Telluride in Spring: Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer

01 May Telluride in Spring: Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer

by Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer

(ed. note: After a devastating April around the country and the world, May is a welcome change. Rosemerry has sent three poems to welcome Spring in Telluride and Western Colorado. May 1 is also Kjerstin Klein's birthday. Happy Birthday, kid.)

Preparing the Garden for Spring

We pull up the old iron slabs I had used
as stepping stones for my garden. By we,
I mean I pull them up. My son takes
to raking the shriveled brown cords of melons,
pumpkins and squash. His interest wanes
soon enough and he leaves me with my hands
in familiar gray dirt. In my lungs, dust rises
like long-forgotten prayers. And I am alone,

though not alone. There are several of me here.
One woman who dreams of kissing in rain. One woman
who plots where new seeds will go. One woman
plants herself in this bed. One woman kneels
in the morning’s gold shrine. And one woman lifts
old iron slabs. She blossoms one now at a time.

Carrying it Forward

on a line from e. e. cummings

May my heart always be open
to seeing how beautiful
the clouds are the morning
after a violent storm, hovering
above the valley with spring blue 
speaking through unsullied
wreathes of white.

How the storm
reshapes the world—
rocks from hillsides
scramble the highway,
sticks fall strewn on every path.
And though it has been scarred,
the world does not look back.

In the aftermath
of the pummeling wind
and the rain that beat the roof
with ferocious, insistent fists
until it turned to snow,
and despite the ear-chafing
scraping of ice
from car windows,

may my ears always be open
to notice how
though they spent the whole night
leaning into the storm
the robins and rosy breasted finches
sit in the leafless snow-covered
branches and sing.

Note to Self

“You may have to learn to accept that the speed at which you progress from one developmental milestone to the next may be slower or faster than you would like. Consider that the universe will not make mistakes where your life and destiny are concerned.” —Daily Ohm Horoscope, Scorpio, March 30, 2007

It’s okay to not decide today.
You do not need to run, lungs heaving, legs spent, toward the finish.
There is only one finish.
Walk slow.

See how the snow masks new strawberry leaves,
how yesterday’s stream, near-flood, has dwindled to slenderer speak.

You are not behind. 
You are here.
And today’s sky,
unable to choose between winter and spring,
elects both, and alternates blue and hail.

The sky does not fuss that it made the wrong choice.

And there will be strawberries, ripened and red.
The stream will rise soon enough in its bed.

Whatever your worry, regardless how gray,
night will still spill uncountable stars.

The river has not made plans for tomorrow.
The strawberries wait for warmth.

You can wait.
In your dictionary, erase the word late.
Write in the words, “There are no mistakes.”