today I read

Today I read a poem by Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer on her blog called…

Getting to I Don’t Know

Sometimes, too certain I know what love is,
I miss love.
It’s like thinking water is waves,
not seeing water is also the depths of ocean,
the muscle of river, the body, the air,
ice, snow, fog, clouds, mist.
Sometimes, longing to hear certain words,
I neglect to hear the words that are spoken.
Or craving a certain touch, I disregard
all other touch, and my skin believes it is starving.
There is beauty beyond beauty, love beyond love,
opening beyond opening, an apple inside apple.
Let my prayer be I don’t know.
Let me find the door inside the door,
the glimmer inside the glimmer,
the human inside this woman.
The god inside of god.

Today I heard

Today I heard Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer read Ugly Things by Teresita Fernández

Ugly Things

In an old worn out basin
I planted violets for you
and down by the river
with an empty seashell
I found you a firefly.
In a broken bottle
I kept a seashell for you
and coiled over that rusty fence
the coral snake flowered
just for you.
Cockroach wing
carried to the anthill:
that's how I want them to take me
to the cemetery when I die.
Garbage dump, garbage dump
where nobody wants to look
but if the moon comes out
your tin cans will shine.
If you put a bit of love
into ugly things
you'll see that your sadness
will begin to change colour.

Today I Heard and Read

“The Price of Nothing” by Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer

Raking the Leaves with Jack

By Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer

Pulling the rake through the cottonwood leaves,
I think of Jack in Michigan pulling his rake

through beech, birch, oak and ash leaves.
I stop to lean on my rake and I think

of him stopping to lean on his rake
and talk to the gods. I'm not so sure I believe

in gods, but I believe in Jack. I believe in kindness.
I believe in friendship that grows despite distance.

I believe that these rhythms of raking and making piles
bring us closer together--all of us rakers, all of us

who step into the slow cadence of pull and reach,
and pull and reach. There is something unifying

in this annual act of tidying the world. Every day
the news is full of all we can't set right. But we

can drag the rake through the yard so that we
can see the path again. And we can set the rake

aside and stare at the sky and think of all
the people we love and all the people

we'll never know who join us in this simple act,
reach and pull, reach and pull, reach and pull,

the sound of metal tines grating, the beat 
of our own hearts scraping against our chests.

---

From her book Hush.