Bindweed Power

“Oh sweet failure”

Hello, Poetry Friend

Today’s musing from Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer’s Naked for Tea collection is “Though It Is Tough to Choose It.” (The poem can be read in the free sample on Kindle. Look it up and journal along!) It’s a poem about failure.

For me, it was not the first failure that opened me. It wasn’t the second either. It was the third, the one I couldn’t pin on anyone else — that’s the one that made me “ready to be opened.”

This third failure? This “impassable wall”? Apparently it’s not going anywhere. So, Poetry, lead on.

As I journaled through Trommer’s poem, I realized that if I am bindweed — that common but invasive weed — then I’ve been looking a long time for cracks in that proverbial sidewalk to push through. The first two failure-cracks were large and deep and should have left ample room for blooming, but it seems they were too big to fit my weedy needs.

So I made my own crack. Failure #3 enabled me to push through the pavement in ways I can only call, along with Trommer, “mystery.”

So, here I am; I am bindweed. But some call me morning glory. You can read my poem at my website.

Poetry Journal

• Read Trommer’s poem and think about your own failures: the biggies.

• Jot down what you notice about her poem, what you like, what you don’t, what questions you have, and at least one way in which the poem speaks to your soul.

• Read the poem again, aloud (if you didn’t the first time). Is there anything you notice this time that you want to add to your journal?

• Write your own poem about one of your failures that longs to push into the sunlight. If you like, email me what you write.

Take care, Megan