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How have your prayers changed your life? I am very aware of two that have touched everything–and that’s what this poem is about, published November 27, 2022, in the wonderful Vox Populi, curated by Michael Simms I wrote it during a poetry deep dive led by the luminous Kim Rosen. Dancing to her reciting ecstatic poems pulled out this poem of loss, love, grace, surrender and gratefulness.
The Prayers
–Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer
When I asked the world to open me,
I did not know the price.
When I wrote that two-word prayer in the sand,
I did not know loss was the key,
devastation the hinge,
trust was the dissolution
of the idea of a door.
When I asked the world to open me,
I could never have said yes to what came next.
Perhaps I imagined the waves
knew only how to carry me.
I did not imagine they would also pull me under.
When I asked the world to open me,
I had not imagined drowning
was the way to reach the shore.
The waves of sorrow dragged me down
with their tides of unthinkable loss.
The currents emptied my pockets
and stripped me of my ideas.
I was rolled and eroded
and washed up on the sand
like driftwood—softened.
I sprawled there and wept,
astonished to still be alive.
It is not easy to continue to pray this way.
Open me.
And yet it is the truest prayer I know.
The other truest prayer,
though sometimes it frightens me,
is Thank you.