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].

When Giving Is All We Have

 

                                            One river gives
                                            Its journey to the next.

We give because someone gave to us.
We give because nobody gave to us.

We give because giving has changed us.
We give because giving could have changed us.

We have been better for it,
We have been wounded by it—

Giving has many faces: It is loud and quiet,
Big, though small, diamond in wood-nails.

Its story is old, the plot worn and the pages too,
But we read this book, anyway, over and again:

Giving is, first and every time, hand to hand,
Mine to yours, yours to mine.

You gave me blue and I gave you yellow.
Together we are simple green. You gave me

What you did not have, and I gave you
What I had to give—together, we made

Something greater from the difference.

--Alberto Rios 

[Photos of Mill River's Interact Club volunteering at the Wallingford Memorial Rotary Club].

After the Loss

 

It arrived as a tidal wave,
so much love from
so many people
all around the world.
Too much, too much,
I thought, until
I imagined just one
person not sending
love and then knew
with every cell 
that drowning in love
was the only way
to stay afloat.

—Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer

[Posted for my friends Tracy, Kyle, Emma, and Tyler].