Here, there is highway heading east and west.
A great basin we have named The Great Basin
is rung by mountains and filled with low brush
and not much that man has touched except
this small roadside stand that describes how once
the Pony Express riders would use this rugged route,
changing horses every ten to fifteen miles.
In the car, my daughter sleeps while my husband
and I stand in a merciless wind, reading how
it took only two days after the first transcontinental
telegraph was sent for the Pony Express to shut down.
How much of what we rely on now will become obsolete
in a heartbeat? The postage stamp? The satellite?
When I return to the car, I squeeze the solid hand
of my husband, trace the soft skin of my daughter’s arm,
grateful for gestures no technology can supplant.
Later, we tell inside jokes. Later, we ooh and ahh
as lightning bisects the Great Basin. Nothing can
replace this, I think, as my daughter tangles her hand
mindlessly in my hair and I lean in toward her touch.
Posts Tagged ‘travel’
Irreplaceable
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged daughter, mother, Nevada, pony express, road trip, touch, travel, wife on August 29, 2026| 7 Comments »
Among Strangers
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged airport, beauty, rainbow, strangers, travel on July 25, 2026| 8 Comments »
I sat for hours in concourse A,
the plane delayed, delayed again,
surrounded by a young mother
with three hungry children and two
elderly couples who played endless
rounds of go fish and men in dark suits
on their cell phones and girls filming
dances for TikTok, when I looked up
and saw out the window a double rainbow,
ridiculously pretty against the slate sky,
and not wanting to be alone in my joy,
I touched the arm of the boy beside me
and he leaped up and ran to the window,
and all of us stopped to point or smile
or make jokes about pots of gold.
We will never see each other again,
but for a moment, we stood together
at the edge of delight, and the rainbows,
they just kept getting brighter, and I thought
it couldn’t possibly get any more lovely.
And the boy smiled at me. And then it did.
While Sitting in 7F
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged airplane, connection, joy, story, strangers, travel on June 13, 2026| 4 Comments »
The woman in 7D reads me an essay
she wrote for her husband in 7E
about how they first met at a party
when his hair was dark and thick.
He is bald now. She is gray, as am I,
but in those moments before take off
we three thrum with the thrill of that first
uncertain glimpse, and I enter the Hollywood
party with them, him in yellow suspenders,
her riding high on recent success.
They were strangers twenty minutes ago,
but now I am cheering for them—
for the people they were almost forty years ago
as they went out for coffee, then talked
through the night. Cheering, too, for who
they are now, no longer strangers, but Ellen and Bruce,
a writer and retired architect, who will likely
never remember meeting the woman in 7F,
but for tonight, something unspeakably lovely
happens as we fly over Chicago and Detroit
and we are woven into each other’s lives
for a few hours, a momentary plot full of laughter,
tenderness, and a spontaneous, shimmering joy,
while all around us the world goes dark.
No Detail Too Small
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged coffee, details, music, noticing, small things, travel on June 7, 2026| 10 Comments »
The weather changes the beans,
Svetlana tells me as we sit in her home.
I sip the coffee she’s made me,
a blend she and her partner created
from five different beans that they roast
themselves. She can taste in her cup
whether the growing season was rainy
or dry. Everything changes everything.
No detail too small to link us to the world
of the real, to help us remember who we are.
I am thinking of the piano player
today in Santa Fe. As her hands
flew across the keys, passionate
and precise, it was the way she moved
her eyebrows that stirred me,
her utter commitment and wonder
expressed in a single arch or furrow,
lift or frown. I am thinking of how
my friends Don and Mindy have written
the word wisdum on the wall in their home,
and how all day I have giggled about it.
They can seem so trifling, the details
that capture us, claim us, rearrange us.
I once thought redemption was something grand.
Something costly. Unlikely. Now I believe
the lost pieces of ourselves can, in part, be
recovered through noticing the smallest of things—
the raising of a brow, a handwritten word,
the treble notes in a roasted coffee bean.
The Arrival
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged hospitality, kindness, language, travel on June 5, 2026| 2 Comments »
After I drove six hours
she welcomed me at the door
of her home
with a pair of slippers
and a glass of water—
there are many languages
I want to learn to speak fluently.
Kindness, most of all.
Maximum Strength
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged connection, duct tape, kindness, Moudi Sbeity, travel on April 26, 2026| 18 Comments »
for Moudi and Taylor
Starting the long drive home,
I do not turn on the radio
to hear news of the broken world.
My father taught me every broken thing,
from coolers to car doors to roofs,
could be fixed with silver duct tape,
at least for a while.
How big would the roll have to be,
America? On the seat beside me,
a green and white striped bag
is filled with hummus and cheesy crackers,
chocolates filled with coconut and pistachio,
oat protein bars, dried mango strips
plus a small baggie of pretzel twists,
a road-food care package my friends
prepared for me in the middle of the night
so it would be on the counter waiting for me
to find when I left their home at dawn.
Perhaps kindness is a kind of duct tape—
which is to say it doesn’t actually fix things,
but it does help us go on. What is broken
is still broken, but I can taste the adhesion
in the coffee they ground for me last night
so I could be awake for this morning’s drive—
hints of cinnamon, dark chocolate, toffee,
love. I feel how their kindness holds me together
this morning. How sticky it is, the message
they wrote for me in sand: you are loved.
The message will fade, but as the world
goes on breaking, I feel surrounded
by their kindness all the way home.
When René Makes Peruvian Noodles and Huancaína
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged food, peru, travel on December 16, 2025| 6 Comments »
I ladle on extra sauce.
Roasted peanuts. Onion. Mint?
Fruity heat of yellow pepper.
It’s creamy, spicy, decadent.
I think how far Renee has traveled.
A wide river hides in his smile.
A great cat prowls through his name.
There are mountains in his eyes.
When Renee makes Huancaína,
I taste somewhere I’ve never been.
A sacred valley with ancient paths.
Misty skies and terraced lands.
His gift to us: within moments of tasting,
we travel flavors centuries in the making.
Home Away
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged daughter, generosity, home, light, mom, travel on November 14, 2025| 4 Comments »
In a city where we meet,
mom arrives with thin
rye crackers, dill Havarti,
carrots, fresh raspberries,
a tea kettle, and packets
of peppermint tea—all
things she knows I love.
And sipping right now from
the slender, porcelain
pansy mug she wrapped in
clothes and brought in her suitcase,
I listen in the dark of the hotel
to the soft, even luff of her breath
as she sleeps, and inside it
I hear the light of her, the
generous light, the tender light,
a nectary of light, a clear channel
of light that teaches me something
of how to live in these long, cold
volumes of night.
Bouquet of 19 Haikulings from San Miguel de Allende, Denver and Tulum
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged haikuling, mexico, travel on April 20, 2025| 8 Comments »
Hi friends!
I’m back from vacation with my family–we spent time in San Miguel de Allende, Denver and Tulum–and as you’ll read, yes, I did break my fifth metatarsal in my foot. And I will be fine–the best case scenario for a broken bone in your foot. I am still planning to be in California next week to do performances and workshops–albeit on crutches, but with a smile on my face.
Also, so many fabulous things happened while I was gone–I will put some of them into a gathering of good news in another post, plus a link to my thoughtshop this week on our glorious imagination and poetry.
Below you’ll find poems from all the days I was gone–sometimes more than one a day–and with this, the daily poems will resume appearing here in a daily way!
Love,
Rosemerry
horizon line—
feeling my love
travel beyond it
*
church bells in the dark—
the sound of two forty-five a.m.
becomes lullaby
*
like a ripening guava
this small hard memory
now sweetens the whole room
*
napping in the sun
my limbs forget
what an hour is
*
it’s okay if you can only
conjugate in the present
says the scent of fresh tortillas
*
entering the ancient church
how many others whispered here
thy will be done
*
hand above the knob—
how many doors did I close
to open this one?
*
one misstep
and the thin bone breaks—
time to learn new ways to dance
*
rather out of tune
the mariachi band—
still my joy bright as their trumpets
*
like clouds with wings
this tree billowing
with white egrets
*
as if nature went wild
with a purple crayon—
city of jacaranda
*
foot broken
finally still enough
to hear the chickadee
*
like seaweed on the beach
these old stories of self—
each morning, time to rake again
*
listening to waves for days—
what part of me
is not ocean?
*
anger is potent fuel
but joy, joy burns
just as bright, more clean
*
I want to swallow
the whole universe with my heart
starting with this bitter bite
*
scent of mesquite fires
clings in my hair,
whispers, you belong
*
I cannot fix anything
but I can
hold you
*
the stranger in 15D and I
both sing along with pre-flight music—
shower the people you love with love
—Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer
One Driving to the Airport at 4 a.m.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged dark, driving, highway, music, travel on October 9, 2024| 2 Comments »
the empty highway
stretches through the dark—
a music staff with one long note
Putting My Daughter on the Plane to Guatemala
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged being present, daughter, fear, letting go, parenting, travel, trust on August 12, 2024| 9 Comments »
I would like to say I wasn’t afraid,
but I was. I know too well how a plane
can fall from the sky. How terrible
things happen to innocent people.
How even when we try our hardest
to keep others safe, they can die.
Driving toward home, I was a snail
without its shell, a seed without its husk,
a woman alone in the dark with her fear.
I remember thinking if I needed to,
I could live through any future disaster,
even my worst nightmare.
But what I really needed was
to live in that very moment.
The more I was right where I was,
the more I felt the mystery around
and inside me, swirling until I was bigger
somehow, no less afraid but more spacious,
And though the world did not comfort me,
I felt myself soften as I flowed toward
the inevitable—flowed the way a river flows,
moved the way the wind moves,
grew the way a woman grows
when she meets the world that is here.
—Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer
Reunion
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged daughter, home, mother, reunion, travel on August 10, 2024| Leave a Comment »
To drive through the starless night.
To arrive at the airport in time to greet
the traveler at the gate.
To embrace her in your arms
and nuzzle your nose in her hair.
To be nowhere in that moment
but there. To stare into her face
until the heart is satisfied
and the lungs remember
how to breathe. To see
in her eyes a constellation
that helps you navigate home. To know
reunion’s sweeter for the letting go.
Puerto Rico Haikuling Bouquet
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged beach, family, haikuling, travel on April 21, 2024| 4 Comments »
delayed on the tarmac
my inner scheduler
decides to nap
*
walking on blue cobblestones
we arrive
six hundred years ago
*
that man playing harp—
his voice opens doors
in the air
*
unsure what comes next
I translate all my worries
into purple orchid
*
best rainforest guide—
two-note song
of an unknown bird
*
decades of calamities
and triumphs
to be just another body on the beach
*
my tears unnoticed
I offer myself
a tissue, a shoulder
*
from the calendar squares
I fell with a splash
into warm blue water
*
night full of rain—
come morning light
my dreams shine
*
squeezing lime
into the ripe papaya
scooping out delight
*
in bioluminescent water
I write your name
watch the blue cursive disappear
*
picking your pocket
hoping
for a poem
*
no hard feelings, pigeon,
rumor has it
this is good luck
*
paddling to the island
drunk on blue
my eyes keep swerving
*
the way the ocean
never refuses raindrops—
learning to let in the whole world
*
back at the empanada café
hoping to fall in love again
with spinach
*
remembering with a start
nothing
is happening
*
a full moon
in my body—
all around me the tides
*
after floating in saltwater
hand in hand with my girl,
on land, still floating
*
between the missiles
and the song of the ocean
this chance to love
*
distilling the dazzling day
into three-lines
and one glass of wine
Waiting for the Planes
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged airplane, boredom, travel, waiting on November 26, 2023| 13 Comments »
Hello urge to be productive.
Aren’t you so sincere?
I see how you think
because there is nothing to do
but wait for the next two hours,
wait for the next five hours,
wait for the next seven hours,
you think I should do something
useful and industrious,
something practical and time efficient.
Something generative.
As if to sit and do nothing
is not a gift.
As if waiting is nothing
but an invitation to work.
As if the goal in life is to
check things off an eternal list.
The longer I sit,
the harder it is to hear you,
well-intentioned as you are.
See how I sprawl on the floor now?
And now, how I rock on my heels
and hum and swing my hips?
How I close my eyes
knowing I won’t fall asleep.
Oh the kingdom of boredom.
How it takes everything I have
to meet it and let it rule me,
to treat it like the treasure it is—
the chance to not be clever,
to not shine, to wander between ambition
and disappointment, between mettle
and quietude, to find a chair
I might sit in for a while
and meet the urge to be productive.
And not open my book.
Not pick up my knitting.
Not study French.
Not converse with a stranger. Not make the call.
Not even smile as I type not a word.
One Traveling
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged connection, daughter, travel on November 20, 2023| 6 Comments »
while sitting in 24 E
when my girl rests her head on my shoulder
already I’ve arrived
One Journey
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged driving, home, journey, travel on August 15, 2023| 3 Comments »
driving three hundred eleven miles—
learning to call every inch of the trip
home
Traveling to Scandinavia in Spring
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged Scandinavia, spring, travel, winter on April 17, 2023| 3 Comments »
After the long winter,
we choose to travel north,
choose to move deeper into winter
to wander fjords and cobblestones.
We choose again the gray,
the ice, the snow, the cold.
Now I know there is something freeing
about choosing to explore
what isn’t easy.
There’s release, somehow,
in being on the path less warm
when it’s a path
I feel I’ve selected.
So I don again the coat,
the hat, the down.
I wander the streets
with their chill winds
and think, I want to be here.
And it’s true.
There is joy then,
in the bite, though some days
it goes deep.
Joy in being so present
in winter I forget
I could choose something else.
Big Bouquet of Baltic & Scandic Poems
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged haikulings, Scandinavia, travel on April 16, 2023| 16 Comments »
Dear Friends,
I’m back from two weeks in Estonia, Finland & Norway where my husband and daughter and I stayed in a medieval village (in Tallinn) and spoke with shopkeepers who remember the Singing Revolution of the 1990s when Tallinn became an independent country again … and then in Finland with my host sister and her family (I was an exchange student for a year in Espoo in the late 1980s) … and then in the fjords of Norway. it was such a wonderful rich time. Every day I wrote a short poem and here is a large bouquet of 17 of them–and now we will return to our regular routine of me sending daily poems!
In the meantime, so much happened–I have podcasts and poems and videos and so much to share with you! BUT MOST IMPORTANT!!! In two days, on Tuesday, my new book, All the Honey launches, and I hope you will join me and my beloved friend Kayleen Asbo for the lunch launch, 11 a.m. mountain time, Tuesday, online. There is much more about All the Honey, plus the link to the lunch launch in this email just below the big bouquet of poems. Please scroll all the way to the bottom for lots of goodies!
with love,
Rosemerry
Baltic and Scandic Bouquet
poems from Tallinn, Estonia; Espoo & Helsinki, Finland; and Tau & Oslo, Norway
beside the eight-hundred-year-old wall
this yellow crocus
hours old
*
slipping into
the stone fortress windows—
thick scent of spring
*
medieval cobblestone streets—
how many dreams
fell through these cracks?
*
in the fuchsia voice
of the old shopkeeper
memories of gray
*
in the bay
the sea moans beneath melting ice—
perhaps forgiveness sounds like this
*
inside me
scent of cardamom and coffee—
our conversation delicious
*
swimming in the ice
with my sister—
our hearts impossibly warm
*
beneath these umbrellas
walk thousands of life stories
I’ll never know
*
stranger in this beauty—
every step a chance
to risk opening the heart
*
in the ancient church
saying the prayers
only silence can speak
*
every day it’s new
this ache
of missing you
*
after the hike
is over
enjoying it
*
gray spring day
all the leaves still dreaming of green
this bush an insurgence of pink
*
and if tonight
it hurts to be alive—
then be alive, heart, be alive
*
full moon
above the fjord—
even loneliness falls in love
*
calling card
of some unseen angel—
this white feather on my sleeve
*
letting it scour me
this ferocious wind—
becoming the white space of a poem