A House Plant With Literary Roots

I recently found in a manila file folder a copy of an e-mail my late friend, the poet Velma Reeb, sent to me in August 2007.

"How is Little Philly?" she asked. Little Philly is the name she gave to a philodendron cutting she took from the house plant she called Big Philly. "The original Big Philly was my friend Alma Stone's plant," she wrote. I'm assuming that Velma's Big Philly was at one time a cutting from Stone's plant.

After giving me instructions on how often to water Little Philly--"Water weekly only; spritz with water mid-week or every few days"-- she described who Alma Stone was. She was "a fiction writer ("The Harvard Tree" and "The Bible Seller")" who "wrote up into her 80's, and died a few years ago in her 90's! In fact, her work can be found on the public library shelves. She won a national award for one short story." The award Stone won, according to Velma, was the O. Henry Award.

These literary works as well as her other papers are housed at the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center at the University of Texas, Austin. The location of her papers is fitting because she was a native Texan, born in the east Texas town of Jasper in 1909.

P.S. Fifteen years later, I still have Little Philly. I placed it in my bathroom window, where it receives a lot of moisture and sunlight.

Two Prose Poems Set In Greece

The following poems were written by Velma Jean Robinson Reeb.

"For the Shepherd at Amorgos"

He wears part of one of his sheep upon his back, a skin for a water bottle and a gray sheep calls him from the rocks above but he does not heed now for he speaks with the monk, a singular word or phrase, just momentarily before picking up again his staff and turning eastward to the road where it meets all the landscape on the way to the village. But he is not village-bound. His is the life of mountains to climb, bells ringing from the necks of his sheep, the sheep with whom he lives the life he loves, his own life, one he inherited, he does not disturb the landscape of water, mountain, sea, and air. I remember my surprise at his youth and handsomeness, his figure only slightly bent. He is so different, this real shepherd, from the ones in books.


"For a Greek Woman Watching the Sunset"

She sits, her dark head turned towards the light that fades in the West, fading gently, slowly, but never failing, only ebbing its way toward its destination, this light, this colored light and the woman waiting patiently, looking, lost in the world of that light, not hearing the shriek of Western music jarring the sunset as the ferry boat plows through the little waves, a little ferry boat in a timeless sea; no horizon and no destiny. There is only the sunset.

Velma Jean Robinson Reeb, a former Upper Manhattan resident, now resides in Portland, Oregon. She briefly lived in Greece with her son.

Epyllion

(Note in a travel guide: "Here in Naxos, the village, as is true of all the [Greek] islands, is to be found atop the highest mountain peak.")

Why did they come here, here to this barren, unyielding mountain top? The cliffs are so steep. How did they get here? Which leader of which seafaring tribe called out: "Here we shall settle. Disembark. Bring your tools. Climb the mountain after me. Here shall we be safe from pirates from the shore below. Here shall we build our lives and bear our children"?

                                                                 ---Velma Jean Robinson Reeb

Reeb, a former resident of Manhattan's Upper West Side, now resides in Portland, Oregon. For a brief time, she and her son lived in Greece.



Merry Christmas to all the readers of this blog!

Visit To Poros

I am beginning to understand the young college woman [my son] Joey and I met in Poros. She has haunted my imagination. She was there and could not leave nor could she (did she wish to) learn the language. She was protected, accepted, and safe. The Porosians gibed her for not making more of an effort to learn Porosian Greek and for wishing to sleep with her door open to relieve the heat at night.

She was a lovely girl and sat all day at the coffee house where George, the proprietor and her boyfriend, picked up some English from her. She said she wanted to return--rather, felt impelled to return--to Connecticut, home and college the next autumn, but for now was content to sit on Poros.

I remember her lovely long black hair, beautiful eyes, and chubby figure. So young, so wise, and perhaps, so weary. She'd come to Poros in the spring--at Easter time when a solitary re-colored egg is given one and all to commemorate grandly the Resurrection, and she had never left.

Two or three ferry boats came by daily; otherwise, nothing happened on Poros, sun and sea eternally. I often wonder if she ever left and how she feels if she did not--and how, if she did. Surely, she came in search of a family, this child from Upper Exurbia, New England, and she found a ready one. But she was silent, except to speak with American and French tourists, only to guide them to rooms or restaurants.

George spoke "hallow" and "Go right on block. Ask for manager." He was proud of his English, very Greek, dark, black-eyed, and lean. He had a not-disgruntled, but rather sinewy, stern quality about him. He disliked and at the same time depended upon the seasonal tourist trade. A young man bred of Poros. Closed-in, trying hard to keep out the world that had found his island, loving by night a lovely dark-haired American girl, keeping her in check by day, at once proud of and a little afraid of this stranger from across the sea, sharing all there is without many words.

                                                                             ---Velma Jean Robinson Reeb

Reeb, a former resident of Manhattan's Upper West Side, now resides in Portland, Oregon. For a brief time she and her son Joey lived in Greece.


                                                         
                                                                   * * *

Today is Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day. As you may know, in 1941, Japanese war planes bombed Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, sinking ships and killing and injuring many American sailors. This led to the United States entering World War II.

For The Monk At Amorgos

He is magnificent, this monk, this Greek Orthodox monk in finery, so severe on his horse matching his will and grace and soul, one with him, placing his black-booted foot into a stirrup.

I seem to remember just the gaze of his clear eyes set in a handsome face; you dare not ask to take his photograph; and could you anyway capture such a fierce spirit on a Kodakcolor slide?

Souls cannot be trapped on print of any kind.

                                                         ---Velma Jean Robinson Reeb

Reeb, a former resident of Manhattan's Upper West Side, now resides in Portland, Oregon. For a brief time, she and her son lived in Greece.

For The Ticket--Watcher On The "Marilena"

He dozed over his work; it was a role he played, a whole lifestyle built on directing people from third to second class, telling third classes who entered, wittingly or otherwise, second class, to go back "go back and be where you must be, where you were destined to be when you boarded this ferry boat. I have your ticket. I can read it. This ferry boat is mine. This is where you belong. I have your tickets."--from Sonnets of Love by V. J. Robinson Reeb; edited and published by Michalis, (c) 2003, Velma Jean Reeb (published in Nicosia, Cyprus).

On The Road To Patra

The bus breaks down on the road to Patra and the signpost is not easy to decipher. We wonder why the bus should stop at this particular, nothing-like place, with only one directionless signpost and not even a Coca-Cola stand to let us know we are in the West. The driver, as one girl tourist tunes up her guitar, disembarks to fetch some extra petrol he's carried for just such emergencies. We are locked in space and time, feeling only the hum of mid-summer all around, caring little if the journey continues or if we remain there, together, with each other and the summertime.
--from Sonnets of Love by V.J. Robinson Reeb; edited and published by Michalis, (c) 2003, Velma Jean Reeb (published in Nicosia, Cyprus).