Thank you, Hurricane
For not touching down on me
Yet no happiness
Thinking of those affected
Survivor’s Guilt floods instead….
(c) 2O18 Clarissa Simmens (ViataMaja)
IMAGE CNN Hurricane Michael landfall (my home on arrow)
(struggling with this emotion)
My favorite day! Enjoy this tanka and the video, La Chanson du Cafe, from everyone’s favorite Cajun band BeauSoleil avec Michael Doucet:
Bright blue sky, white moon
Fading into morning mist
Dark consolation
Coffee smoothes the wrinkly day
Enriching timeworn burdens…
(c) Clarissa Simmens (ViataMaja)
IMAGE: Morning Moon and Espresso
Video: La Chanson du Cafe, BeauSoleil avec Michael Doucet
First year you appeared
Blooming along clinging vines
Deceptive beauty
Disguising your aggression
Strangling the kindness of trees
(c) 2018 Clarissa Simmens (ViataMaja)
IMAGE: Ipomoea Pandurata, Wild Potato Vine Blossoms
A POEM ABOUT THE ACTUAL AIR POTATO VINE:
https://poeturja.wordpress.com/2018/06/13/dioscorea-bulbifera-air-potatoes/
(Morning surprise in my compost pile)
Fresh pineapple stems
Tossed in fertile Florida
Treat for backyard birds
Silent, self-rooting surprise
Pineapple fields forever…
(c) 2017 Clarissa Simmens (ViataMaja)
IMAGE: My pineapple “field”
*scroll down for YouTube video*
Winter has warned me
Survival depends on sun
Challenge is noted
Verse prompts accepted because
Ain’t no sunshine when he’s gone…
© 2017 Clarissa Simmens (ViataMaja)
IMAGE: Sunshine and Live Oak
https://youtu.be/d0YRIR_57TY Bill Withers, Ain’t No Sunshine (YouTube) *
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
Official portrait
Twenty-seventeen birthday
“Time’s an illusion”
Famous Albert Einstein quote
So why do I look so old?
© 2017 Clarissa Simmens (ViataMaja)
IMAGE: CS playing for the Santee Swampers 4-5-17
*scroll down for a YouTube video*
Bluegrass banjoing
Eating black beans on white rice
Vamping mosquitoes
Sounds and sights memory-etched
In the logbook of my soul…
© 2017 Clarissa Simmens (ViataMaja)
*Sarah Jarosz doing Edgar Allan Poe’s poem Annabelle Lee youtube video https://youtu.be/gyBPdlqcbss
IMAGE: Bluegrass instruments, Wikipedia Commons
(Previously titled A January Convergence Tanka)
Somehow, the mirror
Reflects the confluence of
Last summer’s green growth
This winter’s shriveled, brown leaves
Sprouting bright red poke berries
© 2016 Clarissa Simmens (ViataMaja)
IMAGE: My swamp’s January poke berries
Time has now become
Dripping sweet honey on sand
Only to be cleansed
By the obedient tides
Slave to the moods of the moon
Memoir poetry
Is History as art form
Bitter pill sweetened
By cloaking words and events
Seen through rose-tinted lenses
(c) 2016 Clarissa Simmens (ViataMaja)
IMAGE: Free clock image, European city
