trees

2019 BAXTALO NEVO BERSH (HAPPY NEW YEAR)

Seventy five degrees
Perfect temp to plant trees
Shoveled the sandy soil
Back ached a bit from the toil
Added an earthy mix
And water for a quick fix
Tuned the baritone
Strummed a song called “Moonstone”
Water ruled by the Moon
Quick growth would be a boon
Soon I’ll have a Norfolk Pine
I’ll baptize it with faux wine
My drink of choice for New Year’s Eve
While a tarot story I weave
Baxtalo Nevo Bersh we say
Luck and happiness on New Year’s Day
(and the coming year, of course!)

(c) 2018 Clarissa Simmens (ViataMaja)
IMAGES: New Year Planting for 2019/Unattributed drawing in Romanes

baxtalo nevo bersh 1

 

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SCHINUS TEREBINTHIFOLIUS

(Brazilian Pepper Tree/Florida Holly)

A HOLIDAY SONG FOR YOU
(to the tune of “Deck the Halls”)

Deck the trailer with Florida Holly
Fa la la la la la la la la
‘Tis the season to be jolly
Fa la la la la la la la la
Dress in sweaters oh, so tacky
Fa la la Fa la la la la la
Strum the strings, play something whacky
Fa la la la la la la la la…

(c) 2017 Clarissa Simmens (ViataMaja)
IMAGE: My mandolin and baritone ukulele with Florida Holly

FRAGMENT FOR A BARITONE UKULELE (or mandolin) SONG:

fog-wrapped palm by my swamp 2 yrs ago

DECIDED TO ADD ON A ROUGH DRAFT OF WHAT WILL BE THE BODY OF THE SONG:

Year after year

Our lives so dear

You disappeared

Taking my heart

We’re forever apart

As you stay locked

In the wood of the tree

Never to be free

Lost hearts of Palm…

 

Playing one day

Polished obsidian ball

Our two faces reflected

Happiness and perfection

 

You invented words

In a foreign tongue

I laughed, joined in

We chanted, having fun

 

Suddenly gone…

You are suddenly gone

Suddenly gone from me

 

Never did I dream

You’d be so close

Locked away in wood

Brown and gray

 

I thought I’d dreamed you

And then awoke

Until one foggy morning

I heard your voice

 

So far away

And yet so close

Heard your voice

Calling my name

 

Found an axe

But you shouted “No!”

The bark, the leaves, the heart of palm

Part of you

 

Found that old obsidian ball

Polished, washed, sun drenched

Held it next to my heart

Whispered my love

 

Nothing, nothing

(Please, please)

Silence from the swamp trees

 

Words, what words

Did we say

That terrible day

I ask, but you no longer answer

© 2017 Clarissa Simmens (ViataMaja)

IMAGE: Two views of my palm tree 2015 & 2017

(it sure did grow/as if it holds the key/to my happiness)

 

 

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ALL OK!

Hey, just got home and wanted to do a quick thank you.  Waited out the hurricane at a motel that lost power but had really thick walls.  We were quite lucky that Irma stayed on land; would have been worse if it tore along the Gulf.

What a beautiful sight to see all the Live Oaks standing (instead of crashing through  my roof).  They did shed a lot of branches but they’re ok. Best of all, the electricity was on! Priority was making coffee and turning on the air con  🙂

One small tree uprooted and took out the well pipe. No water at all, but I had filled the washer before leaving and there are about 10 gallons of drinking water from the R.O.U. (Reverse Osmosis Unit). Fortunately, my roomie is a hoarder, so he’s busily gluing and fixing a new pipe that will hopefully work.

Anyway, just want to thank you for your good thoughts, vibrations and prayers.  Certainly seemed to work for me. I know there are people not so lucky and even a few miles away, in Elfers, the Anclote River will crest today, going up 25 feet. Mandatory evacuation there, but many of us don’t really have anywhere to go. So good wishes to the Elfers residents.

 

You’ve all been busily writing and I promise to try and read everything, although I may not comment.

 

Sastimos! (good health, and of course, love and peace to us all)

 

 

FOREVER FRIENDS

 

Through two decades

A dead Live Oak

Stood upright

Perch for families

Of Florida Black Vultures

What sights I’ve seen

On that stage

Young buzzards courting

Males competing for

The belle of the bough

Married couple kissing

Passing food between beaks

Here they are with baby

Showing him how to perch

And search

For newly-made swamp corpses

Other days watching them

Wings outspread

Drying out stormy feathers

One day the mom and dad gone

Baby sat for three days

Finally the smaller one returned

Maybe dad creamed by a car

While cleaning up the road kill

In the middle of city streets

Then the other day

A muffled crash in the swamp

Perch finally fell

And here I go in pursuit of my “art”

Worrying about Water Moccasins

And other snakes

As I wade through the grass

Snap, snap

On smart phone

That does no justice

To the thumbnails of Nature

Suddenly recalling last week

Vulture in my yard

Broken wing

Hopping around

Looking for a way out

I opened the gate and tried shooing him

But he didn’t get it

He did find a pile of tables and plants

Climbed up over the fence

Relieved he escaped

Yet what are the chances

A bird will live safely

With a damaged wing

Birds

Trees

Life yet death symbols for me

And I recall sitting under

Another Live Oak

Many years ago

And it splitting

For no good reason

Phone ringing, me running

My mother’s voice funereal

My favorite uncle died

The trees never lie

But do I think a tree

Can actually be

A psychopomp?

Birds play that role for me

But would a bird

Lead a bird

To the afterlife

Or does the tree’s soul

Take control?

After all

They were friends for so many years…

FL Black Vulture on my swamp perch

© 2017 Clarissa Simmens (ViataMaja)

IMAGES: Live Oak perch fallen in my swamp and FL Black Vulture on the perch in my swamp

 

SIBILANCE

 

Shifting wind

Storms of acorns

Still

Summer green

Spatter the overgrown yard

Sons of hunting black

Snakes

Sidewinding through

Sandy

Soil

Soon to brumate in burrows

Squirrels

Scamper in Live Oaks’ leaves

Swinging like trapeze artists

Snapping branches

Swaying canopy bisecting

Summer and Fall

Season of hurricanes dissipated

Staccato

Secret of winter

Swears acorn-rain

Signals the welcome coolness

Cyan

Sky by day

Stars visible by night

Cycling through constellational delight

Swan

Song of

Summer…

 

© 2016 Clarissa Simmens (ViataMaja)

I WAS ONCE A TREE

 

*Feel like I was a tree in a previous incarnation (and an amoeba, dog, and sundry other collections of cells)

 

I was a young adult tree

When chopped down

We all silently screamed

But somehow

Lying dying

I noticed that some were missed

My friend Adonis was one

A proud, Bosnian Pine

And now, scrolling through FB

In my newest incarnation

I recognize him

Being celebrated as the oldest living tree

In Europe

From the Pindus Mountains in northern Greece

And my previous life flashes through my mind

Back to times before the axmen came

And murdered us for nothing

Leaving us there to rot

While they picked some berries

From our leafy hair

Or snapped off twigs to build a fire

 

Before that

We all stood in the Spring dawn as the sap rose

From the roots to the tips of branches

We all stood in the Summer nights

Softly singing our tree songs

Only heard by the forest fauna

Who smiled and slept in our roots

And branches

We all stood in the Autumn afternoons

Hearing the crackling of our red and brown leaves

As hunters moved through the forest

We trees trying to shelter our smaller friends

Fated to be dinner for these men

We all stood in the Winter mornings

Grateful for the snow that kept us warm

Holding in the moisture where we burrowed into the Earth

 

I did not last long

But happy to read that Adonis is still the Guardian

Of flora and fauna and lost souls who wander

Through the paths

Lovers who shelter in his leaves

Adonis who was a seedling in Byzantium

Adonis as an Ottoman at the age of 500 Earth years

Adonis as a witness when Nazi Germany

Occupied Greece

I wonder if Adonis

Can live another thousand years

And if not

Who will he be

Reincarnated like me

Imagine all the knowledge

And wisdom

Contained in his brain

Manifested into one

Who this time can run

When the axmen

Inevitably come

Again…

 

© 2016 Clarissa Simmens (ViataMaja)

IMAGE:  Adonis, via Dr. Oliver Konter, Mainz

BEST OF BOTH

 

The wind sings different songs to us

In our special pageants of power

I feel threatened by yours

You feel contempt for mine

Or is it merely a projection

Of the sheltering tree’s longing

To fly far away?

The soaring bird’s longing

For permanent roots?

The bird needs to rest in the

Arms of the tree

The tree needs to feel the

Caress of bird’s feathers

Can a tree be content

With only her leafy hair flying?

Can a bird be satisfied

Temporarily sojourning

In the roots of a tree?

 

© 1992 & 2016 Clarissa Simmens (ViataMaja)

IMAGE: My Live Oak at sundown