Farmer’s Market Collage

An ordered cacophony of colours; tomatoes, melons, berries.

Burgundy carrots spooning green wrapped golden corn; gnarled roots and silk fringed ears,  embracing misshaped potatoes piled in tubs.  

Garlic scapes entangle with piles of saffron and emerald marbled squash; purple onions, and stalks of celery and kale. 

Riots of tints and hues; fruits and beans, beets and greens, apples, grapes, and plums. Yellow cheeses and berry pies, piles of funghi, loaves of bread compete by touch and scent. 

Bottled jellies, pasta of every shape; sauces and spices, peppers and herbs waft booth to booth meeting coffee, tea, cider; sizzling sausages,  and frying dough. 

Zinnias, roses, dahlias, and sunflowers; freesia, gerberas, and mums; choose a bouquet or stems. 

Ronda R. Scott-Marak

5 September 2020

Cornucopia

Friends, Family, Hot baths, comfortable breezes, good books, calming and enlivening music, security blankets, birdsong, beauty, love, life, laughter, soothing rain and warm sunlight; virtual and near conversations, real and distant hugs, smiling eyes under shields and over safety masks; grace under unimaginable pressures, and gratitude for survival. 

Ronda R. Scott-Marak

© 26 November 2020

Forward Together

(dedicated to the Café)

When We all take each other’s arms, hold each other tightly, raise each other, and keep each other together, none of us can fall. 

Our connections, linked minds, hearts, and arms, will pull us back up unless someone drops back and leaves us all to tear each other back down. 

Ronda R. Scott-Marak

© 8 January 2021

Unresolved Chord

A Nomad in No-Man’s Land;
A walker in a warzone, paddling through Life’s puddles.

A Rider on the rainstorm;
A Flier over barren fields, or at sail atop an empty sea.

What happens next is on the tip of the tongue;
Seeking…

Discord or Harmony?

Ronda R. Scott-Marak
© 5 January 2021

Box of Wonders — Box of Love

(dedicated to Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee)

When the leaves are gone,

there is still a tree beneath with the beauty of the silhouette

and the variegated textures and colour of the bark.

Under the grey and stormy clouds,

the sky is a canvas of blue; hues soft, bright, tinted by sunrises or sunsets

or dark, midnight blue with the glimmer of distant lights.

Below the water, the sand and rocky sea-beds expose treasures with each low tide; 
a colourful mosaic of scattered shells, aquatic lifeforms, rocks, driftwood, seaweed, 

and wave-polished glass.

Inside a rough, misshapen orb of characterless stone, a crack reveals a glittering rainbow;

a hollow displaying a geode of gemlike beauty within.

We animals have minds and souls

of wit, love, beauty and strength within our flesh, fur, feathers, and skin.

Our bones are strong, our brains brilliantly control our hearts, nerves, senses, and breath;

no matter how our exteriors appear, we are individually beauty and love.

We know when we open a package that the container might be prettier than the contents. We might not find the hoped-for answer to our desires within the gift-wrapped box, or the anticipated joy when opening the item just delivered at our door.

That doesn’t mean that there isn’t a treasure to be found within each living thing, each experience, each sight, sound, fragrance, touch, each new flavour experienced, every new stranger met, or lessons learned.

Open each “Box of Love” with love; Life is full of wonders to be opened and savoured.

Ronda R. Scott-Marak

© 12 December 2020

Solstice

 

Holly and Ivy, Comfort and Joy

Mistletoe, wassail, a shiny new toy

Carolling, harmony, Yule log aflame

Letters all written, does His list have your name?

Rime on the windowpanes, ice on the eaves

Hoar frost on tree branches naked of leaves.

Bonfires on hilltops cajoling the Sun,
Candles in windows guiding the One.

A wren for the Lady, a stag for the Lord,
Morris Men leaping with bells and wood sword.

Hobbyhorse in the nursery, Hobby Horse on the Green
Rocking the little ones, bowing down to the Queen;

Green boughs and berries, shoes by the door
Harvest’s last bounty, Winter winds roar.

Warm crackling hearth fires, bright twinkling lights,
Protecting our dreams through the long Winter’s nights.

Peace for a Blessing, For a Prayer, Gods’ speed

Dark Winter to Spring’s thaw, strong growth from the Seed.

Ivy and Holly, our lives a wreath-wheel

The Seasons a Circle, each New Year the Seal.

Ronda R. Scott-Marak
© 11 November 1999

Uplifted and Grounded

(for Karyn Kedar)

Life is an Alchemy of Spirit;
We are created, and there is a vessel that transforms us.

We ascend, reaching out to ourselves;
Reaching back in reflected wholeness.

Even when our physical selves have returned to stardust
We remain: our thoughts, our deeds, our actions, our creation transformed

Ronda R. Scott-Marak
© 10 October 2020