The way a robin or oriole
might weave string or yarn
into its nest to create integrity
or an anchor, that is the way
I weave an imaginary red ribbon
through each square
on the zoom screen.
My friend has just invoked
a Japanese legend
about how we are all connected
by a red thread, and though
I have not heard this legend before,
I can imagine a deep crimson stitching
moving even now through all
of our backgrounds,
making of this gathering
a most wondrous nest,
a sturdy place made of wet poems
and fresh music, song and mess,
a durable creation in which we might
all rest, a sturdy, safe place
to find spaciousness.
Posts Tagged ‘community’
Community of Poets
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged community, connection, nest, red thread, zoom on August 29, 2026| 8 Comments »
In Which The Woman Telling the Story Discovers Something of Who She Is
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged community, control, exuberance, identity, Winnie-the-Pooh on August 21, 2026| 15 Comments »
One summer’s evening, when a woman was sitting
with friends at a table in a fine establishment,
her daughter announced it was the one hundredth
anniversary of Winnie-the-Pooh. “Well, Hallo,”
said the woman, as she remembered how oftenishly
she and her son would play a game in which
they would guess at what character a person would be
if they lived in the Hundred Acre Wood, so,
scratching her ear in shy sort of way,
she suggested they play such a game.
One woman at the table, being a good adventurer
and liking to stay at the edge of the action,
knew at once she would be Christopher Robin.
Another was mostly Tigger with a dusting of Eeyore
and a share of Piglet-ish nervousness. And the woman,
who had long known she was part Tigger and part Rabbit,
seeing as how she was both exuberant and rather fond
of control, was not keen to discover that perhaps
she was also a bit of Owl, somewhat of a know it all
who is most likely wrong, especially, as it turns out,
about which character her daughter might pick
for herself, which made it Awkward when the woman’s
inner Rabbit took notes and scoffed, and her inner Owl
went on believing it knew best. But her inner
Friendly Tigger soon felt Bouncy and Boffish again,
just enjoying the night. “Perhaps we all have a bit
of all the characters in us,” one woman suggested.
Such a Pooh thing to say. And the evening went on quite right.
A Gathering of Strangers in the High San Juans
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged community, connection, landscape, mountains, surface, transformation on August 10, 2026| 4 Comments »
When we met,
we had no idea
how we all, like
this land, carry
inside us
the memory
of volcano
and glacier.
How easily we
can be fooled
by the present
landscape,
calm and serene.
Just because
there are spruce
here now and
gentle streams
doesn’t mean
there wasn’t once
a violent explosion
of fire and ash,
a long and cold
scraping of ice.
Here in the aftermath
of upheaval,
in this ongoing story
of transformation,
I see how our hearts
have been carved wide
as this high alpine
basin, and even
in the places where
nothing yet grows,
my god, it’s
so beautiful.
Hanging Out with the Benedictines
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged Benedictines, community, history, humility, longevity, religion on June 26, 2026| 6 Comments »
for Sister Roseann and the Monastic Congregation of St. Scholastica
On the left wrist of the nun
with the silver hair and soft eyes
was a bracelet made by a child.
Small white cubes with black all caps
proclaimed, “NEVER GROW UP.”
With an impish shrug of her shoulders
she explained she might have written
“NEVER GIVE UP.” And I thought
how for fifteen hundred years
her order has flourished through
the rise and fall of the Mongol Empire,
The British Empire, the Aztecs,
Bart Simpson, Mickey Mouse.
Has grown through the introduction of zero
as a standalone number and paper money,
gunpowder and windmills and the compass.
Has seen the creation of moveable type
and the steam engine, has witnessed
the telegraph and email and bots that answer the phone.
And I felt it inside her, still growing,
the devotion of centuries, the kind of faith
that lives on past plastic bracelets,
cherry Twizzlers and Instagram, a community
grown in the deep, rich soil of humility,
simplicity, hospitality, moderation and prayer.
I felt it in her open smile, in the
kind way she held my hand in hers,
in the way she reframed her work
as faithfulness, I felt her trust
that some things continue to prosper
against all odds, this, the gift of never
growing up, of never giving up,
of ever growing beyond understanding.
As We Marched
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged community, democracy, integrity, march, politics, protest on March 29, 2026| 12 Comments »
I imagined every step a step toward integrity,
toward justice. Toward language that respects
diversity. Every step a step toward equality. Truth.
I imagined every step one step closer to peace
in our country, toward peace in the world.
I am old enough to not believe in arrivals,
I am fool enough to believe in love.
I am human enough to believe in community.
I am scientist enough to know we need each other.
Perhaps some part of me wondered what good it did
for a few hundred people in a remote mountain town
to walk together a few blocks, chanting, then walk
back to the courthouse again, but tonight, in my body,
I feel it, the trust in humanity that rises when I think
of how we gathered and drummed and believed
in what our country can be. My heart beats
a new rhythm in time with belonging.
“This is what democracy looks like.”
Tonight, after we’ve all gone home,
I know we’re all still marching.
So Good
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged community, good, good enough, paradox, poetry reading on March 16, 2026| 6 Comments »
In a world of bests, good is a relief. Best invites an argument; good is just a suggestion.
—Melissa Kirsch, “What’s Good” in The New York Times, March 14, 2026
This morning I slip out of my good bed
into my good green slippers. I drink good coffee
and play a good game of chase with my nephews.
They are good, good boys. I take a good long drive
with my good old friend and we arrive in a town
I have loved for years full of good memories
and good people. There we eat a good dinner
and then spend a night sharing poems.
I’m grateful for the poems that make me ache,
because it’s good to bear what’s bad together.
It’s not easy. But real. Real good. The kind of good
that makes your whole body hum, that makes
your hands clap and your heart stretch wide,
feeling so good, so good, even as you cry.
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.
When We Share Our Broken-Open Hearts
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged cocoon, community, connection on November 20, 2025| 2 Comments »
Together we weave
an invisible cocoon
fashioned from trust
and listening,
its fibers strong enough
to support a miracle,
soft enough to hold
even the tenderest
of wounds. In just days
a whole galaxy
emerges. See
how we spiral
together.
Just Before the Grief Retreat
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged baseball, community, funky town, grief, silly, theme song on November 16, 2025| 6 Comments »
What if it’s like baseball,
Paula says, and you enter
the room the way the players
enter the field, with a theme song?
I look around the spacious room,
chairs and cushions set in a large circle,
flowers, candles and tissues in the center.
What if, when everyone is already
sitting in the circle, you kick open
the door and make an entrance
to this? And she pulls up a tune
on her phone. It begins slow—
strings and cello.
“Funky Town?”
She laughs as I strut
to the center of the room,
knees bent and flapping,
arms pumping in the air
to legato orchestral disco.
I welcome the invisible crowds.
No ball, no bat, no ump, no score.
But there is this field where we gather
to meet what life throws at us.
There are these innings of loss,
these home runs of love, curve balls of ache.
There is this sacred diamond with facets
that light up when we talk about it,
talk about it, talk about it, talk about it,
these gifts when we realize
we are not at all behind in the count.
Oh my broken open heart, I think,
you don’t gotta move on.
You are right where you need to be.
Those of Us Who Choose to Turn Toward Grief
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged community, grief, guinea pig on September 3, 2025| 6 Comments »
Somehow we find each other,
though our gathering
doesn’t fix or change the loss,
there is tenderness, even beauty,
in coming together. I have read
in Switzerland it’s illegal to own
just one guinea pig.
It’s considered animal abuse
because they are social beings.
We, too, are social beings.
Perhaps we don’t sniff and nudge
and squeak and rumble strut,
but we cradle, we hum, we hold.
We whisper soft encouragement.
Light candles. Offer tissues. Hug.
There are times when I deeply need
to be alone with my grief. Even then,
curled into myself, quiet in a quiet dark room,
even then I am held by the certainty
I am not alone. What a gift we give
to ourselves, to each other,
when, in our grief, we enter
the circle of those who grieve
and meet each other with open hands
and say I see you, brother, I see you,
sister. I know it isn’t easy. Here I am.
—Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer
Reciting Poems to Each Other in a Difficult Time
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged community, connection, friendship, poetry, reciting poetry on November 9, 2024| 9 Comments »
It might have looked as if we stayed
in our respective squares—
nine separate rooms made of pixels—
but for an hour the poems we shared leaped
through the screen and into our bloodstream
until all our lines were gloriously blurred
and our wounds were gently tended
by the medicine of Berry’s dayblind stars
and Wellwood’s ferocious dance of no hope,
Hopkins’s shining from shook foil
and Roethke’s wondering Which I is I?
In another time, there would have been
a fire at the center. Someone would play a drum.
But in this time, I felt it inside me, the fire,
as poems blazed to meet the great cold.
I felt it inside me, the human drum,
that reminds me the heart beats
not for itself, but the world.
For an hour we spooned each other
the honey of poetry. Alone now,
I still taste it, unfiltered and raw,
this astonishing sweetness on my lips,
this salt of lyric communion
still feel the warmth of that blaze,
the spark still dazzling in the dark.
Let Us Gather in the Garden
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged communion, community, food, garden, gathering on July 25, 2024| 6 Comments »
Let us gather in the garden in late July
when the snap peas are fat and sweet on the vines
and the tiny white cilantro flowers charge
the air with fragrant green. When the sunflowers
have not yet opened, but the cosmos are already
a riot of pinks and white and the nasturtiums
have erupted into spicy orange petals
and the heads of lettuce open and open
as if looking for the edges of the universe.
Let us gather when the onions are beginning
to swell and the kale leaves are big as elephant ears
and the basil is lush and vigorous and flourishing
and it’s so good to be here with our hunger,
not to consume but to be opened by goodness,
to know ourselves as part of this generous
plentiful land. It so good to be here
together amongst the ripening,
to share the living blessing, to welcome
each other into the garden of our hearts,
to nourish the seeds of all that is to come
forming even now inside our open hands.
In a Circle of Trust
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged circle, communion, community, connection, silence, trust on December 9, 2023| 8 Comments »
I love these fierce and gentle hours
when the silence between us
blooms between voices
as deeply, as profusely
as the pale pink blossoms
that flourish in pavement cracks.
I did not know how much
I longed for this silence,
Did not know how the silence would honor
each voice the way a frame holds a portrait,
bringing value and beauty to the art inside,
didn’t know how shining it could be
with its infrangible truth,
how silence invites a deepening of self
the way a river deepens and changes the canyon,
even as the river itself is changed.
The Grand Quilt
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged beauty, community, connection, quilt, sewing, togetherness on November 7, 2023| 18 Comments »
I don’t believe we can stitch together
only scraps of beauty, squares of light.
I don’t believe in a quilt that doesn’t also
have patches of sorrow, blocks of ache.
Such pieces are, of course, much harder
to want to stitch in. But it matters
that we do not exclude them.
It matters right now that we don’t pretend
they do not exist.
It matters that we sew every piece
into the grand cloth.
It matters, too,
how we sew these pieces in,
perhaps using our finest silk thread,
perhaps with an elaborate stitch
our grandmother taught us,
or perhaps we must use
a stitch we make up
because no one ever taught us
how to do this most difficult task—
to meet what at first seems unwanted, wrong,
and to incorporate it into the whole
and to do this for as long as we can stitch,
that’s how long.
How Sweet It Is
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged beauty, community, goodness, nature, wildflower on June 9, 2023| 9 Comments »
They’re small, the flowers
of mountain mahogany—
little white and red trumpets
with barely a scent, but
today, on a trail lined
with millions of tiny blossoms,
the air was hung with sweet perfume
and I breathed deeper,
as if with each pull
I could bring beauty into my lungs.
When I lose faith
that my smallest actions
make a difference,
let me remember myself as one of millions,
remember the wonder of walking today
through the bushes in bloom.
Hours later the scent is long gone,
but I can’t unknow
how sweet it is.
Riparian Soul
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged community, generosity, river, service, work on June 7, 2023| 11 Comments »
for Kathy Jepson who lives and works in the San Miguel River Canyon
Some people are rivers—
always moving, always in flow.
Wherever they are,
life flourishes. They nourish,
they support, they sustain,
and they change the shape
of the landscape—
carving new paths around obstacles,
softening what is sharp.
Some people are rivers—
the lifeblood of a valley.
Forceful at times,
at other times gentle,
but constant, so constant
you could take them for granted—
like a woman with a headset
and a clipboard,
a pencil tucked in her hair
standing behind a curtain
so others can shine.
Some people are rivers.
You know who they are
because all around them
everything is growing,
everything they touch.
And you realize you can’t imagine
being without them—
everywhere you look,
you see how quietly,
how powerfully
they have transformed the world.
Aspen at Heart
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged aspen, community, tree on May 29, 2023| 6 Comments »
How would it be
to live like the aspen,
to know the self
as one expression
of a glorious, radiant whole,
to live in communion
instead of competition,
to be the first to come in
where damage has been done—
and oh, so much damage
has been done.
I, too, want to grow even in winter,
in cold and naked times
when growth feels impossible,
want to be at once
both soft and strong.
I, too, want to be fueled by light
so I might offer shelter
for the rest of the world.
Big Lesson
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged community, connection, kindness on October 11, 2022| 3 Comments »
Today it feels so simple:
we are here to take care of each other.
How could we ever forget?
As if soil could forget
it is here to feed the trees.
As if trees could forget
they are here to feed the soil.
How could anything
ever get in the way of generosity?
How could we ever greet each other
with any words besides,
How can I help you?
As if light could forget
it is here to help illuminate.
As if dark could forget
it is here to help us heal.