Sustainably cool
Bamboo Beatles drinking cups
From son Paladin
So glad he learned “green” from me
Earth’s renewability…
© 2017 Clarissa Simmens (ViataMaja)
IMAGE: Bamboo gift from son Paladin
Advertisements
sons
ELIXIR OF FAMILY BONDING
Flanked by big, brash progeny
The plucky baritone ukulele
Holds her own
Amid clamorous sons
Sensing no time elapsed
Between early motherhood and retirement
Removing their eyeglasses
Myopically peering at each other
It is 1989
All is fine
As life-long love
Picks up at the point
It left off
Long ago and far away…
© 2017 Clarissa Simmens (ViataMaja)
IMAGES: My baritone ukulele and their guitars/Halloween in the 1980s
(I’m back, WordPress! Will check out your stuff this coming week)
HAPPY BIRTHDAY BABY SON HAIKU (February 2)
(Also, Baxtalo Mumbliego Dives AKA Candlemas, Imbolc, Goundhog Day)
Aquarius dawned
Brought you home in a blizzard
Icy heart melted…
© 2016 Clarissa Simmens (ViataMaja)
WAR NEVER FAR
When sons were young
Sibling competition getting ugly
Decided to spend a separate hour with each
Worked well, they got to choose what to do
One day my youngest
Wanted to draw
He drew a cannon
I covered it with flowers
He drew a ball shooting out
A few lines by me made a peace sign
In frustration he cried,
“You’re ruining everything!”
***
Shocked, I stopped the politics
Didn’t do pregnancy and labor
So my sons would one day go off to war
In the too-near future
Although their grandpas, cousins, uncles
Fought in Germany, Vietnam and the Gulf
Yet such an innocent game
As drawing together
Turned into a 6-year-old’s anger
***
Tucked away that picture
Still have it in my book of memories
Placed a blank piece of paper between us
Drew a cannon with balls shooting out
Into the infinite
(Resisted adding a rainbow and stars)
He was happy, I was happy that he was happy
Someday he would make a personal decision
I would support whatever it would be
But will never forget my 60s bumper sticker:
“War is not good for children and other living things…”
© 2015 Clarissa Simmens (ViataMaja)
IMAGE: CANNON OF PEACE, royalty free
