When Giving Is All We Have

                                              One river gives

                                              Its journey to the next.

We give because someone gave to us.

We give because nobody gave to us.

We give because giving has changed us.

We give because giving could have changed us.

We have been better for it,

We have been wounded by it—

Giving has many faces: It is loud and quiet,

Big, though small, diamond in wood-nails.

Its story is old, the plot worn and the pages too,

But we read this book, anyway, over and again:

Giving is, first and every time, hand to hand,

Mine to yours, yours to mine.

You gave me blue and I gave you yellow.

Together we are simple green. You gave me

What you did not have, and I gave you

What I had to give—together, we made

Something greater from the difference.

--Alberto Ríos - 1952-

Belonging

And if it’s true we are alone,

we are alone together,

the way blades of grass

are alone, but exist as a field.

Sometimes I feel it,

the green fuse that ignites us,

the wild thrum that unites us,

an inner hum that reminds us

of our shared humanity.

Just as thirty-five trillion

red blood cells join in one body

to become one blood.

Just as one hundred thirty-six thousand

notes make up one symphony.

Alone as we are, our small voices

weave into the one big conversation.

Our actions are essential

to the one infinite story of what it is

to be alive. When we feel alone,

we belong to the grand communion

of those who sometimes feel alone—

we are the dust, the dust that hopes,

a rising of dust, a thrill of dust,

the dust that dances in the light

with all other dust, the dust

that makes the world.

--Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer

Enough

Enough. These few words are enough.

If not these words, this breath.

If not this breath, this sitting here.

This opening to life

we have refused

again and again

until now.

Until now.

--David Whyte, from Where Many Rivers Meet

A Word on Statistics

Out of every hundred people

those who always know better:

fifty-two.

Unsure of every step:

almost all the rest.

Ready to help,

if it doesn't take long:

forty-nine.

Always good,

because they cannot be otherwise:

four—well, maybe five.

Able to admire without envy:

eighteen.

Led to error

by youth (which passes):

sixty, plus or minus.

Those not to be messed with:

forty and four.

Living in constant fear

of someone or something:

seventy-seven.

Capable of happiness:

twenty-some-odd at most.

Harmless alone,

turning savage in crowds:

more than half, for sure.

Cruel

when forced by circumstances:

it's better not to know,

not even approximately.

Wise in hindsight:

not many more

than wise in foresight.

Getting nothing out of life except things:

thirty

(though I would like to be wrong).

Doubled over in pain

and without a flashlight in the dark:

eighty-three, sooner or later.

Those who are just:

quite a few at thirty-five.

But if it takes effort to understand:

three.

Worthy of empathy:

ninety-nine.

Mortal:

one hundred out of one hundred—

a figure that has never varied yet.

 

--Wislawa Szymborska

The edge you carry with you

You know 

so very well 

the edge 

of darkness

you have

always

carried with you.

You know 

so very well,

your childhood legacy:

that particular, 

inherited 

sense of hurt,

given to you 

so freely

by the world 

you entered.

And you know 

too well 

by now

the body’s 

hesitation

at the invitation 

to undo

everything

others seemed 

to want to 

make you learn.

But your edge 

of darkness

has always 

made 

its own definition 

secretly

as an edge of light

and the door

you closed

might, 

by its very nature

be 

one just waiting

to be leant against 

and opened.

And happiness 

might just

be a single step away,

on the other side

of that next 

unhelpful

and undeserving 

thought.

Your way home,

understood now,

not as an achievement,

but as a giving up,

a blessed undoing,

an arrival

in the body 

and a full rest 

in the give

and take 

of the breath.

This living

breathing body

always waiting 

to greet you

at the door,

always prepared 

to give you 

the rest you need,

always,

no matter

the long 

years away,

still

wanting you, 

to come home.

…

From ‘The Edge You Carry With You’

in ‘Still Possible’ David Whyte

Many Rivers Press Dec 1st 2021

How to Be a Poet

(to remind myself)

i   

Make a place to sit down.   

Sit down. Be quiet.   

You must depend upon   

affection, reading, knowledge,   

skill—more of each   

than you have—inspiration,   

work, growing older, patience,   

for patience joins time   

to eternity. Any readers   

who like your poems,   

doubt their judgment.   

ii   

Breathe with unconditional breath   

the unconditioned air.   

Shun electric wire.   

Communicate slowly. Live   

a three-dimensioned life;   

stay away from screens.   

Stay away from anything   

that obscures the place it is in.   

There are no unsacred places;   

there are only sacred places   

and desecrated places.   

iii   

Accept what comes from silence.   

Make the best you can of it.   

Of the little words that come   

out of the silence, like prayers   

prayed back to the one who prays,   

make a poem that does not disturb   

the silence from which it came.

-- Wendell Berry

Choosing

It’s not the meteor shower

with its wild arcs of light

that unzip the velvet dark—

what moves me is the one star

that manages to shine

through the thick atmosphere,

a lone light in this giant dome,

not more than a speck,

yet it persists, constant.

There are many ways to shine,

it seems to say, its tiny glint

winking against midnight.

And the dark is deep and long.

~ Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer

Keep Going: The Art of Perseverance

“…the difference between a small effort and no effort can be gigantic…lack of effort, doing nothing, accomplishes nothing. It is the absence of hope, and it empowers the problem. Lack of effort is also self-betrayal. When we do nothing, we become our own worst enemy…no matter how useless we think it would be in the face of overwhelming odds to take one more step, we must. The least that can happen is that seemingly useless effort can inspire yet another step. And if we can take one step, no matter how slow or no matter how small, chances are we can take another. Eventually one of those steps will make the difference…”

- Joseph Marshall

Of The Empire

We will be known as a culture that feared death

and adored power, that tried to vanquish insecurity

for the few and cared little for the penury of the

many. We will be known as a culture that taught

and rewarded the amassing of things, that spoke

little if at all about the quality of life for

people (other people), for dogs, for rivers. All

the world, in our eyes, they will say, was a

commodity. And they will say that this structure

was held together politically, which it was, and

they will say also that our politics was no more

than an apparatus to accommodate the feelings of

the heart, and that the heart, in those days,

was small, and hard, and full of meanness.

© 2008 by Mary Oliver

From her 2008 collection, Red Bird, p. 46

Published by Beacon Press 2008

Begin

Begin again to the summoning birds

to the sight of the light at the window,

begin to the roar of morning traffic

all along Pembroke Road.

Every beginning is a promise

born in light and dying in dark

determination and exaltation of springtime

flowering the way to work.

Begin to the pageant of queuing girls

the arrogant loneliness of swans in the canal

bridges linking the past and future

old friends passing though with us still.

Begin to the loneliness that cannot end

since it perhaps is what makes us begin,

begin to wonder at unknown faces

at crying birds in the sudden rain

at branches stark in the willing sunlight

at seagulls foraging for bread

at couples sharing a sunny secret

alone together while making good.

Though we live in a world that dreams of ending

that always seems about to give in

something that will not acknowledge conclusion

insists that we forever begin.

— From The Essential Brendan Kennelly

Merit

Why me? What did I do

to deserve this?

A blue September sky

and the scent of late-blooming 

honeysuckle and roses,

the maple just starting 

to flash red and --who knew--

a second crop of raspberries

starting to ripen on the vine.

What have I ever done that merits

the generosity of rain

and the way the world opens 

into green? I mean, I have tried 

to be kind, but not like the 

cherry tomatoes, blushing

and turning sweet and 

giving themselves away 

by the handful.  Of course

I don't deserve this, any more

than you deserve fire or flood 

or sickness or heartache. There is no

math for this, no equation

that balances the equal sign.

Only this outpouring 

of all that is, the waterfall

we stand under, and drink from,

and try not to drown.

--Lynn Ungar

Watching My Friend Pretend Her Heart Isn’t Breaking

On Earth, just a teaspoon of neutron star

would weigh six billion tons. Six billion tons.

The equivalent weight of how much railway

it would take to get a third of the way to the sun.

It’s the collective weight of every animal

on earth. Times three.

Six billion tons sounds impossible

until I consider how it is to swallow grief—

just a teaspoon and one might as well have consumed

a neutron star. How dense it is,

how it carries inside it the memory of collapse.

How difficult it is to move then.

How impossible to believe that anything

could lift that weight.

There are many reasons to treat each other

with great tenderness. One is

the sheer miracle that we are here together

on a planet surrounded by dying stars.

One is that we cannot see what

anyone else has swallowed.

— Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer

Savasana

Once again, the field rehearses how to die.

Some of the grass turns golden first. Some

simply fades into brown. Just this morning,

I, too, lay in corpse pose, practicing

how to let myself be totally held by the earth

without striving, how to meet the day

without rushing off to do the next necessary

or beautiful thing. Soon, the grass will bend

or break, molder or disintegrate. Every year,

the same lesson in how to join

the darkness, how to be unmade, how quietly

we might lean into the uncertainty

of whatever comes next.

~ Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer

Love, Love

If sorrow is how we learn to love,

then let us learn.

Already enough sorrow’s been sown

for whole continents to erupt

into astonishing tenderness.

Let us learn. Let compassion grow rampant,

like sunflowers along the highway.

Let each act of kindness replant itself

into acres and acres of widespread devotion.

Let us choose love as if our lives depend on it.

The sorrow is great. Let us learn to love greater—

riotous love, expansive love,

love so rooted, so common

we almost forget

the world could look any other way.

~Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer

Gratitude

Gratitude, it happens,

needs less room to grow

than one might think—

is able to find purchase

on even the slenderest

of ledges, is able

to seed itself

in even the poorest of soils.

Just today, I marveled

as a small gratitude

took root

in the desert of me—

like a juniper tree

growing out of red rock.

If I hadn’t felt it myself,

I might not

have believed it—

but it’s true,

one small thankfulness

can slip into an arid despair

and with it comes

a change in the inner landscape,

the scent of evergreen. 

-- Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer

Gift

            I’m sure there’s a blossom in here somewhere

And if all I can give you is silence,

then let it be the most beautiful silence,

a silence perfumed with mint and sage,

a silence that brings a quiet shine

to everything it touches.

Let it be the kind of silence

that opens into a deeper silence,

the kind that knows golden petals and sunshine

and the scent of rain unfolding in the meadow—

a silence that holds you so lightly,

the way candlelight might hold you 

inside the dark. May it find you

in the morning, be waiting for you

before you rise. May you find it behind

and between every word you say,

the way sky supports the dark cursive 

of starlings. And may you hear it, really hear it,

the deep silence. Like your favorite

song playing over and over again.

-    Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer (2020)

 "I have found that among its other benefits, giving liberates the soul of the giver." -- Maya Angelou