The Declaration of Independence for this Summer

poets laureate smile

in stars and stripes - 

day of independence

It was so much fun to ride in the Independence Day Parade. Let's not call it the Fourth of July - it means nothing, just a calendar day, but "independence" - there is a lot of meaning in this little word.

village poets declare

independence day

for poetry in sunlight 

Here's the full text of the U.S. Declaration of Independence passed by the thirteen states on July 4, 1776 from http://www.ushistory.org/declaration/document/

IN CONGRESS, JULY 4, 1776

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America

When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. 

But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. — Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

• He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
• 
  
• He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
• 
  
• He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
• 
  
• He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their Public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
• 
  
• He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
• 
  
• He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected, whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
• 
  
• He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
• 
  
• He has obstructed the Administration of Justice by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.
• 
  
• He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
• 
  
• He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.
• 
  
• He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.
• 
  
• He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.
• 
  
• He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

• For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
• 
  
• For protecting them, by a mock Trial from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
• 
  
• For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
• 
  
• For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
• 
  
• For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury:
• 
  
• For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:
• 
  
• For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies
• 
  
• For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
• 
  
• For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

• He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
• 
  
• He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
• 
  
• He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & Perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
• 
  
• He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
• 
  
• He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these united Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States, that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. — And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.

New Hampshire:
Josiah Bartlett, William Whipple, Matthew Thornton

Massachusetts:
John Hancock, Samuel Adams, John Adams, Robert Treat Paine, Elbridge Gerry

Rhode Island:
Stephen Hopkins, William Ellery

Connecticut:
Roger Sherman, Samuel Huntington, William Williams, Oliver Wolcott

New York:
William Floyd, Philip Livingston, Francis Lewis, Lewis Morris

New Jersey:
Richard Stockton, John Witherspoon, Francis Hopkinson, John Hart, Abraham Clark

Pennsylvania:
Robert Morris, Benjamin Rush, Benjamin Franklin, John Morton, George Clymer, James Smith, George Taylor, James Wilson, George Ross

Delaware:
Caesar Rodney, George Read, Thomas McKean

Maryland:
Samuel Chase, William Paca, Thomas Stone, Charles Carroll of Carrollton

Virginia:
George Wythe, Richard Henry Lee, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Harrison, Thomas Nelson, Jr., Francis Lightfoot Lee, Carter Braxton

North Carolina:
William Hooper, Joseph Hewes, John Penn

South Carolina:
Edward Rutledge, Thomas Heyward, Jr., Thomas Lynch, Jr., Arthur Middleton

Georgia:
Button Gwinnett, Lyman Hall, George Walton

white stars in indigo night

white stars at sunset 

crowned with independence at noon 

stars and stripes

everywhere

all in red, white, and blue

For me this day is especially meaningful, as my Mom died when I was riding in the parade in 2013.

the poets car

moves through

bright streets of Sunland

She loved to have fun, dress up, and celebrate. So she would have loved the fact that I was celebrating independence, as she was being liberated of her past, leaving the burdens behind.  When I have fun in the Parade every year, it is also on her behalf. Here we are, picking leaves in the Kampinos forest near Warsaw, in mid 1960s:

Sunday afternoon 

dressing up 

to pick leaves in the park

This photo reminds me of my love of trees, my beloved cousins on this planet. With a friend I was planning to create the Planetary Church of Plants, with one stated goal of protecting and planting trees.

Before it comes into being, here's my Declaration of Inter-dependence...

My Declaration 

I am a sovereign citizen​ of the galaxy

My heart goes out​ to the mountains​.​

My feet grow roots​ in the light​.​

My eyes touch​ heavenly stars​.​

I breathe gold air​ of goodness​.​

I drink lucid​ water of joy​.​

​Nourished by divine affection, 

I thrive, ​l​inked ​to all living beings​ -​

​snow crystals, seeds, ​trees, and sunlight​.​

​In ​harmony,​ we sing the chorale​ of dawn​.​

I choose to love all,​ live in love​.​

I am a sovereign citizen​ of the galaxy​.​

Adam wants my hat 

celebrating

stars and stripes forever

Poets Laureate at the Pasadena Lit Fest - May 21, 3:30 p.m. at Zona Rosa Alley by Pasadena Playhouse

Altadena Poetry Review Presents

SIX POET LAUREATES: SPREADING POETRY LOVE 

Poet Laureates from the 2016 and 2017 Altadena Anthologies will be the Featured Poets on our Pas LitFest panel at the Zona Rosa Alley, next to the Pasadena Playouse, in Pasadena on SUNDAY, MAY 21, 2017, from 3:30pm-4:45pm. Five Laureates will present their work:

-- Elsa Frausto
-- Marlene Hitt

--Mary Langer Thompson

--Radomir Vojtech Luza

--Maja Trochimczyk

--Thelma Reyna

 

Pasadena LitFest will be on May 20 and 21, with multiple venues and lots of great poets and writers to hear. Visit the website of the LitFest 2017 for details, check out the schedule, or read the bios of the poets and writers.  

ELSA S. FRAUSTO

Elsa Frausto passes the Poet Laureate's Laurels to Pam Shea, April 2017

Originally from Buenos Aires, Argentina, Elsa is a bilingual poet. She has been active in local poetry events as coordinator and host, most recently with “Wide Open Readings” at the Sunland-Tujunga Library. Her book of poems--Sunland Park Poems (Shabda Press), which she co-wrote with Alice Pero--was recently published. Elsa was Poet Laureate of Sunland-Tujunga in 2014-2017.

MARLENE HITT

Marlene Hitt is a Los Angeles poet, writer and retired educator with local history

 as an avocation. She has served for many years as Archivist, Museum Director 

and Historian at the Bolton Hall Museum in Tujunga. She is a native Californian

 and a graduate of Occidental College. She also studied at CSUN, USC, UCLA, Glendale

 College and Trinity College, Ireland. Her work appeared in Psychopoetica (UK), Chupa 

Rosa Diaries of the Chupa Rosa Writers, Sunland (2001-2003), Glendale College’s 

Eclipseanthologies, two Moonrise Press anthologies, Chopin with Cherries (2010), 

Meditations on Divine Names (2012), and Sometimes in the Open, a collection of verse 

by California Poets Laureate. She published Sad with Cinnamon, Mint Leaves,and

 Bent Grass (all in 2001), as well as Riddle in the Rain with Dorothy Skiles, and a stack 

of chapbooks for friends and family.

The first Poet Laureate of Sunland Tujunga (1999-2001), Marlene Hitt was honored as the 2016 Woman of the Year by the Congressman Adam Schiff and her name was entered into a congressional record.

https://www.moonrisepress.com/clocks-and-water-drops-by-marlene-hitt.html

Clocks and Water Drops - Poetry Collection by Marlene Hitt

Published in May 2015. 118 pages.  ISBN 978-0-9819693-5-0, $15.00

This collection of poetry includes 73 poems divided into sections on: Children, Marriages, Portraits, Neighbors, Seasons, Small Things, Passages, and Farewells.  The title captures the poet's fascination with the flow of time, as relentless and powerful as drops of water that can shape rocks and move mountains. 

RADOMIR LUZA

Poet Laureate of North Hollywood, CA, Radomir is a Pushcart Prize Nominee and author of 30 books. His poetry has been published in over 80 anthologies, literary journals, blogs, websites, newspapers, magazines and other media. The SAG/AFTRA/AEA actor is also a stand-up comedian, theatre critic and host/curator of reading events around the country.  He edits and publishes the literary magazine, VOICES IN THE LIBRARY, through Red Doubloon Publishing.

                   

THELMA T. REYNA, Ph.D.

Thelma T. Reyna’s books have collectively won eight national literary awards. She has written four books: a short story collection, two poetry chapbooks, and a full-length poetry collection, Rising, Falling, All of Us. Her fiction, poetry, and nonfiction have appeared in literary journals, anthologies, textbooks, and regional media for over 25 years. As Poet Laureate in Altadena, 2014-2016, she edited the Altadena Poetry Review Anthology: 2015, as well as the 2016 anthology, which was the Winner in two national book competitions in 2016 (Anthology category). She was selected as a “Top 10 San Gabriel Valley Poet, 2016” by Spectrum Publications. She is also chief editor/publisher at Golden Foothills Press, based in Pasadena. Visit her site at www.GoldenFoothillsPress.com .

MARY LANGER THOMPSON, Ed.D.

Mary Langer Thompson’s poems, short stories, and essays appear in various journals and anthologies. She is a contributor to two poetry writing texts, The Working Poet (Autumn Press, 2009) and Women and Poetry: Writing, Revising, Publishing and Teaching (McFarland, 2012), and was the 2012 Senior Poet Laureate of California. Her first collection of poems, Poems in Water, was published by Green Fuse Poetic Arts of Loveland, Colorado in 2014, and she is working on a second collection entitled “It’s a School Night.” Her children’s book How the Blue-Tongued Skink got his Blue Tongue was recently released by Another Think Coming Press. A retired school principal and former secondary English teacher, Langer Thompson received her Ed.D. from the University of California, Los Angeles. She continues to enjoy conducting writing workshops for schools, prisons, and in her community of the high desert of California.

MAJA TROCHIMCZYK, Ph.D.

Maja Trochimczyk, Ph.D. (McGill’94), is a poet, music historian, and photographer born in Poland and living in California. She published six  books on music (After Chopin, The Music of Louis Andriessen, Polish Dance in Southern California, A Romantic Century in Polish Music, Frederic Chopin: A Research and Information Guide, and Lutoslawski Legacy), six books of poetry (Miriam’s Iris, 2008; Rose Always, 2011; Slicing the Bread, 2014; The Rainy Bread,2016; and Into Light, 2016) as well as  two anthologies, Chopin with Cherries (2010), andMeditations on Divine Names (2012). She also published 17 book chapters, 26 peer-reviewed articles, and hundreds of essays and poems that appeared in English, Polish, German, French, Chinese, Spanish and Serbian translations. A recipient of ACLS and SSRCC post-doctoral grants, and many honors for the promotion of Polish culture, she taught music history at the University of Southern California and ethics in jail. She recently received the 2016 Creative Arts Prize from the Polish American Historical Association. She serves as Secretary and Communications Director for Polish American Historical Association and was the Sixth Poet Laureate of Sunland-Tujunga in 2010-2012. In 2008, she founded Moonrise Press. More... or visit the website:  www.trochimczyk.net

http://www.moonrisepress.com/into-light-by-maja-trochimczyk.html

Into Light: Poems and Incantations 

This poetry and prayer collection presents 35 poems and 12 "incantations" that focus on the intertwined spiritual concepts of Light and Love. The poems, initially written within the Catholic mystical tradition of contemplation and adoration of the Divine presence, gradually evolved to encompass a broader scope of spiritual insights, without losing the main focus: reaching out in Love to the One Light, the Source of All. The simple and repetitive meditations and incantations are meant to inspire, uplift, and fill the heart with Light and Love. 

Available as a Paperback with 82 pages in a standard trade size 6' by 9' (ISBN 978-0-9963981-8-3, $10.00), Full Color Paperback, in the same size, ISBN9781945938030 ($30.00) and as E-Book in the EPUB Format, ISBN 978-0-9963981-9-0, $8.00).

http://www.moonrisepress.com/the-rainy-bread-by-maja-trochimczyk.html

The Rainy Bread: Poems from Exile by Maja Trochimczyk

This volume includes 30 poems about forgotten stories of Poles living in the Eastern Borderlands of Kresy, who were killed, deported, imprisoned, or oppressed after the invasion of Poland by the Soviet Union on September 17, 1939.  These are depictions of survival of other Poles deported to Siberia, the Arctic Circle, or Kazakhstan; who left the Soviet Union with the Second Corps of the Polish Army under General Władysław Anders; were transported to refugee camps in India or Africa; and ended up in Argentina, Canada, Australia or the U.S. The book is a companion to “Slicing the Bread: Children’s Survival Manual in 25 Poems” (Finishing Line Press, 2014), with which it shares some poems, including vignettes from the author’s childhood in Warsaw, permeated by the strange rhetoric of the Polish People’s Republic, yet still overshadowed by the war.

ISBN 9781945938009, paperback, 64 pages, $10.00

ISBN 9781945938016, eBook, $8.00

Celebrating Poetry in the Poetry Month - April 2017

VINCENT VAN GOGH ANTHOLOGY

The Mulberry Tree by Vincent van Gogh at the Norton Simon Museum in Pasadena.

THE MULBERRY SONG

~ after van Gogh’s Mulberry Tree at the Norton Simon Museum

I am the mulberry tree, ablaze with color
before the last day of autumn

I came into being in a flurry of brush strokes
on a cardboard, under the azure expanse of unfinished sky

turquoise – into cobalt – into indigo
green – into chartreuse – into amber – into gold

buds into blossoms – into fruit – into earth
to fall – to fall not – to end – to end not –

to begin

The brightest star, an ancient supernova,
I am aglow but for a moment

I outshine reality with artifice
exploding off the canvas

paint – paintbrush – swansong

leaves of the earth – ripples in the stream – crystals in the air –
aflame, all aflame

I make magic of the mundane shape of the world
sic est gloria mundi

it is – it will be – it is willed to be –
once captured in a frenzy of light, becoming

time transfigured into swirls of awareness
crystallizing at the edge of oblivion

I am the mulberry tree – I am the alchemist tree –
let my song fill your day till it glows –

become pure gold with me

(C) 2016 by Maja Trochimczyk

Published in the Van Gogh Anthology, Resurrection of a Sunflower (2016), this poem will also appear in the Westside Women Writers anthology since it was created during one of the group's workshops.
It is one of three poems inspired by various art works by Vincent Van Gogh (along with "Into Light," and "Azzure"), that are included in the anthology, edited by Catfish McDaris with Mark Pietrzykowski, and published by Pski's Porch. The book, Resurrection of a Sunflower,  includes nearly 600 pages of poetry inspired by Van Gogh's art.  It appeared in the spring of 2017 and a hard copy will be deposited at the Van Gogh Museum in the Netherlands. 

The Anthology is now available on Amazon.com

ALTADENA POETRY REVIEW - ANTHOLOGY 2017

One of the largest and most enjoyable annual Poetry and Cookies event was held on Saturday, April 26, 2017 at the Altadena Public Library. Edited by Altadena Poet Laureate Elline Lipkin and former Librarian and director of the Altadena library, Pauli Dutton, the Altadena Poetry Review Anthology 2017 includes hundreds of poems by numerous local poets. There are so many poets in this volume and so many want to participate in the reading, that, with one poem assigned to each poem, the reading lasts from 1 p.m. to well over 4:30 p.m. its scheduled end time.

Photo by Susan Rogers

I submitted poems about the traumatic experience of Poles deported from Eastern Polish lands (now Belarus, Ukraine and Lithuania) by Soviet forces, starting with deportations in 1936 to Kazakhstan, and continuing through the war to 1943 when the deportations to Siberia and southern-Asian Soviet Republics continued, to end with over 1.5 million Poles forcibly displaced, deprived of their property and homes, and over half of them dying as a result of this ordeal.. My poems, included mostly in The Rainy Bread (Moonrise Press 2016) commemorated the victims and celebrate the resilience of survivors. 

One of  them, painter and visual artist Julian Stanczak, lost the use of his right hand in the Soviet gulag, but recovered his spiritual self in a refugee camp in Uganda where he started to draw. After arriving in the US and studying painting, he became one of the most important emigre painters of Polish descent, a co-founder of Op-Art, and a very significant contributor to American abstract art. I'm reprinting the poem here since Stanczak died last month. You can see more of his art on his website: JulianStanczak.com

Painting by Julian Stanczak

 ≡ UNDER AFRICAN SKY ≡

                         ~ to Julian Stanczak, painter extraordinaire

— amber and coral —

— ruby and carnelian —

He looks at the brightness of the African sky.
The blazing sunset above the plains of Uganda
His eyes follow the pattern of light and shadow 
on the savanna’s tall grass. Dark lines cut 
into light on the flanks of a zebra —
he thinks of a donkey back home, 
transformed by the extravagant, geometric 
boldness of stripes, shining bright —

blinding his eyes, used to Siberian darkness
in dim interiors of musty prison huts —
he admires the play of gold and bronze inside 
the tiger’s eye — a stone his teacher gave him
for protection and good luck. How it shifts 
with each turn, different, yet the same —
lines upon lines of light.

The richness stays under his eyelids
as he twists and turns the tiger’s eye
in his one good hand, left — while the other, 
a useless appendage, hangs limply 
since the beating in a Soviet prison camp. 
Shattered, like his dream of music,
the honey-rich tones of his cello.

He finds a different-flavored honey
in the richness of African sunsets,
the stripes of the tiger’s eye.  

He captures the undulating lines
and blazing hues on majestic canvas, 
moving in the rhythm of wild planes 
out of Africa, into fame.

— amber and topaz —

— gold, bronze, and light —

— so much light  —

(C) by Maja Trochimczyk, 2016, published in The Rainy Bread: Poems from Exile.

Op-Art Painting by Julian Stanczak

The celebration of poetry at the Altadena Poetry Review reading and publication party included meeting lots of old and new poetry friends, as shown in photos below. 

                                          With w wonderful poets: Dr. Mira Mataric, Judith Terzi, and Dorothy Skiles. 

Wth Beverly M. Collins, author of Mud in Magic

Selfie with Kathabela Wilson, poet and artist extraordinaire.

Selfie wtih Susan Rogers, and Kathabela Wilson.

Selfie in hats, with Charles Harman, dressed in a costume for his poem.

PASSING OF THE LAURELS 2017

On Sunday, April 23, 2017, at the McGroarty Arts Center (7570 McGroarty Terrace, Tujunga, CA 91042) a celebration of poetry took place - the ninth such event in 18 years.  The local poetry and cultural community participated in the Passing of the Laurels 2017 Ceremony, with Elsa S. Frausto, the Eighth Poet Laureate (2014-2017) passing the laurel wreath and the poets' heart to Pamela Shea, the Ninth Poet Laureate of Sunland Tujunga, selected to serve in this voluntary and prestigious post for the years 2017-2019. Along with poet Joe DeCenzo, I served as the host of this event, selecting poems for the program, reading my own, as well as presenting some of the distinguished guests. Here's my poem, following the view from the McGroarty Arts Center's window.

View from McGroarty Arts Center, photo by Maja Trochimczyk

TODAY

We are a miracle of life

We do what we want

We want what we do

We are perfect

We are a cosmic tree

We grow by the calm lake of light

Its smooth opal surface

Reflects the sun’s smiling face

Our roots drink liquid light

Our crowns sparkle with stars

Our leaves are green with peace

Our flowers are gold with joy

Our fruit is ripe with wisdom

We are a living miracle

We are perfect

From noon to midnight

From midnight to noon

We love what we do

We do what we love

We are – We shine

We are one with One

We are perfect

(C) 2017 by Maja Trochimczyk (A version in first person plural - "we" -  of a poem originally published in Into Light, 2016, the original version was in the first person singular - "I").

Hosts, Joe DeCenzo and Maja Trochimczyk, with Pamela Shea and Elsa Frausto

PASSING OF THE LAURELS 2010 and 2012

In 2010, Joe DeCenzo passed the laurels and congratulations to me when she became the Poet Laureate, and in 2012, he shared with her many congratulatory scrolls from government officials.

Joe DeCenzo with Maja Trochimczyk at the 2012 Passing of the Laurels Ceremony. 

At both events, I read a poem that I wrote specifically for my Passing of the Laurels ceremony in 2010. I was so delighted to be honored by so many people.  Here's the "What I love in Sunland" poem that is still true today, seven years after the original event. 

What I love in Sunland

1. The strong arms of the mountains

embracing, protecting our town.

2. Lights scattered in the night valley

during my drive to the safety of home.

3. How clouds sit on the hilltops

squishing them with their fat bottoms.

4. The river playing hide-and-go-seek under the bridge

to nowhere: "now you see me - now you don't"

5. Towering white glory of yucca flowers in June - 

we are Liliputians in Giants' country.

6. The mockingbird's melodies floating above

red-roofed houses sleeping on sunny streets.

7. Armenian fruit tarts sweeter than fresh grapefruit

and pomegranate from my trees.  

8. Hot simmering air, scented with sage and jasmine,

carved by the hummingbird's wings.

9. The rainbow of roses, always blooming 

in my secret garden.

Even though my Laurel Wreath is long gone, I'm still writing poetry that praises the life and beauty of the foothills. 

With Joe DeCenzo at the 2010 Passing of the Laurels Ceremony.