Vox Populi
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Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer: Tonight, When I Turn Right on Ogden
Another part of me turns left,
and it is fifteen years ago
and I am driving to my parents’ new home
and my son and I will spend the night with them
because they live there and we can.
By the time I turn onto the highway toward home
it is fifteen years ago
and my father is sitting in his favorite chair
and my son curls into his lap
and dad tells him his ears are his mouth
and they laugh
and my mother and I make tea and chat.
And I am almost to the stoplight in Ridgway
when it is fifteen years ago,
and we go outside and make a fire in the pit
and sit in a half circle and sing camp songs
and snuggle because we are there.
And when I get home, an hour later,
it is fifteen years ago
and I am so full of their presence
and roasted marshmallows and
joy and loss that I lift my son
into his crib and kiss my father
on the cheek that is now ashes
and hug my mother now far away
then walk into the house
where my son no longer lives
and I have never been
so here.
(c) 2023 Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer
Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer’s books include All the Honey (Samara Press, 2023). She lives with her husband and daughter in Placerville, Colorado, on the banks of the wild and undammed San Miguel River.
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This poem goes right into my heart, whoosh. I feel the turns in the car in my body, the repeat of 15 years, and the ache of love. Thank you, thank you.
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Yet another deeply human, clear, humble, & wide-open poem by Rosemerry W.T. I love this poem and so many other poems she wrote. I’m a fan!
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Love this!
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Thank you, Allison! I am grateful for you words.
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Love this.
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Love the straightforward language and solid but touching images throughout. Wow & oh, what an ending. Beauty.
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Thank you, Clayton, thank you–❤️❤️
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Oh, oh, such a beautiful poem. I read that “memory is always present tense” and so is this poem, dear friend ❤️
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Memory is always present tense. Mygosh do I resonate with that.
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So touching. So inspiring to meet the unexpected and find gold among what might be mistaken for just ruins
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Yes, inspiring!
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oh yes … not just ruins, but magic there … and gold
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Ah, what memory can do… Thanks for this one.
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Thank you, Lex.
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Thank you, Lex ❤️❤️
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Thank you
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Thank you, Barbara ❤️❤️
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Oh Rosemerry, to be so here, such a gift that you share. xoxo
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I agree, Jan. I love Rosemerry’s elegies.
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❤️thank you, Jan–I am so grateful for you
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Thank you for this so beautiful poem, the past intruding and informing the present, the present redolent with the past, the two intertwined like lovers…
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Well-said, David. Thank you.
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like two lovers intertwined, the past and the present. yes. Thank you, friend, for saying it just this way
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So fine! Quietly transcendental. Life.
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Yes, Rosemerry has such a gift for these moments, doesn’t she?
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Thank you, Sean.
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