First, they start close to the floor,
practice walking heel to toe, practice
bouncing and turning and gazing
at a distant object instead of looking
down at their feet. As the stakes
and the rope get higher, they
begin to practice failure. Practice
hanging from the wire for long
periods of time. Practice holding
their own weight. This. Perhaps
this is what we are doing now
with democracy. Practicing
how to hold up our weight.
Don’t look down. Don’t look down.
View it all as practice. Trust that balance
depends on tension. Trust that
every step matters.
Posts Tagged ‘practice’
Learning from the High Wire Walkers
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged America, failure, practice, risk, tight rope on June 28, 2026| 4 Comments »
Practice
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged acceptance, bindweed, garden, hands, practice, touch, weeding on June 20, 2024| 2 Comments »
I plunge my hands into the soil
and tug on the long white bindweed roots
that cling to the cool damp dark.
Never once have I pulled the whole plant.
Always, the bindweed comes back.
Once I might have longed for a weed-free
world. How did I not see the bindweed
for what it is—a chance to touch
again and again what humbles me, and
to learn with my hands the art of acceptance
so my hands might teach my heart.
Ode to Opening the Door
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged door, opening, practice on March 9, 2021| 5 Comments »
Every day, many times,
I push down the lever
that opens the door
from the room to the house,
from the house to the world.
Such a simple gesture,
grasping, then pushing,
then letting go.
Sometimes quickly,
as when I am trying
to keep the cat inside.
Sometimes slowly,
as when I am trying
to quietly enter
a room where someone else
is sleeping.
To open a door
is to move from one space
to another, perhaps a space
where dark rye bread is baking
filling the room with its midnight scent,
perhaps a space where a single
bare lightbulb is swinging,
perhaps a space filled with birdsong
or gunfire or stars or a final breath.
My whole life
I’ve been practicing
how to enter a space—
how to meet what is there
on the other side
and still be true to myself.
My whole life I’ve been opening doors,
some I immediately regretted,
though there is no going back.
The room I left is never the same
when I return,
nor am I the same.
My whole life
I’ve been opening inner doors,
always surprised to find
another, always surprised
how big the worlds are
in a space the size of me.
Every door I open
I practice how it is
to move through,
to move into,
to offer my attention
to what is new,
perhaps a gust of wind,
a lullaby being sung,
a spacious grief or an expansive trust
I never dreamt was there.
Another Reason to Be a Gardener
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged acceptance, garden, letting go, practice on July 2, 2020| 7 Comments »
Though it’s July, the grass is iced
from last night’s frost, and the heart-shaped leaves
of the pole beans hang limp and dead.
And so the chance to practice letting go.
It’s too bad, of course,
but the stakes are low.
It was only one row,
a handful of seeds,
a hankering for fresh green beans.
Not a livelihood. Not a child.
Not a hope. Not a dream.
Just a small row of leaves
that do what leaves do.
No one to point a finger at.
No one to pick a fight with.
Just this practice of meeting
the world as it is. This chance to start again—
the work of the living.
Practice, More Practice
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged practice, transformation on January 27, 2020| 3 Comments »
And if I snap at you about the soap
in the wrong place or the toaster
not being put away or how we
are late, it is simply that I have forgotten
the inner spaciousness of everything.
I have forgotten the poem inside everything.
And if I mutter and pace and stiffen,
if I prickle and fuss and pout,
it is because I simply do not remember
how essential it is to let myself
be broken, how a sweet alchemy
is happening in me even now.
There are days when I lose sight
of how beautiful it is, this chance
to get things wrong, this gift
of making mistakes so that I might learn.
And all that I don’t yet know grows wings—
it will choose when and where it lands.
One More Reason to Practice Silence
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged poem, poetry, practice, quiet, silence on January 5, 2020| Leave a Comment »
I want to be quiet enough
to absorb the shouting,
still enough to subsume
the uproar, silent enough
to diminish the din. I want
to calm not just the air
but the hurt that drives
the shouts, calm the hurt
that drives the hurt.
Like bringing an ocean
to put out a candle—that’s
how bizarrely effective
I want this quiet to be—
the kind of quiet that touches
everything, tenderly,
like Persian perfume, and
invites it to feel how sweet
the communion of silence.
I want to know quiet
like a fine silken blanket
big enough to cover us all. Quiet,
like a bottle of wine that no matter
how much we pour and share
we find it miraculously always full.
One Long Relationship
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged darkness, poem, poetry, practice, shadow on June 25, 2019| Leave a Comment »
Practice
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged gratitude, poem, poetry, practice, thanksgiving on November 22, 2018| 2 Comments »
To be grateful not only for flower,
but also for mud, grime,
slug, slime, the dingy,
the filthy, the tired,
to be grateful not only for star
but also for what is prickly, thornsome,
tricky, testy, sore,
to be grateful not only for warmth
but also for the cold that holds it,
the chill, the bite, the nip, the freeze,
the breeze that blows always head on.
To not only say thanks, but live it.
To not only know thanks, but give it.
Arrangement
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged heart, love, mandolin, music, poem, poetry, practice on August 9, 2018| 4 Comments »
In my heart, a mandolin
just waiting to be played—
there are music sheets,
ignore them. Doesn’t matter
if you know how to play.
What matters is you try.
What matters is you practice
tuning the strings
until you find the way
to make them sing.
What matters is that
we both know there’s
music in there just waiting
to be found and
your hands are curious,
tender.
The Lesson
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged coffee, poem, poetry, practice, seeking, truth on January 30, 2018| 6 Comments »
I asked the world
to teach me of truth
and waited and waited
for a lesson. Anything.
A bird. A rainbow.
A bug. A storm.
But nothing.
And so I went in
and made a cup
of coffee—ground
the beans and steamed
the milk and cradled
the cup in my hands.
And I tasted it.
The Practice
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged beauty, great blue heron, poem, poetry, practice on March 26, 2017| 2 Comments »
Remember, says my friend, to look
for beauty every day. And immediately
I think of the blue heron I saw this afternoon
as it flew upriver, its elegant neck tucked
into its body in flight, its deep, slow wing beats
guiding it through the curves of the wide canyon.
In my chest, I felt it, the rising urge to fly,
the pulsing, the thrill of blue heron.
In that instant, I did not wonder
if a moment of beauty is enough
to sustain us through difficult times.
I knew only that I had to remind my eyes
to watch the highway instead of following
the great blue weight as it wove
through the empty cottonwood tops,
its silhouette charged with improbable grace,
its long legs dangling behind,
a reminder we all must land sometime.
More on the Art of the Practice …
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged craft, interview, poetry, practice, Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer on January 29, 2017| Leave a Comment »
Last year, I did an interview with poet and writer Eduardo Brummel, and today he’s posted it on his blog … more about practice, on how a poem might save your life, and the dance between inspiration and crafting … thanks, Eduardo! Here’s a link to the interview
After Many Attempts
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged love, morel mushroom, mushroom hunting, poem, poetry, practice on May 25, 2015| 4 Comments »
Just because it wasn’t here yesterday
doesn’t mean it won’t be here today.
Some things arrive only in their own time.
Just because I am talking about morels
doesn’t mean I’m not talking about love.
And here it is, golden and misshapen,
something I step over once before discovering.
I mean, isn’t it wonderful when sometimes
we choose to show up and then, well,
it’s not really an accident, is it, that we find ourselves
with our hands, our hearts so full.
Meanwhile Tanka
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged allowing, beauty, love, need, opening, poem, practice on June 26, 2013| 2 Comments »
beside the petals
curled tight in the bud—
learning to find
them beautiful whether they ever open
or not
Waiting the Diagnosis
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged acceptance, body, bow, humanness, humility, poem, practice, suffering on June 26, 2012| 3 Comments »
I bow to the ache of it,
the deep inner eating
away at itself, I bow
to the shivers, the gooseflesh,
the waves of nausea and pain.
I bow to the unnamed,
to question, to dark.
And I bow to the fear
that swells in small spaces
and the vast quiet
that dissipates the fear.
I bow to every other human
who hurts and I bow
to the yellow flowers tonight
blooming in the muck
where the river used to be.
I bow to the ache, goddammit,
I bow to it and I bow
to the reluctance to bow to it,
bow to the longing to shove
it all away, and I bow,
hush now, just bow.
Write a Poem a Day? You? Yep–Join Rosemerry in Ridgway
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged poem a day practice, practice, ridgway, Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer, weehawken, writing workshop on January 17, 2012| Leave a Comment »
Leaping: How to Wildly Advance Your Writing
A five-week adventure in growing your voice
led by Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer
Wednesdays February 1-February 29
11 a.m. to 1 p.m.
When a stranger on the corner asked, “How do you get to Carnegie Hall?” pianist Arthur Rubinstein famously replied: “Practice. Practice. Practice. “
What’s true for the pianist is true for the poet. If you want to improve, it takes practice. In this five-week class, participants will be asked to write a poem a day for a month.
A poem a day?!
Mmm hmm. You can do it even if you’ve never written a poem outside of English class. All participants will receive a 30-day inspiration booklet with 60 possible prompts written by the workshop leader. This year will also feature experiential prompts. But her prompts are merely suggestions. You can scribble a late-night haiku about your cat or type a 14-line sonnet in rhymed iambic pentameter. It doesn’t matter. Nor does it matter if the writing is “good.” It matters that you write. It matters that you play. It matters that you try new things. More than poetry as product, we’re exploring a poetic life—poetry as path and lens and anchor and kite.
These just might be 30 of the most fun, creative, door-opening, writer’s-block-busting, voice-changing, provocative days of your life. Let’s play.
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Passionate about language and writing, Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer earned her master’s degree in English Language and Linguistics, and for 10 years, she directed the Telluride Writers Guild. Her poems have been featured in O Magazine and on A Prairie Home Companion. Her books include Holding Three Things at Once, a finalist for the Colorado Book Award, and most recently The Miracle Already Happening: Everyday life with Rumi. For seventeen years, she’s taught in libraries, schools, businesses and universities. Clients have included Camp Coca Cola, The Aesthetic Education Institute of Colorado, Think 360, Business and Professional Women and the National Endowment for the Humanities. You’ll find her own poem-a-day practice at ahundredfallingveils.wordpress.com
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http://www.weehawkenarts.org * Questions@weehawken.org * 970-318-0150