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Posts Tagged ‘epiphany’

With Tears as I Write

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , on April 1, 2025| 8 Comments »




Dear Charles Bukowski,
This morning when my student wanted to share a poem,
I was disappointed when she said the poem was yours.
I didn’t want to hear about whiskey and whores.
And there they were in stanza two,
but also, singing its way through the whole poem
was the bluebird that lives in your heart,
and Charles, I wish you could have heard it,
the living epiphany in her voice as she read the poem to me,
because she, too, has a beautiful animal trapped inside her.
She, too, realizes she can be too clever or too tough
to set that beautiful animal free.
And I fell in love, Charles, with her courage, yes,
but also with the honesty in your words
that winged through any cage
I might have put around my own heart.
In fact, I was shocked to realize I had a cage in place
with bars so stubborn they almost
kept your bluebird from flying in.
This began as a thank you letter, Charles,
but it’s also, I see, an apology.
To you, of course, and also to myself,
and most especially to that little bluebird
I tried to keep out. Look, now there’s a little
cup-shaped nest in my heart where that cage once was,
a nest woven of humility and genuine gratefulness.
And your bluebird now lives in me, too. I know you
wouldn’t cry over a bird living in the heart.
But Charles, you remind me, I do.

Love,
Rosemerry


to read “Bluebird” by Charles Bukowski, visit here.

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How the Light Came

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on January 4, 2023| 4 Comments »

The more light you allow within you, the brighter the world you live in will be.            
—Shakti Gawain  


And it was in the darkest time
when she was most lost,
before she even knew to ask for help,
it was then the light arrived—
as a firefly, it so happens,
a radiance so tiny
she might have missed it
had it not lit up right in front of her face
at the very moment her friend spoke of love.

Perhaps she would have resisted it
if she’d had energy for resistance.
Even the smallest brilliance can be terrifying
when it asks us to see life as it really is
instead of the way we wish it would be.

As it is, the love light entered her,
humble as a beetle, significant as a star.
It glowed so brightly others could see it.
It responded to her trust.
It met her in silent rooms and lonely days.
It shined into deep uncertainty,
It offered her no answers.
It suggested a thousand right paths.
We could say the light didn’t change a thing.
We could say the light changed everything.

Who was she to receive a miracle?
Let’s not call it miracle, then.
Call it wonder. Call it unlikely luck.
But there is no way to pretend
it didn’t happen.
Even now, she tends that light,
marvels at how it glows even brighter
the more she gives it away.

*

Oh friends, this was a difficult poem to write. I am reminded of the quote from Marianne Williamson, Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. So I wrote the poem in third-person past tense–which helped. 

I wrote it in preparation to co-lead an online exploration of epiphany. Perhaps you will join me on Friday, January 6 to wrestle with your own story of being led/wanting to be led/not wanting to be led by light, of being lit from within, of sharing your gifts. 

Epiphany: Stories Written in the Stars
Friday,January 6, 10:30 am -Noon PST
Mythologist Kayleen Asbo, poet Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer, artist Johanna Baruch and archetypal counselor Ingrid Hoffman explore how we can follow our inner star to bring light to the world in a celebration of Epiphany from Dionysus to Jesus and the Magi through art, story, poetry, music and creative writing practices that liberate our inner gifts.

And here is the link for registration:
https://events.r20.constantcontact.com/register/eventReg?oeidk=a07ejjic613b83e1aa4&oseq=&c=&ch=

*

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One Wonder

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on January 3, 2023| 4 Comments »

 
since that star slipped into my breath
everywhere I look
the miraculous

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Almost Epiphany

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , on January 3, 2016| 1 Comment »

 

 

 

all the ornaments

wrapped and in their boxes

for the next fifty weeks—

in the room a gaping emptiness,

this joy in not rushing to fill it in

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