Where We Are Headed by Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer
Where We Are Headed
Rosemerry Wahtola TrommerAt first we just say flower. How
thrilling it is to name. Then it’s
aster. Begonia. Chrysanthemum.We spend our childhood learning
to separate one thing from another.
Daffodil. Edelweiss. Fern. We learnwhich have five petals, which have six.
We say, “This is a gladiolus, this hyacinth.”
And we fracture the world into separateidentities. Iris. Jasmine. Lavender.
Divorcing the world into singular bits.
And then, when we know how to tellone thing from another, perhaps
at last we feel the tug to see not
what makes things different, butwhat makes things the same. Perhaps
we feel the pleasure that comes
when we start to blur the lines—and once again everything
is flower, and by everything,
I mean everything.
MARGINALIA
1.
And how have you gone through the days? They have been full of darkness but also somehow manage to hold space for delicate things, and true things, and tender things. And how have you sat among them? Do you believe, as I tell you now, with all the gentleness I can muster, that you belong here?
2.
And how have you recognised and embraced the good that comes with the waiting? Do you understand that even if it took you an incredible amount of heartache, that to wait, to stay here, means to unfold and uncurl from the centre of love?
3.
And how have you named yourself? And how have you told your story?
KEEP READING
SHARED WITH GRATITUDE
This poem appeared in hush by Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer, published by Middle Creek Publishing & Audio, 2020. (Available on: Amazon • Bookshop)
DESCRIPTION
“Rosemerry’s poetry speaks to our hearts, to our deepest knowing, to being here in each moment. She wakes us up again and again and reminds us that the sacred is right in front of us—in the night sky, in the moist earth, in the leaf at our feet. To be awake in this moment is our deepest potential; these poems bring us here with reverence and joy. Like all great teachers, Rosemerry points the way so clearly that we arrive, having forgotten the finger, and seeing only the moon.
—Susie Harrington, meditation teacher, Desert Dharma
With Hush, Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer once again turns her attention toward insights gleaned from daily life, trusting that everything we encounter, from evergreens and bluebonnets to snapdragons and an achy back after shoveling snow, has something to teach us about being human. Throughout each of these exquisite, open-hearted, often sensual poems, she brings us along as she finds a kind of “renegade beauty” wherever she looks. “Let’s go outside,” she writes, “and praise/the light till the light is gone, and then praise the dark,” modeling for us just the kind of radical gratitude we need in our literature, and in our lives right now.
–James Crews, editor of Healing the Divide: Poems of Kindness and Connection
These are not quiet poems—they are forthright meditations on truth and courage, love and loss. They are life itself, revealed with compassion and grace. The poems in Hush speak like a healing meditation, a reminder of the beauty and sustenance in living with hearts and minds open.
—Susan J. Tweit, plant biologist and author of Walking Nature Home
In these quietly rendered poems, we are invited into the garden, and further into the wilderness—and find ourselves giving praise for that which is mud smudged and lumpy, for the sincerity of wild strawberries, and for the onslaught, which every gardener knows. Here Rosemerry shows us how one might endeavor to be the peace we want in the world. One comes away remembering that tending is at the heart of all healing. Because thorn bush. Because great blue heron. Because puddles.
—Wendy Videlock, author of Nevertheless” (Source)
ABOUT ROSEMERRY WAHTOLA TROMMER
Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer is a poet, teacher, speaker and writing facilitator who co-hosts Emerging Form, a podcast on creative process. Her daily audio series, The Poetic Path, is on the Ritual app. Her poems have appeared on A Prairie Home Companion, PBS News Hour, O Magazine, American Life in Poetry, and Carnegie Hall stage. Her recent collections are All the Honey and The Unfolding. In 2024, she became poet laureate for Evermore, helping others explore grief and love through poetry.… (more)
Read more poems by Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer • Find books by this poet on Amazon • Bookshop • Follow on Instagram • Facebook • Website • Or view my library
ENDNOTES
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Jennifer
I love this….let’s keep blurring! Thank you for this post!