This
poem essentially fell into my napkin as we were eating dinner one night…
Sometimes our children can be such fine teachers,
helping lead us to an appreciation for how ephemeral, how precious our life is.
I was aware, as the conversation was happening, both of what was happening in
our room and outside of our room,
...and the poem was a way to circle around what
was happening inside of me—some simultaneous experience of discovery and loss.
I think all of us look back on past conversations
and think of what else we might have said. I still don’t know how I might have
handled it differently.
I have been wondering a lot lately about the ways we
try to protect each other from difficult subjects. But as my teacher says to
me:
"Everything you love can be taken from you, and eventually will be."
The more
I can accept this truth, instead of railing against it, the more peaceful I am.
But how do we frame these truths with our children?
Possibility
—time is a tree(this life
one leaf)
but love is the sky and i am
for you
just so long and long enough
–e.e. cummings
At
dinner, the boy says
in
a matter of fact kind of way
Did
you know that one day
the
sun will burn out?
Yes,
says the dad, and
the
little girl, starts to cry.
That
means there will
be
no more mornings,
she
says. Oh sweetheart,
that’s
true, says the mom.
But
it will not happen
for
a long, long time,
long
after you are gone.
This
is no comfort
to
the weeping one,
who,
between bites
of
cucumber and rice,
is
tasting the loss of light,
the
end of warmth,
this
life only so long.
Outside,
three leaves
fall,
golden and full
of
sun, but she does not
Poet Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer “is a chanteuse of the heart,” says poet Art Goodtimes. She served two terms as the first poet laureate for San Miguel County, Colorado, where she still leads monthly poetry readings, teaches in schools, leads writing workshops and leaves poems written on rocks around the town. Her most recent collection, The Less I Hold, comes out of her poem-a-day practice, which she has been doing for over seven years. Her work has also appeared on A Prairie Home Companion and in O Magazine, on tie-dyed scarves, alleyway fences and in her children’s lunchboxes. Visit 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!~
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