Colorado poet Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer's latest book is called "The Unfolding." It is a collection of poems that examine the complex space she inhabited after the death of her 17-year-old son, Finn. It’s a liminal realm where heartbreak and happiness, wonder and grief dwell side by side. She reads her poem, "Serotinous."
Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer: So often I think that poems for me have come out of something I’ve heard, especially because I’ve been writing every day. So, it’s something I heard on a podcast or something I read in a book or a fragment of somebody’s conversation or something I saw. And then my wonderment is, what does that have to teach me? How does that resonate with what is happening in my life right now? And so it was that I heard about the nature of the lodge-pole pine and how they reproduce. I guess, I’m struck by this thought of no effort, which is what I experienced in those first months after Finn died when I couldn’t anything. I couldn’t anything. But then ended up feeling so aware of life living through me. Even the word surrender seemed—like I say in the poem—seemed like it took some energy to say, OK I surrender. And I don’t think I even had that much energy. But through that fire, that fire of that terrible experience, something was released in me, this capacity for growth beyond what I had been capable of before. And I could never have asked for it. I wouldn’t still. It’s not like—that’s not how it works. But in those most terrible moments there is the opportunity for us to show up and be lived into something beyond what we thought was possible.
Serotinous
Even the word surrender
suggests some agency,
but perhaps
what is asked of us
is zero. Perhaps
we are like the seed
of the lodgepole pine
that opens through
no effort of its own.
It needs the heat
of a wildfire blaze.
Then the seed is released
into the very blackened,
desolate world
that seemed hellbent
on destroying it,
But it is the carbon-rich
soil left by the fire
that feeds the seed
and helps the tree grow.
No surrender.
No effort.
Who could ask
for the fire?
The seed did not.
It did nothing at all.
And now, the pine,
how green, how tall.
About the author:
Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer has served as San Miguel County, Colorado’s first poet laureate and as Western Slope Poet Laureate. She was also a finalist for Colorado Poet Laureate in 2019. Trommer lives with her husband and daughter in Placerville, Colo., on the banks of the San Miguel River. Her weekly podcast on the creative process is called Emerging Form.
About the host:
Steven Law is the co-producer of KNAU’s series PoetrySnaps! He is a poet, essayist, storyteller, and the author of Polished, a collection of poems about exploring the Colorado Plateau by foot and by raft.
About the music:
Original music by the Flagstaff-based band Pilcrowe.
Poetry Snaps is produced by KNAU Arizona Public Radio and airs the third Friday of each month.
