August Tales from the Garden and the Sea

My garden is a refuge and a source of endless delights, even without a side fence removed for the month-long, very noisy construction of a neighbor's swimming pool next door.  The bees in the crape myrtle tree sound almost like those of my Grandma's - from her linden tree. The birds are busy flittering from side to side of the garden, drinking water or picking on my green grapes. The rabbits - yes I have two wild rabbits, or rather wild hares living in thickets under the bushes - nibble on grass blades in the shade, hop around to explore, stop to look at me with the black beady eyes, somewhat curious, but utterly unafraid. They trained us, humans, well, these hares. The dog next door guards them from coyotes, the kids give them carrots. Perfection!  I tried to write a poem about the hare, but it turned into a short story...

When I go out to the front porch in the morning, I am startled by enormous white wings of the great egret spreading out right in front of me. The stream in the wash dried out. We do not poison our yards with toxins. Egrets, hares, and a flotilla of birds come over to eat and drink, enjoy the mini-Eden... Did I mention that there are plenty of bees? Mason bees?

Mason Bees

I share my roses with the mason bees –

Iceberg leaves they like the best, cutting

circles and ellipses from the edge, inwards.

 

Iceberg roses, not iceberg lettuce, mind you,

that’s far too crunchy to make soft beds, wrapping

bee babies in green, white or pink silkiness,

 

smooth and pliable like we ought to be, smiling

under the merciless gale of time, raging river

flowing backwards, always backwards.

 

I used to get angry looking at my mutilated

roses – white blossoms, a defense against evil

guarding my front door like bee soldiers in the hive

 

ready to sacrifice their lives – just one sting

and the miniature fuzzy warrior’s gone – having

lived just to protect and serve us, the worker bees,  

 

buzzing around our lives, cutting circles and

ellipses in white roses. Bees and humans, we are

all children of the Queen Bee, Gaia, our Mother.

 

We make honey of our kindness, virtues, character

wisdom, self-reliance. Attentive, focused on the next

perfect circle, semicircle or ellipsis – we breathe deeply,

 

delight in drinking nectar, carrying pollen of emotions,

sights, impressions – flying back home to make the sweetest

gold, translucent honey of our poems, of our dreams.

 

Published in the California Quarterly 47 no 2 summer 2021

On Thursday Afternoon

Your voice outside my window –

deep, calm flowing inexorably like a river

towards the future we will not know until 

we look back and the past and say:

So that’s what you meant. So, that’s what it was.

Understanding the whole of the whole

that encircles us in a glowing sphere of 

emotions – forgiveness, radiance, joy

of the fleeting moment, The present.

The golden line of a mockingbird song 

weaves in and out of time – I follow

its ornamental thread into the present – 

space opened up by gratitude

blossoming in a smile. 

Sparrows in the birdbath, jet planes

in the sky, hummingbird’s wings, 

the dove’s shadow passing over the lawn

and chimes playing endless variations

of the same melody over and over

until all time ends and we are back

in that singularity beyond all spatiotemporal 

emanations, back in One Love of One 

Mind, One Will, One – Us.

On day trips to the beach, I see sea-gulls, pelicans and sand-pipers when I walk along the sandy expanse. It is the waves and the water that I'm most interested in, the endless soothing rhythm, the untamed energy.  Life itself.  The light that scatters on the surface, the play of the elements - earth, water, air, wind, fire...

The Glow of Forgiveness

Like a mountain stream over rocks,

wearing them out droplet by droplet,

forgiveness flows inexorably to its 

dissolution in the blessed serenity

of living waters of the presence,

knowledge, charm. 

Infinitely self aware and infinitely grateful,

you the forgiving one are also forgiven – 

all limitations removed, all rubble of past 

misfortunes cleared to reveal a smooth expanse

of  sunlit ocean – gold and silver, topaz and jade 

with a sprinkling of diamonds shimmering 

on glass smoothness, scattering around you 

as you float on the surface, resting beyond 

sorrow, beyond pain, beyond time.

I wrote Aquamarine a while back and sent to Carole Boyce, she liked it and included in the "Blue and the Blues" anthology that she published in January 2021. It is a wonderful anthology, and I'm pleased to add some shades of blue to its rainbow.

Aquamarine

lucid

          lucent

                      translucent

                                waves of the Pacific 

 jade, turquoise, aqua

sea foam                in the air                

                sea foam             on my skin

I dance on the currents 

       floating with the relentless motion

          to the shore 

                          to the shore

                                             to the shore

sea foam           on my skin

           sea foam                    in the air

Aphrodite comes up from the ocean

               carried on a dazzling shell by dolphins  

                                                      the wisest of creatures

lucid

            lucent

                              translucent

fizzy bubbles on my tongue – 

                        I swim in the champagne ocean

Salt of the Sol – sunshine of vitality

                                   I praise the elemental power of Water –                                                   

Air – Wind – Earth – Fire

                                     always Fire – ogień, Agni

eternal flames stir the waves 

          into dancing 

                    to the shore 

                             to the shore 

                                        on and on

                                 to the shore

                                                              to the shore

                                                                          to the shore

(c) 2020 by Maja Trochimczyk

Published in "Blue and the Blues" anthology edited by Carole Boyce

My Favorite Wildflowers in California - A Photo Essay (Haiga Sequence)

When spring stretches its days and falls into the hot weight of the summer, it is time to visit the heroic blossoms of the chaparral  yucca, reaching up to the sky, against all odds.  This flower, so abundant in the valley where I live, is a survivor on the go. The plant with thin, blade-like spiky leaves (with extremely sharp tips, like needles), sends up one thick stem that grows and grows and grows until it starts unfurling a cascade of white flowers, off white maybe, ivory or cream, and the whole valley fills with these gigantic candle-like blossoms. Then they go to seed and die, and the seeds sprout anew nearby and a new flower points at clouds, and the cycle continues...

in a green desert 

yucca blossoms open -

a skyward ladder

tall yucca blossoms

point to cloudy desert sky -

magic without rain

spring desert delight

coconut and whipped cream  -

yucca whipplei

sharp spikes and shadows

the silver galaxy of yucca leaves -

enter at your peril

the magic of symmetry

moves in a blur of  lines

into yucca's heart

a blue jay in the blue sky

watches the world go round  and round

from the flower top 

serene after sunset -

aqua, fuchsia and violet sky

pierced by whiteness

flower triplets 

born of sand and rocks 

reach for the sky 

this dot is the moon -

prim yucca patiently explains

to disheveled clouds

yuccas at sunset -

spikes and blossoms unfold 

against the dark

here it is 

my yucca on the tip of my finger

in my valley

My other favorite flower grows here and there in the wild, but it is also planted in garden. This is the white and yellow poppy growing on two meter tall stems with silvery green leaves: The Matilija Poppy (Romneya coulteri). I like it so much, I put it on the cover of the anthology, Meditations on Divine Light. It does look like a sun with a corona of light, and  rays, doesn't it? Or maybe the ballerina, or Marilyn with her skirts floating on the hot air from the subway vents? But certainly not an egg, surely not an egg...

breeze lifts the skirts

of a shy ballerina -

Marilyn reborn

the thrill of frills

unfurling from a tight ball

into a sunburst

petal and clouds

float above my head - I squint, 

flooded by sunlight

Hello, Ms. Bee

we both love gold nectar and honey -

I eat yours

...but then, there other flowers growing in the wild, including the rare Plummer's Mariposa and the Humboldt Lilies (Lilium humboldtii) photographed high up in the San Gabriel Mountains by Kristin Sabo. Both lilies are endemic to Southern California and extremely rare. 

Plummer's mariposa

discovers the triune symmetry

once again

wild mountain lily -

fuzzy geometry of dusk

in three petals

twin jellyfish  -

lilies swim through the sunset

to the night's ocean 

And, of course, there is an abundance of flowers, not so wild, in Descanso Gardens, starting from an forest of camellias, imported from Japan and bought by Mr. Boddy from a Japanese nursery at the time of deportations in the 1940s.  I wrote about those camelias already and even made a collage of the Sunbloom, with a white corona and golden rays:

camellia stamens

dance, twist, wave, turn

seeking the sun

ever calling - never heard

ever seeking - never seen

revealed

  

http://poetrylaurels.blogspot.com/2013/01/happy-new-year-2013-with-sunbloom-and.html

But would there be flowers, if there were no leaves? We had visited the sharp spikes of the yucca already. Here are some wet leaves in the rain in Descanso Gardens. I do not know what they are, but sure they shine brightly, like polished jade.

smoothed by raindrops

emerald leaves stretch and sigh -

a green heart of spring

line after line -

the elemental breath exhales 

oxygen into air