50+ Lifestyles

Max’s Musings

By Max Molleston

This summer has had some challenges with the land, and other aspects of our lives. Late in June, I walked out of an air-conditioned building into the afternoon heat. Said to myself, “This doesn’t feel like it did in 1988,” a very hot, very dry year. Not as stifling hot, of course. All life demands water, even those big old cactus plants in the southwest United States. For one reason or another, I was reminded of part of the poem I wrote for the church service for mom back in 1999. She died at 92, a farm girl all the way. The third stanza is like this…..

Your ruralness taught you, Helen Ellen,
values of hues of green and brown and blue,
guiding your life and ours as Scripture
guides the multitudes.
In the middle of America
we are not framed by skyscrapers
and concrete, to block those color tones.

A new publication of poetry, “Mortals, Nature, and their Spirits,” composed by a long time friend in the skill, Salvatore Marici, and he likes and uses Sal. Marici, a professional with the earth, plants of all kinds, and the sky as a bulwark, in his career as an agronomist for the Corps of Engineers. I knew his poem Divine Design long before it was published here. He worked on it in a couple different groups where poetry is read, reviewed and changes might be recommended.

Divine Design

She lets earthworms crawl in her,
then lets them fertilize her.
smells like soil just tilled.
fosters growth of seeds we sow in her.

She chills us in her winds.
brings us relief in her breezes.
howls in the trees.

She burns blue where flames start,
burns orange where flames stop.
cooks our food over embers glowing red.

She falls from the sky,
washes skin,
quenches thirst,
She glistens, hangs,
then cracks branches after freezing rains.
She ripples in streams
erodes jagged rocks into soil.

We sense her balancing the soil, air, fire and water.
foster awareness in the midst of her divine,
cast one circle around each self and the four elements
she designed.
draw on the pentacle to quide
and keep our destinies alive.

I hope you were aware of the readings Sal conducted of poems in his new book, during July. Keep an eye to arts messages that spell out where Sal may be reading, or for that matter, where other poets and authors gather to read aloud.

In a state and region where commercial crops make sense and make thousands of livings, we are concerned about what is green and brown and blue, and what is not. Wow, it is now state fairs, then opened school doors receive known and new students so young lives and their learning search begins.

Join me and my words and poets learning searches renew in September. Until then, good tidings.