The language of grief is silence.
—Maggie Anderson, “What Grief Does”
No one can translate the language of grief.
No verbs properly express how it collapses
past, present and future into a single tense
in which all becomes unswimmable wave
and at the same time immovable stone.
No way to explain how in my grief lexicon
the word cello can only be spoken in sob.
How the single word shadow is somehow
an entire prayer, equal parts praise and lament.
How there are as many translations for loss
as there are losses, and each phrase mutates
into infinite local dialects spoken fluently only
by the individual who grieves. So perhaps
it is true, the language of grief is silence—
a mother tongue we are all gifted from birth.
Though sometimes the language of grief is wail.
Sometimes sniffle. Howl. Murmur. Hum.
So different, this language, for everyone.
And every moment, a new nuance unfolds.
It’s a wonder we understand each other at all.
Except we do. We share it, this language
we can’t possibly translate and yet we know its
expressions by heart. For this, we offer each other
our ears, knowing full well we can never
wholly understand, knowing full well it matters
that we listen anyway to gurgle, moan, silence, cry.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged connection, grief, language, silence | 2 Comments »
The Mystery of Grief: Writing into the Loss
Wednesday, July 8, 5-7 p.m. mountain time
On Zoom, recorded, hosted by Evermore
For anyone meeting a loss or grief, no writing experience necessary. Please note that your confirmation email with your link for the workshop will come from Zoom. To register, visit https://secure.everyaction.com/jlxVP8TH2EOWc8nVxvuJuw2
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July 16
Curiouser and Curiouser: A poetic invitation to write into wonderment
Hosted by ONE ART, Zoom, 4-6 mountain time
$30 (sliding scale)
A generative workshop based in play. For more info or to register, visit HERE.
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July 18 & 19
Let the Beauty We Love Be What We Do
10 a.m-4:30 p.m. mountain time, both days, zoom
Join beloved eco-dharma teacher Susie Harrington and poet Rosemerry for two days of possibility and reality. Sliding Scale $80 – $250 Suggested Donation To register or for more information, visit here: https://desertdharma.org/retreats/retreats/poetryretreat.html
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The Alchemy of Soul Making: Writing with Jung and the Poets
July 22, 29, August 5, 12
11 a.m. – 1 p.m. mountain time
Zoom, recorded
Join cultural historian Kayleen Asbo and poet Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer for four weeks of exploring the alchemical stages of inner life through the works of Jung, artists and poets from across the centuries. $100-$200, for more info visit here: https://www.tickettailor.com/events/wordwoman/2269936
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At the edge of forest
and field, a dappled fawn
wobbles through tall
grass, each step halting,
delicate. Around her,
the sweet clover blooms
in a yellow haze. Ash
sifts, from the nearby wildfire.
Scent of burning, scent
of change. Lyric variations
of the song sparrow
thread the air as if he is
stitching together all
that is here. Not pictured,
but no less present:
You. The sparrow. The flame.
The fawn steps into the open
to walk inside me, weaves
through a sea of shifting greens.
Long after she disappears,
she does not leave.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged blessing, connectedness, fawn, nature | 1 Comment »
Sometimes, certain she has botched it all,
certain she has made of the gift of her life
a desert, something desolate and harsh,
when surely she was meant to create
something lush and verdant, something fecund,
fertile and teeming with wonder, in that moment
of self-inflicted despair, fueled by comparison,
a woman might stand in the midst of that desert
and hold in her hands her own tender heart,
hold it the way she might hold any spiky thing—
lightly, as if it might float—and marvel at the wisdom
of prickly things, how each spine provides a small
measure of shade in a place with no other shelter,
how together those spines reflect the sun to protect
what is inside from burning, how even the prickliest
things are encoded to flower when given more light,
when offered the barest encouragement of rain.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged cactus, desert, failure, self-compassion, self-defeating behavior | 3 Comments »
Dad would lie on his back
in the middle of the living room.
I would step into his open palms
on either side of his shoulders
and slowly, he’d lift me into the air.
I loved the wavering, the bobble
before the balance, the moments
of freedom when I floated above him.
Today, when the concert ended
with “What a Wonderful World,”
it was only in the last verse I realized
they’d played Dad’s favorite song
on this day, his birthday, almost
five years after his death, and
I felt it again, that sense of being
elevated by a power greater than my own.
Tears falling even as I started
to laugh. Laughter rising even
as I started to cry. The gift of it all
swirling in me as ecstatic as the violins,
primal and playful as the drum beat,
unexpected as the riffs on the piano,
familiar as my dad’s hands wrapped
around my soles pressing me higher,
oh wonderful world, higher.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged birthday, childhood, dad, daughter, father, memory, music, remembrance, what a wonderful world | 2 Comments »
After the kazoos and champagne and hula hoops,
after the blueberry pie, after the napkins folded
and unfolded and crumpled, after the impromptu
parade on the drive, after the house full of laughter
and music, after the glow sticks, the glittering headbands,
the mountain of dishes washed and dried and put away
there was that moment when we sat on the couch,
just the two of us. You held my hand. We said nothing.
Like two swallows, done swooping for the day
who finally enter the nest they have built together,
snuggling at last on the rim.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged family, fourth of july, partne, silence, swallows | 3 Comments »
fearing the flag
no longer represents me
I start to fly the flag
Posted in Uncategorized | 2 Comments »
so grateful to share
it with you—
this loneliness
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged connection, friendship, loneliness | 2 Comments »
They, too, once had gardens filled
with succulent dark leaves and firm
swollen roots they planted to feed
their family, their community, themselves.
They, too, would walk the rows and tug
at weeds and make small, quirky bouquets
to take to the graves of their loved ones.
I don’t know why their gardens are gone now.
Perhaps covered in ash from wildfire.
Perhaps bombed out and torn up by war.
Perhaps transformed to dust by drought.
Or perhaps they are simply too old now
to pick up the trowel, the shovel,
the hoe. But the women remember
how they marveled at the pea vines climbing
the fence to produce a profusion of sweet
green pods dangling on the wire.
I long to feed them from these beds,
if not the food itself, feed them at least the ongoing
dream of garden, as someday I, too,
will be offered the dream through the hands
and thoughts of another woman who finds herself
standing in the midst of abundance longing
to share it with all the women who can’t
find their way into the garden today.
Not knowing how to bless them, I bless them anyway
as I have been blessed, and I transplant calendula,
deadhead the cosmos, harvest
heads of garlic, brush the loose dirt away.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged abundance, blessing, gardening, women | 2 Comments »
The bright red glow of wildfire flared up
into the night, a terrible, beautiful, changing glow.
We couldn’t not look, students of fire
that we are, and I was suddenly too aware
of the dry and brittle parts of myself, places
parched as these Cimarron mountains.
How easily it can all go up.
We are asked to live this life
that can combust in an instant,
asked to pull the unstoppable into our lungs.
The glow continued to blaze, to leap up.
It burned. I could not stop watching
the tower of flame, the way it charged the night.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged fire, wildfire | 2 Comments »