Darn Lucky

It happens, you know—the day opens itself
like a tulip in a warm room, and you meet someone
who amazes you with their willingness
to be a thousand percent alive, someone
who makes you feel grateful to be you.

And it’s as if life has been keeping a beautiful
secret from you—like the fact that they make
elderberry flowers into wine. Like muscadine.
Like the yellow-green floral scent of quince.
Like the perfect knot for tying your shoes.

And it turns out life does have wonderful
secrets waiting for you. Even when the news
makes you cry. Even when some old pain returns,
that’s when you will meet this new friend.
Someone wholly themselves. Someone

who makes you smile in the kitchen, a smile so real
that when you go out, the whole world notices.
It’s enough to make you want to wake up in the morning.
To go into the day. To be unguarded as a tulip, petals
falling open. You never know who you might meet.

Posted by kind permission of Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer.

Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer

Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer is a poet, teacher, speaker and writing facilitator who co-hosts the Emerging Form podcast on creative process. Her daily audio series, The Poetic Path, is on the Ritual app. Her poems have appeared on A Prairie Home Companion, PBS News Hour, O Magazine, American Life in Poetry, and Carnegie Hall stage. Her most recent poetry collections are All the Honey (Samara Press, 2023) and The Unfolding (Wildhouse Publishing, October 2024). In January, 2024, she became the first poet laureate for Evermore, helping others explore grief, bereavement, wonder and love through poetry. One-word mantra: Adjust.

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