I Want to Listen to Your Absence

Poetry by Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer
Music by Steve Law
Art by Marisa S. White, "Drift into the Unknown"
Video by Tony Jeannette
"I Want to Listen to Your Absence" is a track on DARK PRAISE, a spoken-word album that honors the dark and how it opens us to creativity, passion, intimacy, revelation, dreaming, receptivity, self-discovery and connection. "I Want to Listen to Your Absence" is available for download on Spotify, iTunes, and more. The album is available for purchase on Band Camp, rosemerrywahtolatrommer.bandc...
I Want to Listen to Your Absence

I want to listen to your absence
the way I listen to the night-
the way the dark somehow
invites a deeper listening.
I want to hear, for instance,
the way silence fills in
where your voice has been,
or the way the room seems to know itself
by the pound of missing footsteps,
and in this way, I find you
where I cannot find you.
I am thinking of how the night opens up
between the calls of the owl
and how I listen in that interval
not only with my ears, but with my skin.
I want to listen for you with my lungs-
as if every breath is attentive
to the syllables of grief, of love.
I want my heart to angle in
to hear what the silence has to say.
I don’t want to hear what I most want to hear-
I want to hear what is really here.
I want to listen and learn from the listening.
I want to hear what is true.
I want to listen into your absence
and lean into it the way I lean into the night-
something so much larger than me,
something familiar and always new,
something so present, yet unable to be touched.
Something I am still learning to love.
--Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer

[@janeclark3028]

The sound in this piece is so powerful, creates the experience of listening into absence. Lovely.

[@rosemerryt]

Thank you, friend, for listening into absence with me and for this lovely response!

[@MarjorieShalita]

Your poem has inspired these musings of my Soul.
I want to want what I already have.
I want to love who and what I always, already am.
This wanting is my Soul’s Lure of Becoming.
This Longing to Listen is Present through Past, Present and Future.
Your Absence is inside my Presence.
My Presence is inside Your Absence.
I am still Learning to,Love Shadow as I Love Light.
With Grace and Peace that passes all understanding.
Blessed Be ❤️

[@rosemerryt]

oh friend, blessed be--

[@santievandermerwe]

I learn a lot about grief from your poetry and find consolation in it. Thank you for sharing it in this beautiful way.

[@rosemerryt]

Thank you, friend, thank you for this comment and thank you for listening to the poem ... I wish you deep peace

[@Franimally]

Simply exquisite, Rosemerry…. my life centers on this practice now, as well.

[@rosemerryt]

Ah, thank you, friend--wishing you love

[@jimmypappas4326]

I love how the speaker reaffirms that she is only listening to absence. The silence of someone missing is all she has to listen to.

[@rosemerryt]

thank you, Jimmy, thank you

[@joannesnyder3717]

Hi Rosemerry, The beauty, love mystery and fine tuned language in this poem ..... it makes me cry with both joy and sadness!! Words are insufficient for me today regarding " Drift into the Unknown"🥰 joanne

[@rosemerryt]

Thank you, Joanne! I love how the music really supports this poem--the listening, the opening--and this image makes me lean in so deeply

[@joannesnyder3717]

@@rosemerryt Yes the errieness and gaps in the musical aspect!! dramatic and opening .... enough said my words distract from the silence beauty of all!!🥰🥰