First saw the Ursutara*
When 3 days old
Cold night spider webs
Or dripping icicles
Over my basket
Gran setting a table for 3
Honey cake, tea
And in a broomstick drawn circle
Gran, Mama and me
Tell me a story
Of the three Ursitory
Living in Romani glory
Before morphing into allegory
3 creatures of Fate
Come to adjudicate
Lifeline to create
Each birth to celebrate
Sometimes I dream
Of that night supreme
As 3 moonbeams
Lit faces in fog-bound steam
Felt so enchanted
As each fairy implanted
Words that granted
My future garden planted
Said one: Listen my child
You are fated to be wild
And always beguiled
By a trying life reconciled
In the circle of safety
Me in a basket
3 tables with cakes
For the Ursitory Fates
Gran whispered my secret name
Viata
Said another: Listen my child
You are fated to be wild
And often reviled
Yet strong enough to survive the trial
“No” Gran recanted
But the third Fate ranted
Wanting to supplant it
With frightening cant
In a powerful scream
She stopped Gran’s scheme
The fate was extreme
No peace to redeem
No room for debate
Gran hid her hate
For this weaver of Fate
Surely a devil incarnate
There’d been no signatory
Just verbal and auditory
Surely an escape from momento mori
If they left the territory
The Ursitories departed
Gran tossed out the cake
Whispering a secret song
Taught me to move along
But all their words true
And some sleepless nights I hear them
Enchanted, chanting Fates
Pronouncing lives desolate
The Ursitory…
*Kalderash dialect
(c) 2020 Clarissa Simmens (ViataMaja)
IMAGE: August von Pettenkofen,
Gypsy Girl Wraps A Baby In A Wooden Tub