Tuesday, March 1, 2022

A Tall Glass of Water and Three Blood Oranges - new poems in California Quarterly


The seasons in California are so different from the seasons in Poland. It is hard to get used to, and I always feel bewildered, not just delighted, when citrus fruit ripens on my trees in January and February, so I have a juicy supply of Vitamin C and other essential minerals until at least May if not longer.  Pink grapefruit, blood oranges and mandarine - first fruit shines in yellow and orange among dark green leaves, then the trees will bloom in April, filling the garden with incredibly sweet fragrance. The lemon tree blooms and gives me lemons year-round, so it is not as surprisingly extraordinary as the other trees. 

I celebrate their gifts every morning and wonder why "pink" grapefruit and "blood" orange if they are the same hue inside? 


FROM MINIUM CHRONICLES

               ~ for my children


A tall glass of water and three oranges, 

three blood oranges from a tree I planted

ten years ago in my Sunland garden.

 

A tall glass of water... Am I a lump of clay

that's returning to Earth? Ashes to ashes?

The journey's done, nothing remains?

 

Am I a star of unsung brilliance hidden in a fragile body –

learning, collecting wisdom of limitation, before 

my triumphant return to the glory of timeless Now?

 

Am I saved? Redeemed? Do I need a Savior? 

Am I my own savior, perhaps? What is true?

What is real? Ashes to ashes or light into Light?

 

A tall glass of water and three blood oranges

for breakfast. I'm grateful for the knowledge 

they impart. What I am. What I'm made of.

 

The abundance of rain and sweetness of sunlight

fills the fruit with fragrant, rosy juice, under

the soft, pliable rind – so lovely inside and outside.

 

A fruit of the earth, air, water, fire nourishes me

with elements. The fruit I made that now makes me  

full of morning happiness in the winter rain. 

 

Soothing patter of raindrops on the patio roof

assures me that questions do not matter,

answers do not matter either. 

 

It is the NOW of breathing, of tasting that

slightly tart, refreshing orange I grew, a jewel

I add to the beads of memories I keep.


~ Maja Trochimczyk, January 2022

Published in California Quarterly 48:1, Spring 2022



A garden is a shelter, a hermitage, and an oasis of peace and beauty. I have always preferred spending days in my grandparents' village homes than in Warsaw, full of cement, grayness and armies of red tulips in the spring. The chaos of branches, grasses, bushes, the lovely baby blue sky with white puffy clouds overhead - the buzzing of bees and birdsong. I was able to reproduce this beloved landscape of my youth here in California. Not exactly, in some ways missing the mark - no family here, no Polish language or birds - in other ways even better, with astoundingly beautiful hills and intense sunlight, bringing out colors from the sky, trees, flowers. Colors of intensity unheard of in Poland, where, so much further north, everything is subdued as if a dose of melancholy was poured into each color, each flower, each leaf. 


But life surrounding and sustaining us is as vibrant here in California as there in Poland. As vibrant, as life-giving as oxygen that trees make and we breath, as fruit that used to be cherries, apples and pears, but is not orange, grapefruit and pomegranate.  Blueberries from the forest, strawberries and raspberries growing by the fence - these are missing, my two American blueberry bushes are not doing well in dry California desert heat. But if we focus on the life of each leaf and petal, the vibrant hues and vibrant energy that they bring, we might forget the chaos and nonsense of cities, full of pollution, aggression, aggravation, and pain.


Maybe because of the brilliance of California sunlight, I like so much to write poems about light, light without and light within, shining, shining, shining...

"Diamonds in the Stream 1" by Maja Trochimczyk


 PRACTICAL ADVICE FOR A FRAZZLED PASSER-BY

 

When you reach the nadir of darkness—

shine.

 

When a stranger pushes you on a sidewalk

say, “Sunshine, smile”—and shine again.

Think of the hand of a newborn resting in your palm,

five fingers smaller than the smallest of yours—

a miracle coming into being.

 

Glow

with the tender infinity

of diamond light flowing out of your heart—

your best kept secret—you are the sun, the ascending spiral

of timeless presence—embodied wisdom—infinite charm—

the trinity of loving-kindness—the living crystal

constantly reborn, outflowing from the reservoir

of divine grace you did not know you were—are—

dazzling brightness—sparkling, twirling

in an aetheric waltz of nascent cosmos

that comes into being in you—

through you—

with you—

 

Say YES

so it comes—comes—comes—

again—

 

~ Maja Trochimczyk

published in California Quarterly, 48:1 (Spring 2022)


"Diamonds in the Stream 2" by Maja Trochimczyk