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Posts Tagged ‘allowing’

I, Who Did Not Die That Day

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on January 17, 2025| 21 Comments »

 
 

                  “I, who did not die …”
                                    —Naomi Shihab Nye, “Making a Fist”
 
 
I, who did not die that day,
also died. Not all of me,
but part of me: The part
who believed I could change things
beyond my control.
The part who believed
any of us can save someone else.
What a terrible freedom to know
what I cannot do. The part
who did not die is the part
who loves—loves what was,
loves what is now, loves as long
as I am able to love.
The part who did not die
is the part who still thrills to see
the twitchy-nosed bunny
streak across the grass
and the near-full moon that bathes
me in cold blue light. The part
who still lives is not afraid to grieve
and lets herself be turned
toward fear and learns,
learns to meet even heartache
with wonder. Like a tree, I grow
from the soil of all I have lost.
I, who did not die that day,
am still being taught how to touch
the wound and let myself be sung
by the part still wildly alive.

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The Fence Post to the Mist

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on October 21, 2024| 11 Comments »

Show me again
how you do that trick,
the one where you roll,
where you lift,
where you disappear.

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Letting It Be

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on August 26, 2019| 4 Comments »

 

 

There is a carpenter in me

with an impressive tool belt.

She thinks she can fix everything.

 

Every time there’s a leak in the ducts,

she blames that darn condensation,

and whips out her metallic tape.

 

And when there’s a heart break,

she mumbles something about not meeting code,

then takes note of all the cracks,

 

all the places where it’s falling apart,

and gets to work: cleans up and preps

new concrete to hold things together.

 

I know she’s doing what she knows best,

I know she has good intentions.

But today, while she runs off to seek

 

just the right hammer, just the right nails,

I take those leaky ducts and that broken heart

into the garden and dig potatoes.

 

The soil is cool and slips soft

though my fingers as I sift for yellow fingerlings

and red-skinned Desirees.

 

There is a gardener in me who doesn’t try

to fix anything. She says in a quiet southern drawl,

Sweet thing, bring all that brokenness here

 

and let it walk amongst the sunflowers.

Let it weed the carrots and pick

some calendula bouquets. And nothing

 

gets fixed, but something shifts as I sit

beside unruly mint, its green spears rampant,

its scent so cooling, so sweet.

 

 

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One Staff

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on March 28, 2019| Leave a Comment »

 

 

 

all those beautiful notes—

letting them fall from the score

and not rushing

to arrange them again,

listening as new songs arise

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Going In

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on December 12, 2018| 3 Comments »

 

 

 

I thought I could fix it.

Not with a hammer and glue,

but with listening. With loving.

With holding the wounded

in my arms.

 

I thought I could make

it all better, I mean all of it,

you know, the way a mother

kneels before her child

and kisses his thumb

and miraculously the hurt is gone.

 

I thought I could make myself

bigger than the world’s problems,

as if with devotion and will

and practice, I could touch

infinity, embody enormity,

step over the inconvenience

of pain.

 

But came muck. Came tears.

Came anger and shrill and short.

Came small and weak

and tired. Came shame.

Came embarrassment I ever thought

I could be big. Came the surprising

 

pleasure of muck, the way

I can paint it on my face in wide stripes.

Came the gift of exhaustion.

Only then when I stopped

trying to carry the world, only then

did I notice how generously,

all along, the world

has been holding me,

has been holding us all.

 

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Reverie

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on June 18, 2018| Leave a Comment »

 

 

In the pond, it is easy to let go of the paddle,

to let the wind move my little boat

wherever it will. I feel no need to change direction,

no sense that one way is better than another,

no attachment to arriving on any shore.

 

All around me, dragonflies skim bluely above the water.

Cotton drifts through the air like midsummer snow.

Robins sing their simple song. In this moment,

somehow unstitched from the calendar,

everything seems possible—like a woman

 

who feared she could not love could do so.

And a day could open in surprising ways,

new worlds spilling into this familiar world.

And a chapter could be written inside another

so that we would never, ever get to the end.

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What Took Me So Long

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on February 12, 2018| Leave a Comment »

 

 

playing referee

between the sun and clouds,

eventually I take off my stripes

to be a spectator instead—

how pleasant

without all that whistling

 

 

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Two Marvelings

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , on April 21, 2016| 2 Comments »

 

 

 

just another full moon rise—

is it any wonder

I can’t stop bowing?

 

*

 

how, I said,

to the river bed

do you make

of yourself a home?

I let the flow shape me,

the river bed said—

flood, current,

shimmer, stone

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Ever feel as if you’re pushing and pushing

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on October 8, 2015| 4 Comments »

and exhausted from pushing and not getting anywhere?

Today, a fabulous poetry site, “A Year of Being Here,” published a poem of mine about just this experience.

I love this site, love reading the poems daily and going back through the archives. You can find it here: A Year of Being Here: Trommer

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That’s the Kind of Summer It Is

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on September 6, 2015| 1 Comment »

tall and clear

wholly illumined by sun

slowly I learn to see

the vase as lovely

even without the sunflowers

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