RAIN, MY MAIN SOURCE OF WATER

 

Wanted to live on the beach

Or by a traveling river

Would have accepted

A muddy creek

But not to be

So how do I cease the craving

For what I cannot have?

Substitution works

Instead of water rolling by

Part of the earth and the

Moon’s tides from the sky

How about the water

Dripping from above

Rain, so nice

Except when accompanied by

The overly-dramatic

Roaring thunder

Sizzling lightning

And often gales of wind

I worry about hurricanes

I worry about tornados

I live in a tin home

Yet the seas are dangerous too

Once got slapped by a rogue wave

Fell off my uncle’s shoulders

Four years old and floundering

(Pun intended)

On the ocean floor

Until he found me at the last breath

Once slipped off slimy rocks

In a stony creek bed

And limped for a week

Once ran from an overflowing river

During a no-name storm

Once hydroplaned on a flooded road

Into an on-coming lane

So what’s the big difference

Between that and rain?

Earth, Water

All the same

Danger to our sons and daughters

Yet loving, too

So I live by the water

It comes from the clouds

And when I endure each storm

I’ve a right to be proud

Adaptation

The key to survival…

 

© 2023 Clarissa Simmens (ViataMaja)

IMAGE: Cumulus Clouds before a storm 

AGRIPPA’S MAGIC SQUARE #175 VENUS

 

Earthy as feldspar

Beautiful avatar

Venus the Evening Star

Agrippa gives us his Magic Square

Use like a wish or a prayer

But do not despair

Venus is always there

Another planet of duality

Personality and carnality

Mother or Morning Star of Love

See a magician’s shining dove

Venus a sun-drenched star above…

 

© 2023 Clarissa Simmens (ViataMaja)

IMAGE: Modern Stars

 

 

SOL THE SUN MAGIC SQUARE #111

(Summer Sun Still Shines)

Here is the sun
To warm Mother Earth
A biological celebration
Mixed into a cauldron
Of light and dark
One dipper of Seriousness
To care for our planet’s worth
Plant the food needed
Harness our sun
For solar power
Heat our water
Run our modern machines
One dipper of Mischievousness
Turn over the cauldron
Spill out the fun
Onto our Mother’s flowing
Green dress
Bonfires
Dancing
Games
A life-affirming carnival
Because the darkness
Never lasts
Because the darkness
Eventually lightens for all
And it is up to us
To embrace it while we can…

 

©2015 Clarissa Simmens (ViataMaja), revised from Parallel Universe Café and Other Poems
IMAGE: Solstice Sun on my Live Oak

 

 

 

AGRIPPA’S MAGIC SQUARE #260 MERCURY

 

Call him Mercury

Call him Hermes

Either way

He is the Magician

The Trickster

Travel and Protection deity

Aiding our Memory and

Granting us Educational success

His Magic Square adds up to 260

But be careful when you use it

Always check for retrogrades

He loves to prank

What a mountebank

Dual, easily bored

Slipping through our fingers

Like the element of Mercury

Alchemists adored

As one of the important

Seven Metals

And way back

We children soon to be hippies:

Mercurochrome

Applied to all those cuts and bruises

And one day disappeared

Banned by the FDA

But being the trickster

It has reappeared

As Mercury-free

Healing under a

Thinly disguised new name

That’s our man Mercury

Respect his allure

His charisma will endure

But only call upon him when you are sure

He is tame…

 

© 2023 Clarissa Simmens (ViataMaja)

IMAGE: Agrippa’s Magic Square Mercury

 

 

 

AGRIPPA’S MAGIC SQUARE #15 SATURN

 

Here is the Earth card

In the second ladder rung

Representing Emotion,

A watery poem sung

Turning to Saturn

Protector, Grounder,

Earth personified

I daydream about

Life underground

Once believed to be ruled

By Hades and Persephone

Littering literature with

Drama and comedy

Dealing with all the dead

No matter good or bad

But we see the true underworld

Earth is like the Ocean

Hosting sources of varied life

Dirt and roots and worms

Delicious foods and yes

Water in all forms rife

Gifting every species

Above and below the ground

Including minerals and ores

Iron and crystals and

Diamonds and gold

Volcanoes grumbling

As fires burn

And tectonic plates shift

As in school we learned

Skeletons and Ashes

Those still loved forever asleep

Our tears into grass and sand seep

As we remember our beloveds and weep

What a place, below the surface

Grass and dirt merely shallow

As above, so below with   

Saturn quite generous

With never-ending benevolence…

 

© 2023 Clarissa Simmens (ViataMaja)

IMAGE: Saturn 4 in the morning greenhouse

 

 

SOL THE SUN MAGIC SQUARE 111

(Summer Sun Still Shines)

Here is the sun
To warm Mother Earth
A biological celebration
Mixed into a cauldron
Of light and dark
One dipper of Seriousness
To care for our planet’s worth
Plant the food needed
Harness our sun
For solar power
Heat our water
Run our modern machines
One dipper of Mischievousness
Turn over the cauldron
Spill out the fun
Onto our Mother’s flowing
Green dress
Bonfires
Dancing
Games
A life-affirming carnival
Because the darkness
Never lasts
Because the darkness
Eventually lightens for all
And it is up to us
To embrace it while we can…

 

©2015 Clarissa Simmens (ViataMaja), revised from Parallel Universe Café and Other Poems
IMAGE: Solstice Sun on my Live Oak

 

 

LUNA THE MOON MAGIC SQUARE #369

 

I've seen men walk across your face

Stabbing you with red-white-blue

Waving on a pointed pole 

I've seen you cloud-white in a daylit blue sky

I've seen you fat and thin

I've seen your sallow skin

No matter how dark the nights

You've wrenched blood from my body

Sanity from my sometimes-struggling mind

Caressed the beach with your tides

And been my poetic muse while I cried

You are so familiar, iconic

But you always retain the magic of your name

My Moon, Luna…

 

© 2019 Revised From Chording the Cards, Clarissa Simmens (ViataMaja)

IMAGE: Pre-dawn Moon

 

SPIRAL

 

Would need wings to see

The mega-shape

Beneath my booted feet

Impenetrable forest of decades

Blocking a return to the past

I finally spot

The path so clear

This is the year

It shrinks

And I recognize the swirl

A spiral, I think

A nautilus shell

A five-petal flower

A DNA twist and twirl

The core of creation

Crossroad with choices missing

Just the center of the curl

Waiting for me…

 

© 2023 Clarissa Simmens (ViataMaja)

IMAGE: Spiral 2

NEURODIVERSE ROMP*

REVISED FOR AGRIPPA’S JUPITER MAGIC SQUARE**

                           

I was so awful at Geometry

Although loving numbers and

The math magic of number 9

But here I am

Welcomed by the Magical All

And I wonder

If we on the Spectrum stepped out of Math

And into the reality of Neurotypicals,  

Wondered if our tribe would find

A benign but blind group

Who never roll their disdainful eyes

But do try

To accept

Our contact

How would that be...?

 

Then I sigh

Remembering Albrecht Durer's

Melencolia I

His woodcut always stuck with me

Because could swear he used my mother's face

As model for his sad winged woman

(My artist crush on Durer never displaced)

And I look at the Magic Square on the wall

Adding up to thirty-four

Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa’s came before

And the hopelessness

Of fitting the wrong number

Into a perfect Magic Square

And know we'll never really fit into

The Society we crave

The friends whose

Open or secret condescension

Surfaces when we try to behave

Exactly like them...

 

(c) 2018 Clarissa Simmens (ViataMaja)

IMAGE: 1514 A. Durer's Melencolia I / Magic Square / Mission Galactic Freedom

*This poem was originally written using the Mystical Magic Square as a metaphor for Neurodiversity (Autism) and having to labor to fit in, like the numbers.

 

Albrecht Dürer, Melencolia I, 1514 (nga.gov)

**A fine explanation of Melencolia (Melancholy) being connected to the artist’s creativity.  The article also mentions Agrippa, whose Magic Squares I am studying, and I tend to agree that Jupiter’s (AKA Jove = jovial) Magic Square is a good “cure” for finding humor and enjoying life, despite the artist’s melancholy creativity, at times. Note that Durer changed the order of the numbers, although they still add up to 34 horizontally, vertically, and diagonally.

 

 

 

 

AGRIPPA’S MAGIC SQUARE 65 MARS*

 

Mars is Fire

Ruled by Iron

Think of the blacksmith of time gone by

When the horseshoe hung between

Earth and Sky

(Although some dispute legs up or down)

Iron

Newest scientific theory:

Iron removed from magma

To form the continents we know today

But for us seekers

Mars protects us from

Injury, accidents, and enemies

Carry a magic square when fearing these

Or like me, just think 65

Or #11 Justice in tarot

Because 6+5=11

Or whatever your mnemonic will be

Mars reminds us to endure

To always be a warrior

Even in difficult times

And whatever your beliefs

Be sure to practice self-care

So we can nurture loved ones too

Remember how good life is

No matter any wrongs

And always try to remain strong…

 

*Adding numbers vertically, horizontally and diagonally = 65

 

© 2023 Clarissa Simmens (ViataMaja)

IMAGE: Agrippa’s Magic Square 65 Mars

 

 

 

 

PUMPKIN BLOSSOM (CUCURBITA PEPO)

 

What a beauty greeted me

In my tiny, plastic greenhouse

Vines and blooms and bee-captivating

Gourds planted in April

Holding my breath

They’ll be ripe and ready

For Halloween

Not much folklore available

Although Native Americans and Japanese

Have some nice tales

But I adore gourds

I dry them and make

Maracas

To accompany me

While I scratchily

Sing my joy

And now I have grown one

Don’t know if it will go full term

What with hurricane season here

But hard not to smile

At the bright yellow star

Springing from dirt

Hoping music will soon

Be part of my day

No luthier am I

But proud of growing

A rhythmic addition to my

Earthy life….

 

© 2023 Clarissa Simmens

IMAGES: Squash Blossoms from my Greenhouse