10/17/2024
What Is Here
Midsummer, she stood in the midst
of deep blue delphinium
and did not move. Stood
until she became delphinium.
Till she petalled and pollened
and blued. Oh joy in the flesh
that forgets it is bound to an I.
Joy in the flesh that remembers
it’s part of it all. Months later,
she returns to the stems, tall
and brown and dead.
Did she really believe
things would not change?
This is the way she learns
what she wants the most:
To be open to falling in love
with the world as it is—
beyond hope, beyond wish,
beyond memory.
To not mistake love
for the object of love.
To stand in the midst
of what is brittle and gone
and fall in love with
exactly what is here.
—Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer