Walking 5th Avenue
by Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer
I am again fifteen
with my father,
my first trip to New York,
and he is not yet
in life-changing pain,
and we stare
in store windows,
eat street pretzels
and look for sales racks.
I don’t know yet
how he will hurt
too much to walk,
how even standing
will become impossible.
No, in this memory
we are walking
and laughing
as if we will forever,
as if there won’t
be a morning
when I wake in New York
almost four decades later
and reach to call him
and thank him
for that long-ago trip,
only to remember
he can no longer
answer the phone.
All day, I hear his laughter
as I walk. All day,
I feel his hand
reaching for mine.
PAINTING: 754 Fifth Avenue by Patrick Pietropoli (2013).
NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR: A place can be such a strong vessel for holding memory. I was struck, when I returned to New York City for the first time since I was a girl, just how much I associate the city with my father. The visit itself was twice a gift—joy in being there in the present, joy in feeling closer to the past.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer co-hosts Emerging Form (a podcast on creative process), Secret Agents of Change (a surreptitious kindness cabal), and Soul Writer’s Circle. Her poetry has appeared on A Prairie Home Companion, PBS Newshour, O Magazine, Rattle, American Life in Poetry and her daily poetry blog, A Hundred Falling Veils. Her most recent collection, Hush, won the Halcyon Prize. Naked for Tea was a finalist for the Able Muse Book Award. One-word mantra: Adjust.
Author photo by Joanie Schwarz.
Silver Birch Press 
Always grateful, always inspired to read a poem by this remarkable poet.
oh sweet Paul, how good to see your name here–I believe YOU are the one who first turned me on to Silver Birch! Thank you! Sending you giant hugs, dear man.
I remember as a child going to “the city” from Brooklyn. Part of the sidewalk was black with quartz in it. I asked my father if they were diamonds as I danced around a fancy street. Thrilled then by how BIG everything was.
such a great memory there with your dad!!
Wonderful poem!
thank you, Joan ❤️
[…] I am grateful to have a poem in Silver Birch Press’s ONE GOOD MEMORY series. When my friend Phyllis first told me about the series, I immediately thought of this memory of my father … place can be so powerful. Thanks to Silver Birch Press for publishing “Walking 5th Avenue”: […]
“All day long I hear his laughter.” Such a gift that laughter is your healing memory and so true to the uplifting relationship you had. Because it is laughter and his strong hand that dominate our memories, they can comfort us no matter how great the loss.
so true, Mom … and dad was such a great laugher. Hee hee hee hee …
Your poem is a double gift, Rosemerry, I see you and your father in New York as clearly as if I were right there with you – and I remember mine, walking hand in hand with him as a girl, the dog lolloping along next to us, that feeling of infinity and his smile. Your capacity to bring the reader right into your world is so moving. Thank you
Thank you, dear Noelle–I love thinking of you walking with your father, and i love how you named that feeling of infinity. Thanks for joining me in the poem and sharing your own good memory ❤️
Love the memories invoked here – the spirit of your father when well and healthy. Some of my favorite memories of my dad are from New York as well. He loved Manhattan and all the city afforded for those who looked. He passed in February 2020 after a “0 – 60” battle with dementia. I prefer to remember him walking his pace – had to keep up! – and being proud to show off his favorite city!
thanks, Karen, for sharing your memories of your dad, too–and thank you for seeing and honoring our fathers in their prime. So many good memories.