%1 http://coloradoencyclopedia.org/ en Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer http://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/rosemerry-wahtola-trommer <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--title--encyclopedia-article.html.twig x field--node--title.html.twig * field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--title.html.twig * field--string.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field--node--title.html.twig' --> <span class="field field--name-title field--type-string field--label-hidden">Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer</span> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field--node--title.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--uid--encyclopedia-article.html.twig x field--node--uid.html.twig * field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--uid.html.twig * field--entity-reference.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field--node--uid.html.twig' --> <span class="field field--name-uid field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden"> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'username' --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/user/username.html.twig' --> <span lang="" about="/users/yongli" typeof="schema:Person" property="schema:name" datatype="">yongli</span> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/user/username.html.twig' --> </span> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field--node--uid.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--created--encyclopedia-article.html.twig x field--node--created.html.twig * field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--created.html.twig * field--created.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field--node--created.html.twig' --> <span class="field field--name-created field--type-created field--label-hidden"> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'time' --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/time.html.twig' --> <time datetime="2019-01-28T09:44:23-07:00" title="Monday, January 28, 2019 - 09:44" class="datetime">Mon, 01/28/2019 - 09:44</time> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/time.html.twig' --> </span> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field--node--created.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'addtoany_standard' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * addtoany-standard--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * addtoany-standard--node.html.twig x addtoany-standard.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'modules/contrib/addtoany/templates/addtoany-standard.html.twig' --> <span class="a2a_kit a2a_kit_size_32 addtoany_list" data-a2a-url="http://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/rosemerry-wahtola-trommer" data-a2a-title="Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer"><a class="a2a_dd addtoany_share" href="https://www.addtoany.com/share#url=http%3A%2F%2Fcoloradoencyclopedia.org%2Farticle%2Frosemerry-wahtola-trommer&amp;title=Rosemerry%20Wahtola%20Trommer"></a><a class="a2a_button_facebook"></a><a class="a2a_button_twitter"></a><a class="a2a_button_email"></a></span> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'modules/contrib/addtoany/templates/addtoany-standard.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--body--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--node--body.html.twig x field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--body.html.twig * field--text-with-summary.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> <div class="field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden field__item" id="id-body"><p class="rtecenter"><img alt="Poet: Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer" src="/sites/default/files/Rosemerry_Wahtola_Trommer.jpg" style="width: 450px; height: 675px;" /></p>&#13; &#13; <p>Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer lives in Placerville on the banks of the San Miguel River. She served as <strong><a href="https://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/san-miguel-county">San Miguel County</a></strong>’s first poet laureate and as <a href="https://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/western-slope"><strong>Western Slope</strong></a> Poet Laureate. She teaches poetry for twelve-step recovery programs, hospice, mindfulness retreats, women’s retreats, teachers and more. An avid trail runner and Nordic skier, she believes in the power of practice and has been writing a poem a day since 2006. She has eleven collections of poetry, and her work has appeared in <em>O Magazine</em> and on <em>A Prairie Home Companion. </em>She graduated from Golden High in 1987. One-word mantra: Adjust.  <a href="https://www.wordwoman.com/">www.wordwoman.com</a></p>&#13; &#13; <h2>Poems</h2>&#13; &#13; <h3>Trusting Ludwig</h3>&#13; &#13; <p>It is slow and soft, the first movement—<br />&#13; the right hand sweeping in smooth triple meter,</p>&#13; &#13; <p>the left hand singing against it.<br />&#13; Minor, the key, and mysterious</p>&#13; &#13; <p>the melody, slow, it is slow and soft,<br />&#13; a walk through moonlight.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>What is it that sometimes rises in us,<br />&#13; this urge toward crescendo, toward swell?</p>&#13; &#13; <p>I feel it in my hands as they move<br />&#13; across the stoic keys, an urgency,</p>&#13; &#13; <p>a reaching toward climax, a pressing<br />&#13; insistence, as if to sing louder is to sing</p>&#13; &#13; <p>more true. But over and over again,<br />&#13; Beethoven reminds us, <em>piano</em>, <em>piano,</em></p>&#13; &#13; <p>his markings all through the music.<br />&#13; Oh beauty in restraint. It is soft,</p>&#13; &#13; <p>the moonlight, a delicate fragrance,<br />&#13; it is heart opening, the tune,</p>&#13; &#13; <p>it is growing in me, this lesson in just<br />&#13; how profoundly the quiet</p>&#13; &#13; <p>can move us. And the hands,<br />&#13; as they learn to trust in softness,</p>&#13; &#13; <p>how beautifully they bloom.  </p>&#13; &#13; <p>First published in <em>Naked for Tea</em> (Able Muse Press, 2018)</p>&#13; &#13; <h3>Once Upon</h3>&#13; &#13; <p>There is a night you must travel,<br />&#13; alone, of course, though perhaps<br />&#13; there is someone asleep next to you.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>The darkness knows exactly what<br />&#13; to say to snap every sapling of hope<br />&#13; that has dared to grow. It poisons</p>&#13; &#13; <p>the gardens, even kills the prettier weeds.<br />&#13; For me, it hisses, though perhaps<br />&#13; you have heard a different voice.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>The effect is always the same—<br />&#13; a self-doubt that grows up like thorns<br />&#13; around a fabled castle. What</p>&#13; &#13; <p>you wouldn’t give for sleep.<br />&#13; But it is the awakeness that saves you—<br />&#13; the way that the doubt works</p>&#13; &#13; <p>like an unforgiving mirror<br />&#13; and shows you all the places<br />&#13; that most need your attention.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>It was never the fairies who bestowed the gifts,<br />&#13; it was doubt all along that entered<br />&#13; you and blessed you so that when</p>&#13; &#13; <p>at last the morning came, you were<br />&#13; ready to rise and meet the world, ready<br />&#13; to be your own true love, flawed</p>&#13; &#13; <p>though you are, ready to commit<br />&#13; more deeply to serving a story<br />&#13; greater than your own.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>First published in <em>Naked for Tea</em> (Able Muse Press, 2018)</p>&#13; &#13; <h3>Latin 101</h3>&#13; &#13; <p>As a matter of course, we begin<br />&#13; with the impossible—conjugating love.<br /><em>Amo, amas, amat.</em></p>&#13; &#13; <p>My son and I sit on the couch and chant<br />&#13; the old syllables that have informed so many tongues.<br /><em>Amamus, amatis, amant. </em></p>&#13; &#13; <p>It’s almost always the first lesson<br />&#13; when learning this language<br />&#13; that few speak anymore.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>Every other language I’ve studied begins<br />&#13; with <em>to have, to go, to be</em>, but here we begin<br />&#13; where humans prove our humanness.</p>&#13; &#13; <p><em>I love. You love. He loves. </em><br />&#13; The news everyday is full of the ways<br />&#13; we fall short. Still, we devote our lives</p>&#13; &#13; <p>to these six possibilities.<br /><em>We love. You love. They love. </em><br />&#13; Everything depends on this.</p>&#13; &#13; <p><em>Amo, amas, amat.</em><br />&#13; To my son, they are still only sounds.<br />&#13; He thrills that he can remember them.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>But his mother, she wanders the conjugations<br />&#13; like paths, <em>semitae</em>, as if stepping through fields<br />&#13; of flowers or war with no idea where the feet</p>&#13; &#13; <p>might land next, hoping that though the language<br />&#13; has died, there are still clues in it for the living.<br />&#13; Like where to begin.</p>&#13; &#13; <p><em>Amamus, amatis, amant.</em><br />&#13; Some lessons are simple to memorize.<br />&#13; Some we practice for a lifetime.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>First published in <em>Naked for Tea</em> (Able Muse Press, 2018)</p>&#13; &#13; <h3>After Many Attempts </h3>&#13; &#13; <p>Just because it wasn’t here yesterday<br />&#13; doesn’t mean it won’t be here today.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>Some things arrive only in their own time.<br />&#13; Just because I am talking about morels</p>&#13; &#13; <p>doesn’t mean I’m not talking about love.<br />&#13; And here it is, golden and misshapen,</p>&#13; &#13; <p>something I step over once before discovering.<br />&#13; I mean, isn’t it wonderful when sometimes</p>&#13; &#13; <p>we choose to show up and then, well,<br />&#13; it’s not really an accident, is it,</p>&#13; &#13; <p>that we find ourselves<br />&#13; with our hands, our hearts so full.<br />&#13; First published in <em>Fungi Magazine</em></p>&#13; &#13; <h3>Picking Up a Hitchhiker in May</h3>&#13; &#13; <p><em>The burial of the dead is Humanity 101.<br />&#13; —Thomas Lynch, undertaker and poet</em></p>&#13; &#13; <p>It’s messy when they die<br />&#13; in winter, he says. The dirt<br />&#13; is too cold to work with then.<br />&#13; I tell him I will consider this<br />&#13; when I die. Just give me two-weeks’<br />&#13; notice, he says, quoting a joke,<br />&#13; and it occurs to me humor<br />&#13; must be an unwritten<br />&#13; prerequisite for a grave digger.<br />&#13; I ask him what he thinks<br />&#13; about the recent uproar in Boston,<br />&#13; no one wanting the bomber<br />&#13; buried in their own backyard.<br />&#13; Well, he says, I’ve always thought<br />&#13; we should have a special section<br />&#13; for the politicians. We could put<br />&#13; him here with them—in a place where<br />&#13; we let the dogs run.<br />&#13; In the space before I laugh,<br />&#13; I remember the story<br />&#13; the undertaker told about how<br />&#13; in the middle ages they considered<br />&#13; suicide the ultimate crime.<br />&#13; But since you can’t punish a dead man,<br />&#13; they took out their ire on his corpse<br />&#13; and buried it at a crossroads<br />&#13; to be trod on forever. He said,<br />&#13; “If we do not take care of dead humans,<br />&#13; we become less human ourselves.”<br />&#13; The man next to me says,<br />&#13; “You know, I give every person I bury<br />&#13; the gravedigger’s promise.”<br />&#13; We are almost to the cemetery gate.<br />&#13; “I say, I’m the last person who’s ever gonna<br />&#13; let you down, and the last one<br />&#13; who’ll ever throw dirt on you.”<br />&#13; He laughs a laugh so real<br />&#13; I can smell the earth thawing in it.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>First published in <em>New Verse News</em></p>&#13; &#13; <h3>Part of the Design</h3>&#13; &#13; <p>My son and I lean together over the thin resistor,<br />&#13; the nine volt battery, the LEDs in blue and red.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>We fuss with the copper tape as it twists and sticks<br />&#13; where we don’t want it to stick. But eventually,</p>&#13; &#13; <p>there is light, a small blue light. He can’t stop looking<br />&#13; at the glow on the table. I can’t stop looking</p>&#13; &#13; <p>at the glow in him. I remember so little<br />&#13; about how electricity works. Something</p>&#13; &#13; <p>about electrons being pushed through the circuit.<br />&#13; Ours is simple, a series circuit, with only one way</p>&#13; &#13; <p>for the electrons to go. But I know that no matter<br />&#13; how complex a circuit, the same laws of physics apply.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>It’s like love. No matter how intricate the scenario,<br />&#13; the laws themselves are always the same.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>There are two laws of love, I tell myself.<br />&#13; One: you can’t predict anything. And two,</p>&#13; &#13; <p>it will change you. For good. I swear<br />&#13; as I stare at him now, I can feel the electrons</p>&#13; &#13; <p>moving in my own body. Or are those tears,<br />&#13; twin currents following familiar paths.</p>&#13; &#13; <h3>After Playing on the Parent Team in the Mathlete Olympiad</h3>&#13; &#13; <p>Odd joy in the pink eraser rubbings,<br />&#13; joy in the silence just after the timer says start,<br />&#13; joy in the turning of the inner cogs<br />&#13; and the way that the numbers<br />&#13; sprint across the page,<br />&#13; joy in the scratch of the pencil, the stumble<br />&#13; of confidence, in the scrapping of the route<br />&#13; so that a new route can emerge,<br />&#13; joy in arriving at an answer,<br />&#13; an answer so certain you can label it<br />&#13; with units and circle it and know<br />&#13; that tomorrow it would turn out<br />&#13; the same way again, not like any<br />&#13; other part of your life.</p>&#13; &#13; <h3>How It Might Happen</h3>&#13; &#13; <p>The baby black swift is born behind a waterfall.<br />&#13; It never leaves its nest until one autumn day<br />&#13; it leaves the damp familiar and starts to fly.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>Though it has never flown before, it will not land<br />&#13; until it reaches Brazil, thousands of miles away.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>There is, perhaps, a wing inside forgiveness.<br />&#13; Just because it has never flown before,<br />&#13; just because it’s never seen beyond the watery veil<br />&#13; does not mean that it won’t instantly learn<br />&#13; what it can do.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>Like the baby black swift, it has no idea<br />&#13; what it’s flying toward. It only knows<br />&#13; that it must fly and not stop until it is time to stop.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>It sounds so miraculous, so nearly impossible.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>It is not a matter of courage. It is simply<br />&#13; what rises up to be done, the urge to follow<br />&#13; some inaudible call that says now, now.</p>&#13; &#13; <h3>Throwing Away the Canvas</h3>&#13; &#13; <p><em>A response of sorts to Shakespeare’s Sonnet 18</em></p>&#13; &#13; <p>Not that I wasn’t fond of it—the blues<br />&#13; and golds and thick brush strokes—perhaps it was<br /><em>because</em> I was so fond of it I threw<br />&#13; the art away, that life-size portrait of<br />&#13; eternal summer, mine, the painting in<br />&#13; which one hand reaches for the sun, the other<br />&#13; grows dark roots into the earth. Now all<br />&#13; that lives of those bright lines are these two hands<br />&#13; that painted them. With something less than care<br />&#13; I rolled the canvas tight and took it to<br />&#13; the trash, the company of grapefruit rinds<br />&#13; and last year’s mail. By tea, I’ve gotten used<br />&#13; to how the wall looks—empty, open, free—<br />&#13; already dreamed what else these hands might do.</p>&#13; &#13; <h3>Joyful, Joyful</h3>&#13; &#13; <p>From the back row, no one can see<br />&#13; that the flute player’s white oxford shirt<br />&#13; is misbuttoned. His dirty blonde hair<br />&#13; falls into his eyes.  He tosses it back<br />&#13; with a flick of his head, picks up his instrument<br />&#13; and focuses his attention on the conductor.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>With a lurch, the sixth-grade band launches<br />&#13; into the last section of Beethoven’s 9<sup>th</sup>,<br />&#13; and the familiar tune of Ode to Joy<br />&#13; brightens the dim auditorium.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>The conductor keeps perfect time,<br />&#13; and the students, though stilted,<br />&#13; follow her rhythm. I think of Vienna,<br />&#13; 1824, in the Theatre am Karntnertor,<br />&#13; when Beethoven himself stood on stage<br />&#13; at the end of his career to direct the premiere,<br />&#13; his first time on stage in twelve years.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>Though he could not hear the symphony, he furiously<br />&#13; waved his arms in tempo, moving his body<br />&#13; as if to play all the instruments at once,<br />&#13; as if he could be every voice in the chorus. </p>&#13; &#13; <p>And when it was done, the great composer<br />&#13; went on, still conducting, not knowing<br />&#13; it was over until the contralto soloist moved to him<br />&#13; and turned him to face the ovation.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>With the greatest respect, and knowing<br />&#13; that applause could not reach him,<br />&#13; the audience members raised their hands and hats<br />&#13; and threw white handkerchiefs into the air,<br />&#13; then rose five times to their feet.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>When the sixth grade band director<br />&#13; lowers her arms, the young musicians stop with her.<br />&#13; They rise and bow, and the audience claps<br />&#13; and some of the parents whoop.<br />&#13; And the students bow again, and again,<br />&#13; though the clapping is done.<br />&#13; They do not yet know how to carry pride<br />&#13; in their awkward bodies, and they stumble<br />&#13; and list off the stage.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>The flute player’s black pants are too short<br />&#13; for his long thin legs. He is growing in ways<br />&#13; neither he nor his mother can understand.<br />&#13; There she is, weeping in the back row,<br />&#13; in her ears, in her heart, a song<br />&#13; no one else can hear.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>“Joyful, Joyful” first appeared in <em>Naked for Tea</em> (Able Muse Press, 2018)</p>&#13; &#13; <p>All poems are Copyright 2018 by Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer</p>&#13; </div> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--field-keyword--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--node--field-keyword.html.twig x field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--field-keyword.html.twig * field--entity-reference.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> <div class="field field--name-field-keyword field--type-entity-reference field--label-above" id="id-field-keyword"> <div class="field__label" id="id-field-keyword">Keywords</div> <div class='field__items'> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/art" hreflang="en">Art</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/music" hreflang="en">Music</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/science" hreflang="en">science</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/biology" hreflang="en">Biology</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/social-studies" hreflang="en">Social Studies</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/sociology" hreflang="en">Sociology</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/physics" hreflang="en">Physics</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/math" hreflang="en">Math</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/visual-art" hreflang="en">Visual Art</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/literature" hreflang="en">Literature</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/unrhymed-sonnet" hreflang="en">Unrhymed sonnet</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/band" hreflang="en">Band</a></div> </div> </div> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'links__node' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * links--node.html.twig x links--inline.html.twig * links--node.html.twig * links.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/navigation/links--inline.html.twig' --> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/navigation/links--inline.html.twig' --> Mon, 28 Jan 2019 16:44:23 +0000 yongli 3036 at http://coloradoencyclopedia.org