Easter, Roses and Liquid Opal - Poems for the Spring...

 

Bench under the cherries in Descanso Gardens, 2014.

The spring is the time of change of generations. So many people are dying. So many babies are being born. Wave after wave, humanity persist on the discovery of what's possible when dealing with matter, nature, life on this planet. So being a part of one wave of humanity, we never know when and how the end will come. Do we? We never know if the angels that watch over us are benevolent or maleficient... We, frankly, don't know anything about anything, or, to put it differently, know nothing about nothing. We just stumble in the dark, trying to make the best choice possible, catch a sunray while we can...

Easter Apocalypsis

           ~ After "The Discovery of Heaven" by Harry Mulisch

It is coming. The angels know.

They dwell in their Piranesi castles,

twisted spaces where outside

is inside. They are not indifferent.

Not too smart for their own good.

Not cruel. They don’t tell us.

The end is coming, it is near.

Not death, mind you, not that

ugly spinster without its twin.

No. The end of the end. Finis.

The satin fabric of a wedding dress

trails behind the veiled beauty

as she glides towards her beloved.

The river’s end tastes of salt

in its own mouth, opened widely

into the waves of the ocean.

Nothing we can do will stop it.

Just stretch your fingers,

let the water cool your skin.

Why resist? Heraclitus

dipped his toes in this river.

Shape-note singers praised it.

Saints dove in and swam around,

luxuriating in incandescent glories

that passed us by.

The end is coming, flowing

swiftly down the slopes.

Let’s sit on the porch, doze off

in honeyed sunlight,

before it, too, disappears,

transfigured.

Let us believe there will be

light enough inside us - 

that kindling of kindness,

a half-forgotten smile -

to keep us afloat in the final flood

coming, coming to erase the world

and remake it, anew,

bejeweled.

(c) 2011 by Maja Trochimczyk, published in "Heaven and Hell" issue of The Scream Online.

I recently sent a translation of this poem to be published on the Pisarze.pl porta in Poland. The set included a new, original Polish poem that the editor did not select, so I translated it into English and placed here. 

A Rose Is a Rose

Petals, petals, petals,

keep falling, falling, falling,

free, sleepy, fragrant –

rosying, more rosy than the rose,

until only a stem, a dry stalk with thorns 

remains in place of bright blossom.

So it is in life - day after day

hours flow away from now into 

sometime distant, a long, long time ago –

when the southern sun shone 

pure gold in vibrant blue,

a long, long time ago –

before enemy planes turned 

the sky into a gray soup

of chemical poisons 

and the earth into a fallow field 

of aluminum dust in which  

Monsanto grains grow alone.

A long, long time ago

a flower opened into a rose

above all roses, a flower of one day

as beautiful as my life –

unique, original, without flaw

Years passed and I collect petals,

petals of memory – In words I cover

the faded skeleton with a vivid robe

of memories of kindness, love, joy –

and the petals, petals, petals

that keep falling, falling, falling

more rosy than the rosiest of roses 

(c) 2025 

The two favorite paces of mine are my garden, where my roses magically boom, and open spaces with ocean waves and hills on the horizon.  I take my kites for a walk  on the Oxnard beach or in the mountains, and look up at the astounding, vibrant sapphire sky.... 

Liquid Opal

I took two butterflies for a walk –

two colorful kites soaring above me 

while the ocean waves licked my toes and tried to 

tip me over so I’d roll down the soft, sandy slope into 

the seaweed meadows and kelp forests beneath. I would be happy

in the eerie  underwater light of aqua and aquamarine, 

the ocean whisper assured me.

Yet, I resisted, sinking deeper 

into the wet sand, holding onto my kites 

that floated overhead and pulled me up into the sky, 

the pristine, vibrant expanse of the azure. Endless peace.

No sorrows and no secrets. 

I look at the filigree patterns 

of seafoam lace, shifting playful shapes. 

Endless invention. The slowly setting sun colors

the ocean surface with metallic hues of titanium, nickel, chrome 

and liquid opal, changing with every wave, every wisp of the breeze.

As evening falls, the waves rise higher,

intersecting, crashing into each other, revealing 

their underbellies of pure, translucent jade, before 

disappearing  into the opaque beige of the sand, mixed with 

frothy water into an infinite, salty cappuccino.

The ocean caresses my legs 

and dances around me in a joyous display

of seduction and delight. I sigh and surrender.

Today, I found my Beloved on the beach,

in waves of liquid opal. 

From the Canyons to the Stars - No, not about Messiaen

If you never go to any classical music concerts but love art and painting, find some time to listen to Oliver Messiaen's monumental suite From the Canyons to the Stars (Des canyons aux etoiles...). This is cosmic mysticism set in sound, maybe the most powerful and inspiring work of music composed in the second half of the 20th century. Not "easy listening" music... one should say "awesome" - if that word did not shift its sphere of significance to somewhere quite distant from "awe." But you have to find a concert hall where they play this surreal assemblage of wind machines, birdsong, horns and instrumental chorales. This song of praise arises from the orange slopes canyons in the American west (the Bryce Canyon and Grand Canyon were two inspirations) to the starry skies and beyond.

Here's a visual interpretation of the first movement, Le desert, posted on You Tube by JeeRant two years ago. I found only the recording of the third movement, What is written in the stars (Ce qui est écrit sur les étoiles ), possibly uploaded without copyright clearance. Listen at your own peril! There are many versions of the sixth movement for the solo horn called Appel interstellaire (Interstellar call) posted by ambitious horn players the world over. You can listen to it on your tiny loudspeakers, but to have a full experience of the otherworldly music, you need to go to a real concert with live musicians, such as the one by Ensemble Intercontemporain in Athens, Greece.

My canyons and stars are found in poetry, not sounds. I document things that catch my attention in short occasional poems that have no pretense to "Great Art" - these poems are pages from a personal, intimate journal. They capture impressions and reflections from my peregrinations through a southern California landscape, a place of beauty unparalleled in this world or any other.



Only in California

The desert is rich with the noise
of our ghost river, suddenly filled
with mocha cappuccino, a swirl
of white frothy foam on the surface.

Chuparosa and sunrose blossom.
The moving white spot of a rabbit’s tail
disappears between sticky snapdragons
goldenrod and pearly everlasting.

The last red leaves tremble on the tips
of tree branches. The liquid amber
is bare; the gingko, no longer golden,
a skeleton waiting for summer.

One by one, scarlet star-shapes fall
onto the bright green carpet of new grass.
The shoots of narcissus and hyacinth
peek through the weight of dead foliage.

Puffy pink clouds surround the disc
of the moon, shining on the smooth
turquoise. Seasons melt in a day.
The sun smiles at the audacity

of this preposterous, beyond belief,
one and only, California spring.


My dear friend artist and poet and a person extraordinaire, Kathabela Wilson, has lots of great ideas, one of them asking poets to write about gardens and parks. The following two short poems were inspired, respectively, by the Pasadena garden of Jean Sudbury and Vance Fox, and by the Arlington Garden in South Pasadena, planted in the vacant lots that await the construction of the extended 710 freeway. I saw both gardens in the middle of the summer last year, and what a summer it was!



Time Lapse Garden

Arms of the agave
Stretch out to the sky
Waving in slow motion
Trying to stop the train of time
From moving on and on and on
Past fluffy two-color roses
The madness of cactus spikes
And the hammock swinging
Seductively in the shade
When Jean goes by




The Golden Hour

The mockingbird leads a chorus
of orioles, black phoebes, bluebirds,
finches, juncos, and ruby crowned kinglets.
The buzzing you hear is not dangerous,
these are Anna’s hummingbird’s wings.
Birds crowd around the fountain,
water droplets scatter on sandy path.
The afternoon sighs with relief.
All is well and all shall be well
in our garden at four o’clock.

From the desert, to the gardens, to the skies... An image quite different from these photos of leaves captured my attention when I was working on the materials for the most recent meeting of the Polish-American society that I lead, the Helena Modjeska Art and Culture Club. The meeting took place at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, and the Polish-American engineers showed us the sublime beauty of cosmos and the allure of space exploration. Entitled "Cosmos - The Real Poetry," the evening was as educational as it was entertaining. I got some photos for the program and the blog with its description; the beauty of cosmos, indeed.



Cosmos

green rings around a red heart
sing in the darkness, sing
and blossom

light waves dance across
millions of years swirling
within black matter

the stars are born
the stars are dying
dying

green clouds around red suns
bloom in the vastness, bloom
filling the void

clusters of galaxies
expand, crush and collide
the ages turn

before me — beyond me — through me

a spark of cosmic fire
I float upward to the unknown
glow of the timeless “yes”

the stars are born
the stars are born
brightness

______________________________________

I find one constellation especially fascinating. Orion, the Hunter. It is not as clearly visible in Poland as here, in California. It dominates the winter's sky above my home and inspired the following love poem of starry skies.



Orion

I saw you
in his contours, when I looked up,
coming home from a late Christmas party –

My Orion, my bright
hunter crossing the night skies
with a bow strung for action.

Smooth skin shines over broad shoulders,
the three-diamond belt
adorns the narrow waist.
You are a constellation of beauty.

But a seraph? A fallen one?
They say he is “Shemhazai” – the angel
who fathered giants,
lured by the silky faithlessness
of golden hair,
the tresses of seduction.

He crucified himself,
hanging upside down in the winter sky,
remorseful, still guilty of desire.

It fills you to your fingertips
when your hands join together
at the small of my back
and you pull me closer.
I taste the salty drops
of your sweat on my lips.

Swathed in the midnight blaze
I’m waiting for the double helix
of our embrace to twirl
higher and higher,
into a brilliant, fluted column
of light

rising to pierce the indigo cupola
where the stars of Orion now sleep
immutable and content
in their silence.


© 2010 by Maja Trochimczyk

__________________________________________

Photo of Thor's Hammer formation in Bryce Canyon National Park, Southwestern Utah, USA. Photo by Luca Galuzzi (2007), uploaded from Wikimedia Commons.

Photos of California (C) 2010 by Maja Trochimczyk. Poems "The Golden Hour" and "Time-lapse Garden" were published in chapbooks by Poets on Site, edited by Kathabela Wilson.

Photo of nebulae and stars by NASA/JPL, courtesy of Andrew Z. Dowen.

Photo of Orion over Utah's Arches National Park by Daniel Schwen (2004) from Wikimedia Commons.

My Sky - A Poem of Found Images

I like seeing light in the world, permeating little things, enchanting. I notice its presence with a child's wonder, seeing the world for the first time, as if it did not exist before I looked. Raindrops on leaves are an endless fascination. There is nothing as happy as the grass, covered with dewdrop diamonds in the morning after a short summer rain.

In one old children's poem, shape-shifting clouds take the forms of endlessly changing desserts, stacks of cakes, ice-cream, whipped cream... Unlike the hungry, boy dreaming of sweets, Dyzio Marzyciel (The Dreamer), I don't see food above my head, only magic. The transformation of our world from the profane, ugly and boring to the sacred, saturated with quiet charm may happen anytime, anywhere.

In an instant, I see footsteps of the Greek goddess, Demeter, in another, I am moved to inhabit a painting... It takes just a bit of effort, after eyes are washed of the unwanted images of distress, chaos, pain. I still remember that stain of blood on the sidewalk in Venice, left after a suicide. I still see faces distorted by hate. I want to erase these memories with raindrops on rose leaves.

Some of my roses have impenetrable surfaces, keeping the raindrops round, jewel-like. Other ones absorb moisture in an instant, the drops spread out into amorphous blobs and disappear.

My life, my words, may be one or the other, visible or invisible, remembered or forgotten. I do not know what will happen when I'm gone. Now, this is my time to write, to record the beauty I discover. I am a witness to what I want to see. I could write about the rotten cans and layers of graffiti marring the landscape of the riverbed, and that rusty jeep that was sitting on the shore for years, gradually losing parts to the homeless, selling it off, bit by bit for scrap metal. OK, maybe I'll write about that jeep and the homeless. I already started, but that poem is still unfinished. Too dark, maybe? Too hopeless?

Today, it is time for something sweet. Isn't Halloween the day for treats?

MY SKY

A Poem of Found Images by Maja Trochimczyk


I live inside a painting
by Rene Magritte.


My river is made of silver,


my sunsets of tiger stripes.


I make my own rainbows.


My roses sing in the morning


to a sweet tune of water droplets


playing on the edges of leaves.


Spherical, crystal-clear globulets


of white light adorn each green surface,


like a handful of diamonds scattered


by Demeter, the goddess of plenty.


Water shines in full sunlight -


a child's memory, innocent and pure -


glistening before the breeze stirs,


droplets fall and petals begin their journey


crumbling into dust.