In the Fourth of July Parade

by Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer

Right down the middle of main street
the woman with the long red braids
and fairy wings strapped to her back
rode a unicycle more than two times
taller than she was—rode it with balance
and grace, her arms stretched out,
as if swimming through gravity,
as if embracing space—her smile an invitation
to join in her bliss. How simple it is, really,
to make of ourselves a gate that swings open
to the joy that is. How simple, like tossing
candy in a parade, to share the key to the gate.

Read poems by Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer in Hush, from Middle Creek Publishing (2020), available for purchase online.

I have been thinking a lot lately about joy, and specifically how that deeper form of happiness can coexist, often at the same moment, with grief and sadness. Even in the midst of a ravaging sorrow, joy can arise in us seemingly out of nowhere. And as Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer illustrates so well in this week’s poem, our task then becomes not rejecting the joy, accepting that “key,” we often receive from someone else. As Maggie Smith writes in her helpful guidebook, Keep Moving: “Do not turn away joy—even if it arrives at an inconvenient time, even if you think you should be grieving, even if you think it’s ‘too soon.’ Joy is always on time.” Many of us might believe that, because there is so much bad news, and so much still to fight for in our country and in the larger world, we’re not allowed to “indulge in” those smaller joys when they arrive unbidden. Yet the speaker in this poem wisely notices the reveler in the Fourth of July parade—“her arms stretched out,/as if swimming through gravity,/as if embracing space”—offering everyone the “invitation/to join in her bliss.” Perhaps we can all learn from this “woman with the long red braids/and fairy wings strapped to her back,” making of herself “a gate” that gives us permission to embrace our own playfulness, even when it feels impossible to do so.

Invitation for Writing & Reflection: As you move through the next few days, try to attune to the smaller and larger joys of other people you encounter. Notice when their faces light up, what makes them smile—and bring attention to your own joy, too. You might describe a specific situation, like the Fourth of July parade here, where you felt invited into someone else’s bliss, unable to resist the call to join them.

ABOUT THE POET: Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer

Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer lives on the banks of the San Miguel River in southwest Colorado. She co-hosts the Emerging Form podcast, the Stubborn Praise poetry series and Secret Agents of Change (a kindness cabal). Her poems have been featured on A Prairie Home Companion, American Life in Poetry, PBS Newshour and Oprah Magazine. Her most recent book is Hush, winner of the Halcyon Prize from Middle Creek Publishing for a collection of books about human ecology. One-word mantra: Adjust.

POETRY SELECTION AND COMMENTARY BY JAMES CREWS

James Crews is the author of four collections of poetry: The Book of What Stays, Telling My Father, Bluebird, and Every Waking Moment. He is also the editor of two anthologies: Healing the Divide: Poems of Kindness and Connection and How to Love the World: Poems of Gratitude and Hope. His poems have appeared in Ploughshares, The New Republic, The New York Times Magazine, The Sun, and have been reprinted in Ted Kooser’s American Life in Poetry and featured on Tracy K. Smith’s podcast, The Slowdown. James teaches at SUNY-Albany and lives with his husband in Vermont.

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