Smudges, Poetry, and Shelter
Until a week ago, I had never heard of Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer. Then last week, I came across her poem simply entitled “Hope.”1. Well, then in her Wednesday email, Carrie Newcomer shared an excerpt of one of Trommer’s poems entitled “Toward Peace” from her book The Unfolding. Carrie shared a section that spoke to peace as a destination and it ended with this:
Meanwhile, there is this invitation
to grow into peace the way real flowers grow—
from dirt into air. With blight
and drought, beetles and hail.2
We are in the season of flowers starting to emerge from the winter soil. Unfortunately, we had a hard freeze the last two days and those bright, standing-straight daffodils and other flowers are all bent over and some flat on the ground. I’m hoping that they will resiliently bounce back once the weather starts to warm, but I could add “freeze” to that last line of Trommer’s poem where it could read:
Meanwhile, there is this invitation
to grow into peace the way real flowers grow—
from dirt into air. With blight
and freeze, drought, beetles and hail.
Tuesday morning when we had the first of the freezes, I saw these daffodils on my morning walk.
The light shining in from the top of the image was not an “in real life” thing but instead a smudge on my iphone camera lens but wow did it feel perfect for speaking a message. That morning I had read Psalms 61 and 62 in my daily reading (interestingly, I had read and written about the same Psalm on the same day 12 years ago when I first began my move into contemplative photography). In those Psalms are these lines:
Psalm 61:1-2, 3-4
Hear my cry, O God;
listen to my prayer.
From the end of the earth I call to you,
when my heart is faint...
for you are my refuge,
a strong tower against the enemy.
Let me abide in your tent forever,
find refuge under the shelter of your wings.Psalm 62:1-2
For God alone my soul waits in silence;
from him comes my salvation.
He alone is my rock and my salvation,
my fortress; I shall never be shaken.
Those flowers feel like they are calling out as their “hearts” are faint seeking protection in God’s tent, under the shelter of God’s wings and the light feels like the salvation that shines down.
And the thing about the photo is that the light was there all the time but only became visible in this way because of a smudge on the lens. Reminds me of how, even in imperfection, we can see the beautiful, the holy, and the hope. And how we sometimes are that imperfection ourselves that allows the light to be seen, felt, experienced…
So for these flowers and for all those who are feeling bowed down by the weight of the(ir) world, I am praying for light (even one that became visible because of a smudged lens) to lift and strengthen, even coming through the imperfect love and care that each of us can offer.
Tuesday was also St Patrick’s Day and Scout (reluctantly) got into the spirit of the day…
Grace, Peace, Love, Hope, and Joy,
Ed
From “Peace” in The Unfolding by Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer