Where We Are Headed by Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer

MARGINALIA • SKIP TO THE POEM

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?

Where We Are Headed
Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer

At 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 learn

which have five petals, which have six.
We say, “This is a gladiolus, this hyacinth.”
And we fracture the world into separate

identities. Iris. Jasmine. Lavender.
Divorcing the world into singular bits.
And then, when we know how to tell

one thing from another, perhaps
at last we feel the tug to see not
what makes things different, but

what 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.

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This poem appeared in hush by Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer, published by Middle Creek Publishing & Audio, 2020. Shared here with profound gratitude.

Read more works by Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer • Find books by this poet • Or view my library 

Explore poems in pursuit of: joy • gratitude • language • Or browse the index

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