ROSEMERRY SETS MOOD FOR VALENTINE’S DAY

10 Feb ROSEMERRY SETS MOOD FOR VALENTINE’S DAY

Editor’s note: This is the first in a series of  five poems by our favorite Word Woman, the lovely Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer, each meant to set the heart aflutter in the roll up to Valentine’s Day. So if you think you can’t find the right words to express your feelings to a loved one, try hers. They’re really really good. (Oh, and the ant hill heart is her image too.)

And For Today, That’s Enough

It is hard
to unfold, day
after day,
to unfold
and open
and bloom.
Even the roses
last only a season.
See how the lilies
drop one by one
their petals
until the table
is a paean
to opening,
but for the naked
pistil, there
is nothing
left to release.

We are not
like flowers.
There is
no rest.
It is always
the season
for opening.
And if there
are no petals
around the heart
left to unfold,
then unclose the hands.
And if the fists
are too tightly clasped,
unclose the eyes.
And if
the eyelids
are leaden,
averse,
then breathe
and feel how
inside,
the lungs
open and
open again.