Poets’ Corner: Rosemerry for Mother’s Day!

07 May Poets’ Corner: Rosemerry for Mother’s Day!

If we were among the lucky ones, our mothers were the Linus blankets of our young lives. And we hung on as long as we could. Early on, we couldn’t fall asleep without them nearby. Or we might have starved. At the least, for affection…

In short, when we think of our most cherished childhood memories, moms typically played central roles in the story, providing warmth, understanding, and life lessons which we attempted to metabolize, even now in our maturity.

Moms may not walk around with halos surrounding their heads. But that is only because when their halos inevitably got tarnished, that would have been one more thing to clean.

On Mother’s Day Word Woman Rosemerry Trommer’s beautiful words reinforce the central role our moms played (and still play) in the narratives that are our lives. Her poems underline the fact our mother’s actions have had profound repercussions in our lives – even the smallest actions, especially when they happened daily over time.

Of her own mom, Rosemerry says: “It amazes me how much her willingness to find beauty and joy changes the world around her — has changed me.”

Because My Heart Is Where You Now Dwell,

inspired by Leigh Gage

I try to make it beautiful—a spacious place
with room enough for blue birds to migrate,
where whole herds of elk can bed down,
and with fields so vast they hold
every memory of you—
not just the warmhearted memories,
but the hardest ones, too.
Those I hold up to the soft light of morning,
grateful for room enough to walk around them
and give them the space they need.
Those I hold up to the sharp light of noon
and say, yes, yes, it was like that.
I fill my heart with the scent of apple pie and cinnamon,
lemon zest and the river in spring.
Sometimes, when I am most vulnerable,
there’s a floral fragrance of forgiving.
I try to keep my heart soft. I try not to clench,
not to harden, not to set. I try to create
a place where you can rest, where you can stay.
It is full of blank books, each one waiting to be filled
with stories of how it is with you living here in my heart,
this place where you have always lived,
this place even death cannot take away—
this place death has made more holy, more real.