Poets’ Corner: Rosemerry for Xmas, A Gift of Her Pearls!

24 Dec Poets’ Corner: Rosemerry for Xmas, A Gift of Her Pearls!

For many, Xmas is a period for the renewal of faith. But it also also a time for personal reflection – though that could be said of these past, long months of the pandemic, which have forced us to stand frustrated in the waiting room of our lives. What you summon to mind might surprise. Buried in the back of our closets alongside the battered tinsel star and good silver are recollections that just might empower. As recent memories did for our favorite Word Woman, Rosemerry Trommer, whose words, as dazzling as the lights on any tree, recall a family tradition; add color to the blackness; and compel us to ponder the subtext of the holiday: love. (And lord knows, empowerment in the Age of Corona is a rare and very precious commodity. A gift.)

I’m Thinking of an Ornament

The rules are simple. One person chooses
an ornament on the tree. The others ask
yes/no questions until they guess it correctly.
It was my mother who taught me.
I taught my own children. It’s a ritual
as important as the tree itself. Is it red?
Is it round? Is it cloth? Handmade?

So many questions we never can answer.
So many questions elude yes or no. But here,
in the soft glow of Christmas tree lights,
we share moments when every question
leads us closer to a treasure, where
the moments are treasures themselves.

Into Your Stocking

I slipped some magic markers
for coloring the world—
the leaves, the river, the moon.
You can write messages
in the sky and the wind
will blow them where
they need to go.
You can color thoughts—
give them stripes or polka dots.
You can change the hue
of a mood with a few broad strokes.
There’s one that will make you
invisible. Some markers I
don’t know what they do.
One is the color of laughter.
Another the color of forgiveness.
Don’t be surprised if other people
can’t see them. Don’t be
surprised when they graffiti
the walls around your heart.
Don’t be surprised when
you start to think in color—
when you start to believe
every idea, every word,
every dream can change
the shade of the world.

After She Told Me the Question She Asks Herself
(for Jude Janett)

Note from Rosemerry: “I wrote this third poem last year a few days before Christmas when I ran into a dear friend. She asked a question that changed the way I met the bustle and expectations and everything about the holidays.”

All day, I replay these words:
Is this the path of love?
I think of them as I rise, as
I wake my children, as I wash dishes,
as I drive too close behind the slow
blue Subaru, Is this the path of love?
Think of them as I stand in line
at the grocery store,
think of them as I sit on the couch
with my daughter. Amazing how
quickly six words become compass,
the new lens through which to see myself
in the world. I notice what the question is not.
Not, “Is this right?” Not,
“Is this wrong?” It just longs to know
how the action of existence
links us to the path to love.
And is it this? Is it this? All day,
I let myself be led by the question.
All day I let myself not be too certain
of the answer. Is it this? I ask as I
argue with my son. Is it this? I ask
as I wait for the next word to come.