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Five Years Ago

August 13, 2026 by Rosemerry


 
 
Everyone else has gone to bed. 
A boy and his mother sit 
at the table in the house
they are renting for a few 
more days. They are familiar
the way my eyes are familiar. 
He sees a large cockroach 
climbing the wall, and when 
his mom squeals, he gets up, 
grabs it, throws it to the ground 
with youthful efficiency, 
then smiles at his mother, 
a tender smile that says, 
I like taking care of you, mom. 
But the boy is not happy. 
Soon he is crying. His eyes
are empty, colorless, black. 
Then it is only the mother 
sitting at the table, her 
empty hands full of fear,
uncertainty, lack. Why 
do I return to this moment,
knowing I cannot change
what happens the next day?
The closet. The gun. The choice.
I go back to slip my hands beneath
the mother’s empty hands, 
making for them a nest,
then sneak up the stairs to the boy
in his room in his bed in his pain,
and though I know it will not change 
a thing, I whisper in his ear, 
there is nothing you can do 
that will keep me from loving you.   

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A Surprising Wholeness

August 12, 2026 by Rosemerry


 
 
Cool rain is falling through sunshine today
and the canyon’s red walls are radiant
with the contradiction. The world
smells of dry earth mixing with sky,
a rich and generative perfume
that weaves into all that grows.
Witnessing the beauty of this day,
equal parts clear and stormy, 
this is how a person might come to trust
the acute aliveness we feel  
when we dance with both sorrow 
and gladness at the same time, 
one partner asking us to crawl, to bow, 
the other bidding us raise our arms 
to twirl in joyful abandon. In the distance,
thunder. In the foreground, the swallows 
are ceaseless in their swirling.
They do not try to avoid the raindrops
nor do they shun the sun.
On the inside, a feeling loops and dives, 
swoops and circles back. It says, 
This life is not easy. What a gift to be alive. 

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In the Noticing

August 11, 2026 by Rosemerry

Quiet as a rabbit
nibbling on grass, 
obvious as a flicker
knocking on a tree, 

surprising as a white feather
landing on my tights,
again and again, 
you appear, or more truly, 

again and again,
I see what has 
always been here—
you in everything,

your absence 
throbbing with life.

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Coming Soon!!

August 10, 2026 by Rosemerry

It’s almost here! On September 8, my newest book will be released! You can join me for a pre-release party hosted on zoom by Kayleen Asbo on Saturday, August 29, 6-7:30 p.m. mountain time. Donations accepted. Recorded. 

You can pre-order the book from my local bookstore, Between the Covers, and I will personalize it for you (there’s a comments section at the final checkout for you to say who you want the book signed to). Order before September 12 when I go in to sign the books. The bookstore will ship your book to anywhere in the US the next day. 

And European friends, you can also join me for a special European zoom launch with The Poetry Pharmacy on September 24 at 6 p.m. in the UK (11 a.m. mountain time) Tickets available with or without a book purchase. 

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A Gathering of Strangers in the High San Juans

August 10, 2026 by Rosemerry


 
When we met,
we had no idea
how we all, like
this land, carry 
inside us 
the memory 
of volcano
and glacier.
How easily we
can be fooled 
by the present
landscape, 
calm and serene.
Just because
there are spruce 
here now and 
gentle streams
doesn’t mean 
there wasn’t once
a violent explosion
of fire and ash, 
a long and cold 
scraping of ice. 
Here in the aftermath
of upheaval,
in this ongoing story
of transformation,
I see how our hearts 
have been carved wide 
as this high alpine 
basin, and even
in the places where 
nothing yet grows,
my god, it’s 
so beautiful.

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Nyctinasty

August 9, 2026 by Rosemerry

By night, the mountain gentian
closes the dark purple vase of its petals,
tightening around its most vulnerable parts,
protecting its nectar from cold night air,
from heavy dew. Everything is at stake. 
 
Oh woman who longs to stay open, 
to ever unfold, to widen your arms
in an ever expansive reach, 
what do you have to learn 
from the wisdom of wildflower, 
from the natural systole and diastole
of open and close, open and close?
 
How might your own growth
depend on learning to wrap 
those well-intentioned arms
around your own center 
and tuck in to that primary,
essential embrace? 
 

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One Mirroring

August 9, 2026 by Rosemerry

We are in it together,
this certainty we are alone.

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After Years of Rushing

August 9, 2026 by Rosemerry

Today

more fen

than stream,

I draw

my source

from depths

unseen.

No need

to move,

how still,

how clear

am 

I.

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At High Camp Hut

August 9, 2026 by Rosemerry

for Lacy, Ellen, Jessi Lu and Lisa
 
 
In the darkness, Lacy points us toward two stars
stacked in a vertical line just above the horizon. 
She teaches us to see the parallelogram
of a celestial teapot, then guides us 
to find the spout which empties out
into the very center of our galaxy.
Naked, we stare at the distant milky glow
and know in our bones the center is not, 
in fact, light years away, but right here
in our wood-fired hot tub in the middle 
of a meadow with mountains all around.
Or wherever women commune, says Jessi Lu.
Yes, this is the tea cup right here, a cup
overflowing with laughter, tears, stories,
heart, and an ancient swirl of glittering stars.
 

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Re-Seeing (and gone for a few days)

August 5, 2026 by Rosemerry

Re-Seeing
 
 
This morning I saw my hand and marveled—
the smoothness of the finger pads
like sandstone eroded by centuries of wind,
the wrinkled cords between the pointer
and the thumb like cottonwood roots rising
out of the ground, the fine wrinkles in the knuckles
like thin braided strands of spider silk, 
the splotchy spots of white below the plush heel,
like small puffs of morning clouds in the desert.
This hand that has held weeping children 
and planted beets, scraped cat vomit from the carpet 
and carried river stones to build a home. I stared 
at this hand I have known my whole life and wept
for the sheer miracle of hand, how even the most 
familiar, intimate parts of ourselves, the parts we take
most for granted, have the most to teach us about 
gratefulness, about how to see and meet the world. 


—Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer

*

Hey friends, I will be away for four days, teaching remotely in the glorious San Juans at High Camp Hut with no cell, no wifi, and lots of spaciousness. I’ll be back with poems on Sunday night. In the meantime, if you are jonesing for poems, you can find them on my blog (a backlog of poems from the last 12 years or so): A Hundred Falling Veils. 

Or, you can subscribe to the Ritual app on your phone and there I read a poem every day (twice!) and offer ways to think about it and also optional writing invitations. You can find that on your phone here (there is a small fee to subscribe): The Poetic Path

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