner ground, how?
these stubborn roots of hope
This Wild Becoming: 2 Day Writing & Painting Retreat
Posted in Uncategorized on January 8, 2026| Leave a Comment »
February 12 & 13
10 a.m. – 3 p.m. (MT)
The Decker Community Room, 675 Clinton St, Ridgway, CO 81432
Who would we be if we weren’t carrying our history, our stories, our self-image? What impossible things are possible for us? How do we grow more deeply and thrillingly into ourselves? In this two-day writing and painting retreat, join artist Kellie Day and poet Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer in a playful, creative revisioning of self in which we let ourselves be led by impulse and transformed through the imagination. Kellie and Rosemerry will lead you through creating a life-size goddess representation of yourself through layered acrylics, poetry, beautiful papers and imagery. We’ll dance with questions and make art and poetry steeped in wonder. A deeply process-oriented class. In the end, you’ll have a six-foot tall representation of who you might become—who, perhaps, you already are—and a poem that explores this wild becoming.
REGISTRATION & MORE (click here)
What If We All Met on That Bridge?
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged bridge, connection, present on January 8, 2026| 4 Comments »
Here is a stack of dictionaries
thick with words I never will know.
Here is the pen filled with the ink
of stories unwritten. Here is
the sky filled with stars I can’t name
and clouds that will not last.
And here, unseen, is the bridge
of the moment that links me
to all that was and all that is,
all that is real and all that is dream.
The bridge, as long as forever.
The bridge as solid as rain.
The long, beautiful bridge
vast enough to hold every word,
every story, every version
of what might be. It is the bridge
toward understanding. And here
is you. And here is me.
After I Fell in the Canyon of Grief
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged acceptance, canyon, falling, grace, grief, surrender on January 7, 2026| 5 Comments »
we discover that falling in the canyon is our initiation
—Mark Nepo, “The Life After Tears”
I didn’t land. I fell and I fell and I fell.
At first as I plummeted, I feared the landing,
imagining an imminent crash. Then,
I fell through nights and middays. Fell through
kitchen floors and highways. Fell through
birthdays and Saturdays. Fell until the sense
of groundlessness was so familiar it no longer
felt like peril. I don’t know when I stopped falling.
There was no splat. No splash. No crushing of bones.
No sense of arrival. In fact, I am not certain
I am done with my falling. But I do know now
the falling is not something to be feared.
Not that we grow wings. This is not about flying.
It’s about falling. About meeting the gravity
and feeling its force and letting it carry me
in ways I have never before let myself be carried.
Now I know that the canyon of grief is
just another name for living the fullest life.
The reward for the falling is to no longer
expect a reward. The reward of falling is to
learn to not resist the falling. The reward of falling
is to feel how grace falls with us as if holding
our hand, like a teacher, like a friend.
Building the World We Believe In
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged bully, community, politics, standing up, voice on January 7, 2026| 10 Comments »
I haven’t given up on humans yet.
Though here in America where masked agents
pull women and men from their homes–
people who build our communities, our country–
we are so far from the goodness I imagine.
In second grade, I remember making forts
at recess with small snow balls we’d
squeeze in our hands. So carefully,
so gently, we would place them, one on top
of another to create a small home.
And then, maybe every time, when
the recess bell rang, a group of boys
would linger and at the last moment
they would kick our snow walls down.
It is in all of us, the bully, the one
who enjoys destruction, the one who
wants to feel powerful, strong.
But it is also in us all to speak out
for each other, to stand up for each other,
to say no, this is not okay. It is in us all of us
to gather the way we did in second grade
with our small mittened hands, going out
the next recess, and the next, and the next,
to build together again. Because we can.
Before I Read the News
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged connection, news, ritual on January 5, 2026| 22 Comments »
How courageous can I be to let all of life in?
—Leslie Odom, Jr. on The Hamilcast with Gillian Pensavalle
I press both hands
to my chest, then
look at the trees
and the road outside.
I imagine the world
beyond what I see,
cities, continents, space,
then close my eyes
to open.
I listen to what is here,
attune to the silence
that holds up all sound.
Feel my heart beat
against my palm.
Hello heart, I say.
Hello heart.
If I am to read the news,
I want to invite not only
my head but my body.
Want to receive it as if
I am river and sky
as much as I am human.
The ache of the news
is no less great,
perhaps greater, but
I know I am not alone.
In the barren branches
of my fear, the chickadees
come to sing.
Give Up Rosemerry, He Wrote in His Letter
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged identity, letting go, surrender on January 4, 2026| Leave a Comment »
with thanks to Zhim
In fact, he didn’t write my name.
In fact, he wrote his own.
Inserting my own name came naturally.
Give up Rosemerry.
How thrilling the sentence became.
“A balancing counterweight,” he wrote,
“for a being who has extreme passion.”
The words swirl in me like a storm.
On a day when the news is of conquering,
this simple direction toward surrender.
I become a student of snow.
Give up Rosemerry. Give up.
What beauty arrives as I let go?
How It Comes Out
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged feeling, flame, friendship, grief, love, sorrow on January 4, 2026| 10 Comments »
I don’t know why sometimes
the same story can feel like ash
in the mouth and another time
like flame. Each time the story
is the same, but sometimes,
it scorches to share it.
I am thinking of today, how I read
a poem about your death
as if there were no more fuel to burn,
reciting a fact, as if saying,
There is no snow in the yard.
Five minutes later, I read the same
poem and had to restart four times
just to get past the first two lines.
I prefer the flame. Prefer to be moved
by how much you’ve changed me.
Not to dwell in the loss, but not
to shy from being torched by love.
How We Momentarily Become the Moon
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged attention, becoming, connection, moon on January 3, 2026| 2 Comments »
In the dark house
we watch the moon
rise through the window,
watch as its fullness
climbs into the sky.
For everything we see,
so much we miss.
But in this moment,
your hand in mine,
we give the moon
all our attention until
every part of us,
even our wounds, are
shining.