Skip to main content

INTO THE DARK AGAIN by Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer

 Here we are, entering into the longest nights of the year…

Though we have created our world so that we might have light all the time, the darkness still finds its way into our psyche, into our soul. What a gift it is to wrestle with ourselves, though it doesn’t always feel like a gift.

There are two poems that radically shifted my own perception of darkness: Rumi’s “Night Goes Back” and Rilke’s “You Darkness.” In both of the poems, the poets declare to the night and the dark, “I love you.” I remember at first being shocked by this, but perhaps that shock is part of what helped to cut a door into darkness that I, too, could eventually walk through. 

Into the Dark Again
by Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer

Dark and getting darker—
nothing to do but to make of the body
a home for darkness,
to open every secret drawer
where we hide our private darknesses.
Who knows what might happen then?
How immeasurable we are. It is only
terrifying until it becomes freedom.
Grace comes in the strangest costumes.
Did you really think you didn’t need help?
This night, stay awake.
Some things we can see no other way.


Western Slope Poet Laureate  Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer's  poetry has appeared in O Magazine, in back alleys, on A Prairie Home Companion and in her children’s lunch boxes. Her most recent collection is “The Less I Hold.” She’s taught poetry for Think 360, Craig Hospital, Hospice, Ah Haa School for the Arts, Weehawken Arts, Camp Coca Cola, and many other organizations. She served as San Miguel County’s first poet laureate and directed the Telluride Writers Guild for 10 years. She has won the Fischer Prize, has twice won the Writer’s Studio Literary Contest, won the Dwell Press Solstice Prize, was a finalist for the Colorado Book Award, and has been nominated three times for a Pushcart Prize. She curates “Heard of Poets,” an interactive poetry map of Western Colorado poets. Since 1999, she’s performed with Telluride’s seven-woman acappella group, Heartbeat, and since 2006, she’s written a poem a day. Her MA is in English Language and Linguistics. Favorite one-word mantra: AdjustVisit her website here for ideas about writing, and to read her daily poems click here. 


~If you are interested in seeing your poetry appear in this blog, or submitting a poem by a woman that has inspired you, please click here for submission guidelines. I greatly look forward to hearing from you!~ 

Comments

  1. Oy! It's been nearly three years; my apologies for the delay. (Time is interesting stuff.)
    I have a personal and deep connection with this poem. It's a poem I've memorized, and continually recite to myself, ensuring it never leaves me. A co-worker who was going through yet another rough patch received a copy of this poem, anonymously, (I'm not saying who might have sent it to him.), letting him know he's far from alone.
    So I'm so delighted seeing it's made its way into yet another circle, for, "Some things we can see no other way."

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

IMAGINE A WOMAN by Patricia Lynn Reilly

  This poem invites you to look upon yourself with loving kindness… Gazing at your own true reflection, you will discover that everything you have longed for “out there” is already within you! I invite you to love your creativity fiercely. Faithfully plant seeds, allowing under-the-ground dormant seasons, nurturing your creative garden with love and gratitude. In the fullness of time, the green growing things thrust forth from the ground. It's a faithful, trustworthy process. AND it takes time and patience.  Blessed is the fruit of your creative womb! I invite you to trust your vision of the world and express it. With wonder and delight, paint a picture, create a dance, write a book, and make up a song. To give expression to your creative impulses is as natural as your breathing. Create in your own language, imagery, and movement. Follow no script. Do not be limited by the customary way things have been expressed. Your creative intuition is original. Gather

IMBOLC by Caroline Mellor

The inspiration for this poem came after I watched a magical winter sunset and full moonrise from the top of Firle Beacon in the South Downs... Unusually for me, I wrote the poem quite quickly and changed it very little before publishing it – perhaps the energies were working through my pen! Imbolc is the mid-point between the winter solstice and the spring equinox. It’s a fire festival which I particularly love because of its associations with Brigid, the Celtic Mother Goddess of arts and crafts, clear sight, healing, inspiration and nurturance of creative talents – something which, through my writing, I am always trying to connect with.  I also love Imbolc because, with so much darkness and negativity in the world today, it is a time for hope, potential, visioning and initiation. With love and blessings as the light returns. Photography by Chanel Baran IMBOLC    by Caroline Mellor I am the dream of awakening. I am the returning of the night.  I am the tough green

WINTER SOLSTICE: A GIFT OF LOVE by Carolyn Riker

I’ve had several days now of alone time… It is unusual and a gift that I couldn’t see until I breathed it. I have been able to watch the sun’s rise through the grey of dawn and smile at the flickers of frost melting on the waving boughs of evergreen. It’s unique to follow daylight as it traverses the tempo of a cat’s soft slumbering purr. Night comes swifter and the glow of candles and the flames of fire comfort me more than the steady stream of always-doing-more. As much as I resisted, I needed this break. I had no idea how much my body was trying to tell me   slow down   until the exhaustion settled in around my joints. My eyes swam in molasses. Heaviness of I-can’t-hold-out-much-long, walked me to the throne of my nest. It’s winter’s gift of self-nurturing and love. It’s been a quiet proclamation of femininity and a need for comfort foods. Lemon crisps and cranberry, white-chocolate shortbread dipped in tea; I felt a hint of being pampered without