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# Oh, the longing
- URL: https://poetry101.love/oh/
- Published: 2023-06-29T19:12:59.000Z
- Updated: 2023-06-29T19:12:59.000Z
- Description: by Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer
- Author: Melissa Anderson
- Tags: Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer, #Import 2026-11-04 19:11

Let longing be longing.  
Though it rises in me  
with insistent hunger.  
Though it clutches for my heart  
with outstretched hands,  
pins me with pleading eyes  
Let longing be longing.  
Never has it worked  
to pretend I don’t hear it  
as it shouts its demands  
or charms me with silken promises.  
  
In a vision I said no to the longing,  
and the longing only grew  
like a shadow on the wall.  
But when I said *yes, longing, I see you*—  
(and what was it that was saying yes?  
a voice not me, but through me)—  
the yes filled me like a warm and golden glow,  
color of sunrise, color of pollen,  
and there was nothing it could not touch—  
this woman, this longing,  
the shadow itself.  
  
Where does this yes come from?  
I don’t know. But now everything  
is infused with its light  
and the longing is longing  
and I am a woman who sometimes longs  
for what she cannot have.  
Even the no is shining.

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Trommer, Rosemerry Watohlah. “Oh, the Longing.” *A Hundred Falling Veils*, 27 June 2023, ahundredfallingveils.com/2023/06/26/oh-the-longing/.