Poet’s Corner: Rosemerry (with Art’s contribution)!

13 Feb Poet’s Corner: Rosemerry (with Art’s contribution)!

Before he was either a saint or a holiday, Valentine was a Christian priest martyred in the third century. Some legends say he was executed for defying an edict against conducting marriages for Roman soldiers whom the emperor believed would fight better without family ties. In one account, Valentine fell head over heels for his jailor’s daughter and wrote her a poignant goodbye letter signed “From Your Valentine.” True or false, it was not until the Middle Agest hat people adopted Valentine as the patron saint of love and romance, here worshipped by one of Telluride’s favorite poets, the lovely Word Woman, Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer.

Rosemerry’s veneration of  love would likely convert even the most cold-hearted Roman potentate. In these challenging times when love seems to have gotten lost in the fog of warring words, what’s love got to do with it? Everything per Rosemerry. 

“One is a love poem about love in general; the other about a long-term love. Not flashy, flirty young love but tender, anchored old love,” explains Rosemerry.

Rosemerry’s words are underlined by a poem Art Goodtimes fashioned on cloth – the sentiments anything but whole cloth.

Rosemerry,. credit Joanne Schwartz.

Humbled by Love

Often I love best what is in front of me.
In summer, I forget I love snow, love cold.
In winter, I forget I love green.
Given green beans, I forget I love carrots.
Given a warm dark night,
I forget I’m entranced by summer light.
Perhaps sometimes, when reading,
or skiing by the river, or singing, there is an hour
when I forget I love you. Then, when
I think again of your voice, your you-ness,
there’s a rush of remembrance
and I fall in love all over again,
my whole body vibrating like a bell,
wildly amazed you exist at all
and that I, somehow, against all odds,
not only know you but love you,
love you in a way that makes me feel
I could effervesce, could bloom
right through my skin. And I am
the luckiest woman in the world then—
lucky to feel it again, the humbling joy
of knowing love is so much bigger
than my attention, so much greater
than my capacity to hold.
Lucky to be at the mercy of love.
Lucky to have thought I lost you,
if only for an hour, only to find
love holding me, cupping my chin
in its gentle hands, turning me
toward you again.

Moss Heart, shot by Rosemerry.

Because It Matters I Say It

I remember in Finland
I lived a year without once
hearing someone say the verb
for love, rakastaa. As if it were
too precious to squander.
And it is precious. And still,
this longing to spend the word wildly,
as if there’s an infinite store of love.
As if I could say I love you
a thousand thousand times
and there would still be
a thousand thousand more
whispers of love left to give you.
Sometimes I worry I say it too much
so when you hear it,
the words enter your ears
like footsteps among a crowd,
unable to be discerned
amidst the noise of the world.
Even so, I continue to say it,
I love you, as you answer the phone.
I love you, as we say goodbye.
I love you as we stand at the grave.
I love you as we buy peaches.
As we walk in the parking lot, I love you.
I love you, as we sit on the couch.
I love you as I worry I say it too much.
I say it because it’s impossible
not to say it. I love you.
Because you are my canoe
in the rapids of the world.
Because each time I say it,
it feels like planting a seed
that will bloom for the rest of our lives.
Because there is nothing
more important to say.