BAXTALO POGACHA LUNARELA

(Bread Harvest, Lammas)

 

In days of old

Farmers and field hands

Scythed their way across fields

In failing light

Deities on clouds

Or today, flying drones

Would see what appears to be

Between the waving grain

Miniature Grim Reapers

Robes and coats flapping

Moon glinting off the

Sharpened tools

Harvesting the grain before fall

Romani working alongside

Land-owning farmers

And dogmatic villagers

Yet, grain was the equalizer for all

In this country, said my Gran

August 1^st was called Lammas

Although we just called it

Pogacha for bread

And Lunarela for Harvest

Luna means moon, I’d said

In my childish, show-offish way

Yes, but the important thing

Is to fill up your bags

With flour

Because nothing is more important

Than bread

But we need Vitamin C

I said

Having just read

Some whaling ship story about

Scurvy and limes

And protein like eggs and fish

Bread! Gran interrupted

All that you mention is true

But they are like decorations

On a Christmas tree

The Bread is the tree

Central to all our recipes

Bread fills the soul and the belly

Bread can be decorated

Like a tree

With meat or egg or jelly

Roll it around fresh blueberry

So today, we celebrate

By baking Pogacha

As for me, you see,

I am now older than Gran was then

But once again

I am baking Pogacha

From Rye and Whole Wheat

With slivers of almonds

Pressing round balls in

The flatbread maker

How marbleized they look

Crooked

Yet delicious

And I say

Thank you for the bread today

And most of all

May there be no one hungry

On this Earth…

Baxtalo Pogacha Lunarela!

 

© 2023 Clarissa Simmens (ViataMaja)

IMAGE:  Crooked Flatbread

 

 

 

IN MY 18-YEAR-OLD ROOM

 

Old photo album

Surfacing like a piece of the Titanic

So many decades

And here’s a snap of

My old South Philly bedroom

 

Dad’s little grocery store

Enabled the buying of Mom’s

Dream home in Jersey

Enabled the buying of my

Dream bed with a canopy

But as Dad said

As supermarkets took over

From the corner groceries

Everything comes a little too late

And yes, the family curse, I can relate

Always a bit too late

For me, too

 

So back to South Philly we go

It was good, loved it there

All my best friends, coffee house hangout

And loads of bookstores

With a City Lights section

To buy black and white paper copies

Of once-banned “Howl”

And all those other Beat Poets

 

So my dream canopy bed was stuffed into

A tiny room where like Paul Simon and

The Beach Boys

I told my secrets to

And being autistic

I had days

Where I touched no one

And no one touched me

 

So take a look at it

I was a so-called artist

And “painted” those pictures

I was a so-called folk singer

And strummed that guitar

Wanted a picture of Che

But Mom said no communists

And bought me her heartthrob

Marlon Brando

Yeah, he looked cool when young

 

If you zoom in on the picture

You’ll see a charcoal sketch of me

When I was seventeen

My main hangout was the Cage

But the owner of the Artists’ Hut

Liked me

Taught me how to run the espresso machine

And a wandering artist sketched me for free

That picture wound up in the fire

Long story

But it’s me

Thrilled as can be

Turning seventeen

And almost pretty

 

Came full circle

I think it’s called

Periodical Repetition

And that’s what I’m doing

All those decades later

Strumming ukuleles

Writing poetry

But instead of painting I’m

Growing stuff to eat

Instead of Brando or Guevera

It’s pictures on my phone

Of sons, granddaughter, and dogs

Circularity

It’s all good…

 

© 2023 Clarissa Simmens (ViataMaja)

IMAGE:  In My 18-year-old Room

 

 

 

BOOTS OF EMBROIDERED FLOWERS

An Earth-centric sympathetic poem (flowers walking the earth)

 

Dylan wrote about boots of Spanish leather

Left his woman and sailed into some bad weather

Don’t know if they ever got together

Me? Love flowers like roses and heather

 

I’m traveling alone through the world

My hair silver but humidity-curled

Each state has their flags unfurled

At night the stars are Van Gogh swirled

 

Hard for a lone woman to stay safe

Especially small and looking like a waif

Hoping there will be no sudden sky strafe

But at least my boots do not chafe

 

Carrying a wayfarer’s rune      

Stepping through a sandy dune

Fire crystals and a silver spoon

Hurrying through the late afternoon

 

Boots of embroidered flowers

Help me tramp these long hours

As I move among the world give me power

To protect myself like a stone tower

 

Mek te kerdyol kadya! Let it be so done!

 

© 2023 Clarissa Simmens (poem and photo)

Photograph © 2023 Embroidered flower boots and ukulele