Look for the Helpers

            for Fred Rogers

Today, I will look for the helpers—

the woman pouring sunflower seeds

from an orange bag into the feeder,

and a chickadee, having eaten its fill,

lifting off so another can feast there.

Someone holding open the fogged-over

door of the coffee shop for a stranger

who smiles and says thank you in spite

of the news. I will watch workers dressed

in neon vests with shovels and buckets,

filling potholes across the city, the asphalt

steaming as they spread it over the street,

then tamp it down, repairing what they can.

—James Crews

[Three of my favorite helpers].

Folding Altar

 

I carry my church with me

wherever I go, unfolding the altar

of a moment while out walking

with my husband, pausing to pick

a few dandelions gone to seed,

taking a deep breath, then blowing,

sending those silver messengers

into the air above a field,

each one the seed of a prayer

I say every day I'm alive:

Please let me give up all hope

for a better past, and just be here

by the side of the driveway,

watching wisps of clouds turning

pink with evening, then purple,

and listening to the complex solo

of a catbird perched in a maple

as we say goodbye to the light

which may leave the sky tonight

but will stay with us, flickering

for years to come.

--James Crews

[Sunset over the Sequatchie Valley in TN].

No Small Thing

It’s no small thing to learn the names

of the birds you hear each day,

perched on the tops of coneflowers

gone to seed, calling from the hedgerow.

It’s no small thing to belt out

Cardinal, catbird, goldfinch, when you

stop between breaths to listen,

teasing out their strands of song

from the rustling of river birches

and the distant roar of a lawn mower.

It’s no small thing to go so quiet

you hear the chorus of your thoughts

crescendo, then fall away as you

notice the patch of sun on a stone wall

blanketed in sphagnum moss,

and imagine the unseen beings—

nematodes and water bears—who

thrive in tiny pools of rain suspended

between the moss’ tiny leaves.

—James Crews 

When Worry Showed Up Again

It slithered in snakelike, the worry, and hissed in a sinister whisper, What if you said too much? Why can’t you just be quiet?  I felt its eyes measure my long, bare throat, felt its fangs against my skin. Doubt in my safety flooded in. But I did not speak back. Instead, on instinct, my body took me to the noon-bright pond to float like a leaf on my back. I felt the water lifting me. Felt the summer-warm kiss of sun. Listened to dragonflies moving the reeds as they landed and took off again. Listened to trees rustled by wind. The more present I was in my body, the less strangled by worry I felt. The more I could see how worry wasn’t everything, the easier I could breathe. Hours later, I marvel how the body, knew just what to do, an ancient wisdom moving through. Of course the snake didn’t disappear. I still hear its disturbing, insistent hiss: What if, it insinuates. What if, what if … But it’s harder now to believe the snake when I feel more aligned with what’s here. What’s here? The heart ever learning to open, to trust. The wonder of having a voice at all. The wondering what I am here to learn. Dozens of dragonflies. Reeds. A slender snake of worry. Trees. Sun. Pond. Wind. —Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer

A Scrap in Time

 

 
Something about the relentless beauty
of the dahlias this year makes me forget
lists and calls and news and aches as
I stand beside them in a splendor stupor,
watching them bloom in real time, not
wanting to miss a moment of the long stems
rising, the red color deepening then fading
from the petals as they age. I imagine a time lapse
begins, and the world’s winter white, then greening
again, and now a hundred years pass,
now five hundred, a thousand, and the garden
bed is gone and the fence is gone and
the trees and the ditch and the home
are gone, and there’s no way to know
this was once a place where dahlias grew.
Is it any wonder, then, I call to you, ask you
to come stand here with me to watch
the dahlias open themselves to the sun,
each petal a hymn to the present,
a history soon to be forgotten, a shimmer in time
we might put in a vase and marvel as
all around it the whole world spins.
 
—Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer

Meeting Your Death

 

Because there are no clear instructions,
I follow what rises up in me to do.
I fall deeper into love with you.
I look at old pictures.
I don’t look at old pictures.
I talk about you. I say nothing.
I walk. I sit. I lie in the grass
and let the earth hold me.
I lie on the sidewalk, dissolve
into sky. I cry. I don’t cry.
I ask the world to help me stay open.
I ask again, please, let me feel it all.
I fall deeper in love with the people
still living. I fall deeper in love
with the world that is left—
this world with its spring
and its war and its mornings,
this world with its fruits
that ripen and rot and reseed,
this world that insists
we keep our eyes wide,
this world that opens
when our eyes are closed.
Because there are no clear instructions,
I learn to turn toward the love that is here,
though sometimes what is here is what’s not.
There are infinite ways to do this right.
That is the only way.

--Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer 

[Posted in remembrance of Harold Baasch on his birthday; we wish you were here to celebrate your 77th birthday].

Note to Self

 

There is nothing sacred

about being selfless, pushing

your own needs so far down

you forget your true name.

There is nothing selfish

about saying no to the endless

demands and task lists of others,

and saying yes to the light

that brings you alive—so full

of your self, people edge closer

just to bask in the warmth

of your leftover glow.

--James Crews

[Our granddaughter living joyfully].