after Gayle Brandeis
The poem you’re going to write tomorrow
is somewhere in your cells, is made
from language you’ve been learning
and forgetting since your birth.
The poem you’re going to write tomorrow
will ask you to go beyond who you are today,
will invite you to leap over the edge of the known
and may or may not offer wings or a parachute,
may in fact stuff stones in your pockets.
It promises no net.
The poem you are going to write tomorrow
will certainly be more wise than you are,
drawing as it does on infinite potential,
something you can only touch for a moment
before the words on the page become solid
and stuck in their serifs, trapped in their
clever cages of metaphor. But the poem is there,
it’s always there, that poem you will write tomorrow,
with a promise that if you show up, it will come to wrestle,
will let you glimpse its latent thrill, that thrill
you’ve tasted before that keeps you coming
back tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow.
Posts Tagged ‘ars poetica’
The Poem You’re Going to Write Tomorrow
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged ars poetica, potential on September 1, 2026| 11 Comments »
Devil’s Advocate: The Ruler Speaks
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged ambiguity, ars poetica, certainty, ruler on March 23, 2026| 5 Comments »
Ask a surgeon if a millimeter matters.
how the smallest measure marks
the difference between a heartbeat
and a silence that lasts forever.
I’ve seen you, poet, take joy in ambiguity,
in word bending, word twisting, word play.
“So many ways to do it right,” you say.
What if, for a day, you tried to speak
as impeccably as I measure?
What would be clearer? What
would be lost? What if you knew
only the most precise word
could save another’s light? Or your own?
You know it’s true because
words have saved you—
Think of Rilke. Neruda. Dickinson. Frost.
Precision matters. In poetry, too.
Even what’s free has a cost.
Oh friends, this poem that began just playing with metaphor got me really thinking… I love the way poems help us challenge what we think we know.
Why I Write Every Day
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged ars poetica, cliff, unknown on March 13, 2026| Leave a Comment »
in every blank
an invisible cliff
when I am brave
I meet the edge
and leap
sometimes
a splash
sometimes air
sometimes
a line will catch me
and swing me
to touch
for a moment
the infinite
before dropping me
back in the known
sometimes
I sit there
safe at the edge
count the minutes
and dream about
the dare
Going Fishing with Dad Four Years After His Death
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged ars poetica, dad, fishing, grief on November 19, 2025| 5 Comments »
Dear Dad,
Yesterday I met a man who went fishing.
It was sleety, bracing, gray.
He went fishing anyway. Actually,
as you would say, he went “catching.”
Just one fish, he said, but I felt his gladness,
the modest kind that does not
depend on good weather, the gladness
we feel when we follow the pull
of what we love. Like how I find pleasure
in writing, even when the conditions
are heartache and loss. Even then,
there’s pleasure in standing in the river
of the moment, my whole body attuned,
waiting for the tug. It made me feel close to you dad,
the way his face lit up, just as yours used to
when the talk turned to what was biting.
And now writing to you about my day,
it’s like I’ve cast a line to you. The rain
in here tastes like salt, but oh the gladness
when I feel it on your end, the tug.
One Lesson from the Fungi
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged ars poetica, mushroom, shaggy mane on August 16, 2025| 2 Comments »
said the shaggy mane,
this how to write a poem—
spill your ink
all over everything, then
disappear
Noticing the Noticing
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged ars poetica, holding, infinite, language, meditation, paradox on June 17, 2025| 6 Comments »
When I am most still,
there is something that holds me—
not a being, but a voice,
no, not a voice, but a transmission.
Not really a transmission, no, but a place
with gradations of color, almost like sky at dawn.
Well, no, not a place. More a placelessness.
A placelessness that holds me.
Yes. A placelessness. That holds me.
Or rather, a placelessness that is me.
And is also all that I’m not.
Oh, these words that try so hard to say something true.
They feel so small as they leave my mouth.
Like I’m tossing out tiny pebbles
into the pool of the infinite.
I stare at the tiny ripples they make,
in awe of their insufficiency.
Which is to say I’m in awe
of all that does not ripple.
With awe comes stillness.
The kind of stillness that invites me.
Invites me to notice how utterly I am held.
Every Poem
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged ars poetica, reader, window on November 30, 2024| 5 Comments »
has a double-hung window inside it,
the kind that allows you to let in
a little more air when you feel as if you
can’t breathe. Sometimes, seeing through it
helps you find a new way to frame the world.
Sometimes it makes it easier
to feel as if there’s distance
between you and what the poem says,
as if you’re on the outside looking in
instead of the other way around.
Though when it’s dark, you can’t help
but see your own reflection.
When a poem makes you uncomfortable,
its window opens wide enough to let you
climb out, but not without things
getting a little awkward. I mean,
you are climbing out the window
instead of using the poem’s back door.
But mostly, the window lets the light change
so every time you re-enter the poem,
it feels different—familiar, but new;
and you wander around inside the lines
and wonder, did the poem change?
Or did you?
Poetic Lineage
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged ars poetica, inspiration, interconnection, shel silverstein on September 9, 2024| 11 Comments »
Thank you Alice Ungerer,
for raising young children
alone in Alsace
after your husband died.
It could not have been easy,
especially during the German occupation.
Hard enough to raise one child,
much less four, even when
the world is at peace.
It’s no surprise your son Tomi
grew up to write political satire
considering how the Wehrmacht
requisitioned your home.
Is it strange for me to tell you, his mother,
I’m grateful he wrote erotica, too?
Did you know? Did he tell you?
Not that I’ve read it,
just that I know this is how he met
a Jewish man who grew up
poor in Chicago, son of immigrants
who ran a bakery that failed,
a man who became a cartoonist
for an erotic magazine.
Not that I’ve seen his erotic cartoons,
but they must have caught
your son’s interest because
he urged that man, Shel,
to start drawing for kids.
For kids. An erotic cartoonist.
Can you imagine?
Your son dragged him kicking
and screaming into the office
of Ursula Nordstrom,
an editor at Harper & Row,
who thought your son was right.
And Ursula encouraged Mr. Silverstein
to make books for kids like me,
poetry books in which terrible things happened
but playfulness was always possible,
even when the little blue engine
who looked up at the hill
crashed, even when the little girl
who didn’t get her pony
died, even when the man
who fell in love with a bagpipe
ended up lonely and alone.
And because your son encouraged Shel,
I read those books and laughed
and learned that poetry was fun
and the process was full of pleasure
even when the stakes were high.
Even when I write about the girl
who didn’t think she was good enough.
Even when I write about how the whole cherry crop
was ruined in one minute by hail.
Even when I write about the woman
whose son took his life.
Oh Alice Ungerer,
dear woman I will never know,
your life is so integral to mine.
I don’t know the color
of your hair or the aches
of your heart or what made
you leap up in joy, but
your choices have touched my life
so profoundly, and I thank you
for how my sensibilities have opened
into a longing to turn
toward the dark underbelly
and find a way not just to look there
but to play. I don’t know if you
can receive this, but I thank you, dear Alice,
great grandmother of my words.
Making Space
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged ars poetica, erasure, love, story on April 27, 2024| 10 Comments »
My heart is an unfinished poem
I begin scribbling every morning.
By noon, I sign my name.
By night, the whole page is erased.
I used to lament the erasing.
Now I love the blank more
than any scribbles I could make.
To love you is to lose my story.
Sometimes, when I am brave,
the hand doing the erasing
is my own.
When Everywhere Is the Right Place to Start
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged ars poetica, dowsing rod, science, trust, water on February 12, 2024| 7 Comments »
It’s like when dowsing rods swing back and forth,
twin tattletales of all we cannot see.
I’ve seen them twitch and cross—a sign that water
is nearby. A sign this spot’s the perfect
place to dig a well. A scientist
would say it’s luck—it’s in the dowser’s walk.
They’d say that everywhere’s the perfect place
to dig when everywhere you go has water.
I know the feel of dousing rods inside
my blood each time I meet a blank page and
then try to say what’s true—my inner rods
will quiver wild or simply sit there, still.
And what a thrill when they say, “Here, dig here.”
It’s more a matter of how deep, not where.
Interlude
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged ars poetica, kissing, writing on November 28, 2023| 4 Comments »
Sometimes, waiting for the poem to come,
I lean in, eyes closed, lips parted,
edging wonder, unsure what comes next—
my heart a fluttering and tremblesome thing.
It’s like being seventeen again, wondering
if the boy beside me and I will kiss.
I love this flirty interlude when the poem
barely touches my lips with a brush
so light I wonder if I’m making it up—
and the pleasure center of the brain lights up
and soon I am breathless, dancing atop the labyrinth,
ready to give myself wholly to the kiss,
no longer able to follow the scripts I have known.
And the poem hovers above my lips
whispering, What truths are hiding inside you,
then plunders me until my eyes are open.
*
Well, friends, I can’t promise that when you sit down to write poems it will be like the poem above–but it just might be. Here are a host of fun online events coming up when you, too, might write and wonder what truths are hiding inside you?
“Turning Toward Life with a Pen in Your Hand”: Exploring Poetry of Presence II
TUESDAYS Nov. 28-Dec. 19
“What does it mean to be alive?” Consider this an invitation to join your voice to the big conversation about that question! In this four-week writing series, we’ll converse with poems from Poetry of Presence II: More Mindfulness Poems, an anthology of poems that “crack open the tough stuff and spill out the light.” Every class will consist of reading and unpacking poems, two sessions of original writing, optional sharing, and lots of talk about process. This is a chance to “practice mindfulness smack dab in the middle of our busy lives” through writing—partaking in wonder, embracing paradox, trusting life, and meeting our own lives as living poems. To register or for more information visit here.
Happy Birthday Rilke
Dec. 4
Join me for a birthday salon for Rainer Maria Rilke including of music, story and poetry. I’ll be with renowned Rilke translator Mark Burrows and cultural historian Kayleen Asbo as we trace how the music of Bach re-awakened his imagination after the trauma of World War I, resulting in the astonishing outpouring of poetry that became the Sonnets to Orpheus and Duino Elegies. A joyful exploration of the poems and poet that saved my life and the music that saved him. To register or for more information, visit here.
Sitting in the Midst of It All: A writing & self-care retreat
Dec. 7 & 8
Join Courage & Renewal facilitator Marcia Eames-Sheavly and Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer for a mini-writing retreat—a day and a half of self-care, wonder, quietude, gentleness, acceptance and connection. The wonderful Marcia will be guiding us in Parker Palmer’s Circle of Trust. For more information, visit here.
Stubborn Praise with James Crews
Dec. 18
Join Rosemerry & poetry friend and partner James Crews for an evening of conversing about poetry, change and transformation. This program was originally scheduled for October but had to be rescheduled. If you were previously signed up, you’re in! You should have received your registration info already. Even if you were not previously signed up, you can sign up now! For more information and to register, visit here.
The Letter I Never Wrote to Pablo Neruda
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged ars poetica, epistle, gratefulness, love, Pablo Neruda, universal on October 26, 2022| 6 Comments »
Dear Pablo,
Because you dared to love Matilde
without knowing how, or when, or from where,
I, too, became the unblooming reed
that carries inside it the radiance of summer days,
the luminosity of moon, the glittering secrets of stars.
I, too, believed I could be worthy of devotion
despite my darkness, because my darkness,
because my shadows, because my shame.
I embraced love as wood instead of crystal—
something growing, something vital,
something solid and difficult to break.
Because you spilled love into ink,
I learned your love by heart.
Your words caressed me and drenched me
like late summer rain, they carried me
through gloomy rooms and moonless years.
Because you dared to deeply love one woman,
you touched the soul of this other woman,
and I, too, know, because of you,
the perfume of dark carnation, the ripe apple
of happiness, the bliss of being spread out
on a blanket of ancient night,
a kiss that transcends borders and centuries,
the gift of a love so obscure it resists translation,
the gift of a love so personal
it invites the rest of the world.
*with references to Love Sonnets XII and XVII
One Unexpected
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged ars poetica, joy, trust, unexpected, wings on October 25, 2022| 3 Comments »
at the edge of understanding
growing wings—
now, the leap a joy
Dear Gregory Orr,
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged ars poetica, gratefulness, grief, loss, poetry on August 22, 2022| 8 Comments »
Like a pale blue ribbon,
soft and lovely,
your words are woven
through the nest that has held me
since the merciless shot of loss.
Your poems meet me again and again
with their open eyes
and their open hands.
They say, Rest here,
sweetheart. I understand.
You, with your pilgrim heart,
your insistence on devotion,
you have cradled me
with your honesty.
Long before I knew
I needed to be saved,
your words found me,
stitched through me with love
as if that is what words are for.
*
Dear friends, here is where you can find out more about the remarkable Gregory Orr.
And here is where you can find one of his poems that has saved me in the past year.
Rosemerry Imagines Her Funeral
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged ars poetica, death, obituary, writing on March 31, 2022| 10 Comments »
I want it to be said
I was the kind of woman
who would weep in the concert hall,
undone by the beauty of song.
I want to be remembered
as a creature who loved
spring grass in her bare toes
and dirt in her hands
and the sun on her skin,
and I want everyone I love
to know for a fact
I chose them as my family.
I hope they will say
I loved the blank page
more than any word on it,
though I thrilled for words, too—
It was weird, they might say,
how she would sit there for hours,
days, years, wondering
about the next true thing,
letting the blank rub off on her.
She was so happy, eyes closed,
fingers hovering above the keyboard,
leaning into that moment
when anything is possible,
that edge where she learned
she had wings.
The Poet Reads for the First Time Since Her Son Died
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged ars poetica, cinema, performance, self discovery, tree on January 25, 2022| 16 Comments »
with a line from Charles Simic, “The Prodigal”
Glade of light on the empty stage.
She steps into it, eyes blinded.
Someone in the audience
clears a throat. Someone
scuffs a sole. Many invisible
someones make no sound at all.
She has faith they are there.
She is holding a stack of papers.
Her chest contracts, rises.
So much that happens goes unseen,
a secret cinema.
She opens her mouth
and the words fall out like leaves
releasing themselves from a tree.
With each sentence she is more bare
until only her trunk remains.
She is an aspen arriving in January,
skeleton exposed.
What no one can see
are the roots. What no one can see
is she is standing on trust.
It has taken her fifty-two years
of bursting into color and
wildly waving her branches
to finally learn how
to stand still.
The other trees stand with her,
and though it is winter,
their roots grow wider, deeper.
Immersed in van Gogh
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged ars poetica, gold, sunflowers, Van Gogh on July 5, 2021| 1 Comment »
at the Immersive van Gogh exhibit in Chicago
Dark, and then suddenly
gold, gold in a major chord,
gold as if living inside Sunflowers,
gold in the ear drums, gold pulsing in pores,
gold thrumming in breath.
golden thoughts of only large sunflowers
van Gogh painted in anticipation.
Gold is perhaps the color of hope,
and so, bombarded with gold
on the walls, gold on the floor,
gold on my skin,
is it any wonder golden tears
fall like petals down the cheeks?
Perhaps, you, too, have prepared
for something beautiful
that hasn’t come to pass.
Perhaps, you, too, have lived
in that golden world
long enough to know it is real,
to know the beauty of bloom
so vibrant and full, know, too,
the beauty of withering.
Perhaps you, too, have known
love so golden the longer
you live it, the richer it becomes,
so rich you must create new colors
to know it, must give it away
to know at last how rich it is.
Perhaps you, too,
know the sunflower inside.
The Price of Nothing
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged ars poetica, Art, nothing, space on June 7, 2021| 6 Comments »
for “the lucky buyer” who “went home with a certificate of authenticity” for an “immaterial sculpture” by Salvatore Garau
What could be more valuable
than nothing? The nothing that
frames “The Thinker,” the nothing
that holds every bowl,
every vase, every bust, every thought.
Let others buy the clay, the steel,
the papier-mâché. I will be satisfied
with nothing more than nothing.
Nothing pleases me. Nothing
enchants me. Nothing,
as Heisenberg says,
has a weight. Just think
of the space here beside me
where you are not.
If someone asks me why
I have a five-by-five-foot
empty space taped off in my home
with a plaque that says I Am,
it is because I am so in love
with nothing. Imagine it—
nothing, the color of happiness,
nothing, the size of love,
nothing, the shape of god.
This poem was published in Rattle’s Poet’s Respond on June 13, 2021
One Divining
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged ars poetica, water, words on April 29, 2021| Leave a Comment »
using words
as dowsing rods—
there, the current inside
Symbiosis
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged ars poetica, hummingbird, reader on March 31, 2021| 2 Comments »
These poems
are only words
nesting on a page,
but when you read them
they become
hummingbirds—
can you feel
how they are drawn
to the red flower of you,
how it is you
who gives them
the nectar they need,
how it is
what is inside you
that supports
their tiny
fluttering
hearts?