Vox Populi
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Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer: Some Nights Missing You
is like the letter that doesn’t come,
the one I would carefully slit open
and slowly unfold,
then hold against my chest for a moment
before letting my eyes take in the first line,
the second, the penultimate, the last,
the letter that would explain everything
in language so plain
it would make my hands shake
with the truth of it,
the one that would arrive with a return address
so I would know where to respond if I dare,
the handwriting even, familiar, easily read,
with no pages missing, no passages indecipherable,
the letter that never once has arrived,
a letter I know only by its absence.
And the emptiness itself
becomes faithful.
And the mystery becomes
the only signature I trust.
Copyright 2024 Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer
Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer is a poet, teacher and storyteller. Her many books and recordings 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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my daughter wrote constantly, and I still find things from the past
She never stopped creating until she until Couldn’t even lift a pencil
and the last month of her life, we made peaceand I will always be grateful although I wish things could’ve been different. I’ve accepted how they were and are
she knew she was slowly ending her life, but she could not do anything differently
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Thank you, Jules.
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Rosemerry, thank you for your courage, and demonstrating that poetry is a grace to find peace in loss. Blessings to you showing others it’s possible to grapple with the unknowable.
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oh that slow unfolding…the absent letter pressed again your chest until letter and heartbeat are one and the same. What a heartbreakingly beautiful, evocative poem. Thank you, Rosemerry, for helping us learn over and over again to trust the mystery.
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Oh, dear Rosemerry, I give thanks for you and to you. ❤️❤️❤️
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Love the comparison of missing with the letter expected.
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“the letter that would explain everything
in language so plain
it would make my hands shake
with the truth of it”
…we each have such deep wells within us, such full inner lives that others can glimpse, but rarely know.
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This poem wakens long buried grief and longing. “the letter that never once has arrived, / a letter I know only by its absence.” It always amazes me how poetry can say so much with so few words. It also makes me think of letters I never wrote and that were probably just as much longed for. Oh, life…
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Lovely response. Thank you.
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Thank you, Rosemary–oh all those letters we never wrote. All those unpenned words that swim in us … oh, life ❤️
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“the letter that never once has arrived,
a letter I know only by its absence.”
These two lines alone are so heart-breaking — and resonate in me so much. What a poem. Rosemerry’s poems all have that delicate urgency I love!
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Yes. A delicate urgency.
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Thank you, dear Laure-Anne … oh how the heart breaks and opens, breaks and opens … your comment made me smile, thank you. ❤️❤️
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My mother who was a pious poet, would read Trommer’s poem as the waiting for a prayer to be answered. The theology of paying attention to the waiting. Her life was just like that.
It’s a poem that sets each of us in different places, evoking the depths of grief, fear of abandonment, etc. In 20 lines Wahtola Trommer hints at those, but offers acceptance (and maybe healing) by trusting the mystery of faithful emptiness.
Her poem speaks volumes to me. Much thanks
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Beautiful encomium, Jim. I especially like “the theology of paying attention”.
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I love how you invoke your mother’s reading, too. What a beautiful way to read a poem through two lenses … thank you for this thoughtful response.
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