Black Sage Seed Buttons Witness the Sunset

 

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Season of Spiders

       

Season of spiders

Arachnid moon

cycle spinning anew

I bring a curled dry dead one 

in from the garden

in my hair

I chase a long quick one

with a Mason jar

She's gone, too fast for me

I kill or relocate depending on

how near I feel to my Buddha nature

They say our proximate distance

from a spider

is never more than three feet

at any one time

I endure occasional bites

in my bed

They say humans are more afraid

of spiders than death and dogs

This year's annual invasion

is more poignant and personal

How dare they interrupt my grieving

- remind me that time is passing.

This season sees me reworking

the pattern of my web

Busy in night dreams

attaching fresh fine filaments

Daytimes I try to find the center

feeling new possibilities radiating out

You never see a spider sharing its web

no parties or community potlucks

solitary - they live, trap, manifest

independent and alone

We all must dwell for a while like this

then carry the current contemplation

in from the garden

in our hair

Melissa Rissman

2012

Journal in the Ashes

 My personal journal showing the last couple sentences on 8/18 about packing an emergency go-bag for possible evacuation. Today’s poem was inspired by the weird rouged light this morning. You can see the tiny ash particles that have been falling for a couple days on the dry leaves in the yard.

Journal in the Ashes

Smoke Blushed Fog

Morning is draped in foggy blush

drunken over-colorized rouge

Too much, everything’s too much

COVID, wildfires, raining ash

The day’s very greeting light

and happy hour scrims hysterically gold

Eastward crow’s caw muffled

in atmospheric confusion

their westbound flight to shrouded home

I trusted nature for answers

like a wise braided grandmother

On closer inspection Granny’s corn woven blanket

infested by swarms of moths

My heart breaks as she shivers in her once resplendent cloak

I wake and go to sleep

swirling in numb dread

staving off bad news

manufacturing any kind of distraction

Because it’s all too much

Will we ever again sit around 

star canopied fire rings?

I yearn for ancient drumbeats

true north constellations

So now I must invoke sage and cedar

Remember tree seeds pocketed

in an old rainy day coat

Listen for my ordered heartbeat

my grace given breath

knowing nature

Will prevail

September 9, 2020

Youthful Optimism - Been There

 

Sunset Western Garden Book climate zones

In 1970, Paul and I were part of hopeful conversations with friends and other young hippyish folks whose mantra was “go north” from LA county. Some were going to Oregon and buying land. We didn’t have the money and held the dominant attitude by young people at the time that we wanted to change how things were, but we were outsiders. We set our sights on finding somewhere we could start a U-pick-em fruit tree farm. Using the Sunset Western Garden Book climate zones and The Teachings of Don Juan: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge as guides, we targeted zones 14 – 16 as desirable. We got a reality check on our first scouting foray – most of that land just off the coast was owned by large ranches. This reinforced our boomers’ sense of “outsider” and that our dream might be unattainable.

 

The second scouting trip I took alone. While checking out the local health food store in San Luis Obispo for possible jobs, I found a card on a bulletin board (this is the way things were done before social media) for a small house to rent in the coastal hills. I met with our future housemate and found exactly what we were looking for! Paul and I made the move to share a house on 5 acres with an established organic vegetable garden, room for our beehive, 8 hens, 10 fruit trees in pots, our 1950 Ford pickup truck, and roaming room for our big German Shepherd. Yes, cart before the horse. We were young.

 

We had been together for 8 years; the Torro Creek mailboxes were situated at a split in the road; we took the right fork. 6 months later Paul fell in love with a woman down the left fork, and I took up with the eventual father of my daughter. Go figure! Paul took the fruit trees, beehive, truck, newly pregnant girlfriend and dog to New Mexico. I sold the beehive and moved in down the road to what was known as the Big House where Steve lived with 6 other folks who worked the organic garden and established fruit trees, a free running creek outside our door with a swimming pond in the summer. We formed a loose family, and I still feel bonded to those people 40 years later.

 

Today, I see similar youthful optimism with visions of organic cooperative farming, and say to myself, “been there, done that.” While I wouldn’t dissuade the current crop of youth to pursue their visions, I just wish they’d seek some advice from the elders who have been there.

Inoculation for the Unknown

Inoculation for the Unknown

 

Preface: Picture 6 year olds lined up in the 1950s, lipstick #s drawn on their chests waiting for polio sugar cubes. Baby baby boomers organized with vestiges of WWII military efficiency.

 

I’m not crazy about vaccinations

But get ready for your inoculation

Hold on to your zen pillow

Here and now

 

There are no controls

get comfortable walking on ball bearings

you want black and white

but everything is grey

with loose ends

Relax with the unraveling

the unknown, transitional, transcending

get friendly with letting go

leveling up

outside the box

 

Melissa Rissman

written January, 15, 2016, but still works 4 1/2 years later

 

Mini Mid-Summer Thunderstorm

 Mini Mid-Summer Thunderstorm

Rumble riding in from the Pacific.

Waking me with disoriented questions -

Neighbors banging on my door? Earthquake?

Do I need to be on alert?

 

Out the door I see a telling slate sky,

dusty August foliage needing a shower,

and cloud commas scudding over dry dunes.

Barometric pressure skews the norm.

 

Nature’s reassuring embrace

shadowing the populated land.

Negative ion infused droplets tap out

paltry percussion on vibrating milkweed leaves.

 

To the north, four vultures hunch patiently

atop the dead cypress tree – prime hilltop lookout

normally occupied by Redtail hawks.

How odd – my alert-antennae still up.

 

But the rain-for-a-minute is over.

Thunder, miles past us now.

Cypress treetop emptied, traffic sounds resume,

salty breeze luffs my hair.

 

Melissa Rissman

Oceano

August 13, 2020

I'm often compelled to capture an unusual atmosphere, which lead to this poem.