Before Winter Solticr, I Remember

Poem for the week' -- "Before Winter Solticr, I Remember":

This, too, is what we are born for, this waking in darkness, unable to see, but still able to hear the 

shush 

of wind in bare branches, able to 

feel 

the charge of our heartbeat, the 

swell 

of our belly as it fills with borrowed air. 

I have spent my life learning to 

love 

these shapeless hours before the 

light 

finds us, these shadowsome 

nights when 

my whole being seems to stretch 

beyond 

the bed, beyond the room, 

beyond the home, beyond the valley, beyond even 

the globe, 

as if I rhyme with the dark all 

around us, 

the dark that holds us, the dark 

that surrounds 

this whole swirling spiral of 

galaxy. 

Sometimes, I feel how that infinite 

darkness 

calls to the darkness inside me as 

if to say, 

remember, remember where you 

come from, 

remember what you are. And the 

darkness 

inside me sings back.

-- Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer 

Darkness and disorientation often go together (at least initially).  This poem struck me this week as I’ve walked past the homeless around a conference in downtown Louisville and as I think about a current phase of disorientation in the journey of a good friend of mine.