For Auld Lang Syne
—Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer
We’ll drink a cup of kindness yet,
says the song, and I would give you
the cup, friend, would fill it
with whiskey or water or whatever
would best meet your thirst.
I fill it with the terrifying beauty
of tonight’s bonfire—giant licks
of red and swirls of blue that consume
what is dead and melt the ice
and give warmth to what is here.
I fill it with moonrise and snow crystal
and the silver river song beneath the ice.
With the boom of fireworks and with laughter
that persists through tears. With
Lilac Wine and Over the Rainbow and Fever.
I toast you with all the poems we’ve yet to write
and all the tears we’ve yet to weep,
I hold the cup to your lips,
this chalice of kindness, we’ll drink it yet,
though the days are cold, the nights so long.
—Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer
____
The Next Storm Comes
And suddenly you know: It’s time to start something new and trust the magic of beginnings.
—Meister Eckhart
And suddenly you know it’s time
to shovel the drive. For though snow
still falls, at this moment it’s only
three inches deep and you can still push it easily
with your two wide yellow shovels.
Yes, it’s time to start something new—
though it doesn’t feel new, this
shoving snow from one place to another.
In fact, your shoulders still feel
the efforts of yesterday.
But with each push of the shovels,
the path on the drive is new again. At least
it’s new for a moment, new until snow
fills it in. Then it’s a different kind of new.
How many beginnings are like this?
They don’t feel like beginnings at all?
Or we miss their newness?
Or they feel new only for a moment
before they’ve lost their freshness?
There is magic in beginnings, says Meister Eckhart,
and sometimes we see beginnings all around us,
a new path, a new promise, a new meal.
A new prayer. New snow fall. A new song.
Is it too grand to call it magic, this new calendar year?
Too grand to call it magic, this momentary
clearing on the drive? Too grand to be magic,
this momentary clearing in my thoughts?
Or is it exactly, perhaps, what magic is—
something we allow ourselves to believe,
despite logic, despite reason, something that brings
us great pleasure, makes us question
what we thought we knew, our sense
of what is possible changed.
—Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer
_____
Watching The Wizard of Oz on New Year’s Eve, I Think of a Resolution toward Peace
As for you, my galvanized friend, you want a heart. You don’t know how lucky you are not to have one. Hearts will never be practical until they can be made unbreakable.
—The Wizard to the Tin Man, The Wizard of Oz, Frank L. Baum
Give us hearts that break
when we see how cruel the world can be
and hands that extend toward others.
Give us eyes that weep when we feel
the beauty of home, and
lips to speak love, to apologize.
Give us courage to say what must be said
and ears to hear what we’d rather not hear
and eyes that will not turn the other way
from anyone in need.
Give us brains that are wired
for helpfulness, compassion
and curiosity. Yes, let us ask for hearts
that break and break and grow
bigger in the breaking. Let us
love more than we think we can love.
And the cup of kindness, may we
ever remember to drink of it,
let us share it with each other.
—Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer
Episode 31 Bonus: Three poems from Rosemerry about moving into the new year