Forgive Me for Wanting to Soothe

 

Sometimes a wound must stay a wound. —James Crews, “Wound”     Sometimes I remember a wound must stay a wound. Why then,  this impulse to bring you a vase of blue  larkspur, white lilies and a blessing instead of sitting with you in the dark and letting what is dark be dark.  When I am brave enough to see beyond my longing to soothe,  all I want is to be with you in the dark.  To steep together in the uncomfortable ache.  To quietly meet you in the wounded place so you know you are not alone. Perhaps I will always send you lilies,  but let me also trust how necessary it is,  the open ear, this tenderness,  this willingness to be with, more gift than any flower. —Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer

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

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].

Circumventing the Busy Self

 

What I need tonight is a chair—
the big upholstered kind
that sighs when I sit into it,
the kind that holds me the way
I used to imagine a cloud would hold me—
downy, cozy, comfy, secure
and filled with light.
I need a chair that will make me
not want to get up to do
whatever important thing
I think I must do.
Why do I always think I need
to do something? Why
is it so hard to just sit?
So, I guess, what I really need is a chair
and a seatbelt, the kind
they have on helicopters
with five straps that meet
in the center—though
I think those are self-release,
and we all know I will soon
feel driven to rise and rush,
no matter how cumulonimbus-ish
that chair might feel, no matter
how insistent the straps.
So tonight, what I really need
is a soft chair and a five-strap seat belt
and a giant weighted blanket—
not heavy enough to crush me,
but one with enough gravity
that being still feels like the only
real choice. And if I am still, very still,
and not accomplishing anything for a while,
then perhaps I will meet this grief
I am escaping—not that I am trying
to escape it on purpose, it’s just
there is so much important
stuff to do and, perhaps,
let’s say I’ve noticed that when I just sit,
just sit,
with nothing to read and nothing
to do, the grief sits with me
and asks nothing of me except
that I meet it. In that moment,
I remember turning toward grief
is what I most want to do.
In that moment, there is nothing
on any to do list that could deter me
from meeting this grief.
Oh world, I remember.
I remember right now,
so please, what I need most tonight,
it doesn’t matter how soft,
is a chair.

--Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer

The Question

 

All day, I replay these words:

Is this the path of love?

I think of them as I rise, as

I wake my children, as I wash dishes,

as I drive too close behind the slow

blue Subaru, Is this the path of love?

Think of them as I stand in line

at the grocery store,

think of them as I sit on the couch

 with my daughter.  Amazing how

quickly six words become compass,

the new lens through which to see myself

in the world. I notice what the question is not.

Not, "Is this right?" Not,

"Is this wrong?" It just longs to know

how the action of existence

links us to the path to love.

And is it this? Is it this? All day

I let myself be led by the question.

All day I let myself not be too certain

of the answer. Is it this? I ask as I

argue with my son. Is it this? I ask

as I wait for the next word to come.

--Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer

[David and grandson Killian deep in conversation].

For When People Ask

 

I want a word that means
okay and not okay,
more than that: a word that means
devastated and stunned with joy.
I want the word that says
I feel it all all at once.
The heart is not like a songbird
singing only one note at a time,
more like a Tuvan throat singer
able to sing both a drone
and simultaneously
two or three harmonics high above it—
a sound, the Tuvans say,
that gives the impression
of wind swirling among rocks.
The heart understands swirl,
how the churning of opposite feelings
weaves through us like an insistent breeze
leads us wordlessly deeper into ourselves,
blesses us with paradox
so we might walk more openly
into this world so rife with devastation,
this world so ripe with joy.

--Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer

[Photo of our twins meeting their baby sister.]

.]

How It Might Continue

 

Wherever we go, the chance for joy,
whole orchards of amazement--

one more reason to always travel

with our pockets full of exclamation marks,

so we might scatter them for others

like apple seeds.

Some will dry out, some will blow away,

but some will take root

and grow exuberant groves

filled with long thin fruits

that resemble one hand clapping__

so much enthusiasm as they flutter back and forth

that although nothing's heard

and though nothing's really changed,

people everywhere for years to come

will swear that the world

is ripe with applause, will fill

their own pockets with new seeds to scatter.

--Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer

Hope

 

Hope has holes

in its pockets.

It leaves little

crumb trails

so that we,

when anxious,

can follow it.

Hope's secret:

it doesn't know 

the destination--

it knows only 

that all roads

begin with one

foot in front

of the other.

--Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer

[Photo of our granddaughter Ella with her best friend Hudson.]