For poet and fisher Chanda Jamieson, humble moments—spotting a bird feather on a trail, beachcombing for shells or savoring a piece of local fruit—serve as prompts for reflection. As we welcome the new year, we invite you to take a moment to absorb the beauty around you and create new rituals, anchored in Southwest Florida’s natural bounty.
A Feather Ritual
Take a walk; spot endemic birds. Stumble across a fallen feather, reflect on the bird and what it represents (great egrets—grace, purity, balance; cormorant—bravery, resourcefulness; blue heron—peace, presence), but please don’t take the plumes. Wild things are meant to remain in the wild.
In the thick of the Everglades,
I wait for the sound.
It has been a long winter,
the bald cypress
bare, until a sudden spring,
lime green darts across the canopy,
each tree flush with new foliage.
Young needles, soft as a feather,
appear as little stilts
perched on the edge of the edge,
finger-like, wagging in the wind—
a yellow-crowned night heron
settles on one of its branches,
quietly measuring his breath.
Bird belly and swampland
contract, expand,
rising and falling until the first rip of pink
appears in the sky.
Wind whistles past the needles
and pushes a rush of feathers
to earth.
I listen to the song,
one feather brushing another,
faint, ghostlike—
the wind itself scored like a drum
as a whorl of color
reveals a rookery.
Brown pelicans, great egrets and cormorants
hide among the heron,
breathing in turn,
their plumes now at my feet,
each thick with powder—
waterproofing as they preen.
We return each year, those birds and I,
to this same stretch—
its rambling docks and sawgrass,
its floor of sediment and silt
carried in on the surf, stretching for miles—
sea grass and driftwood,
oysters broken from their anchorage,
all welcomed into the maw.
The wind fades as evening comes on,
the creams and yellows of the bird’s soft plumes
now a fine mist—
moonlight across the channel,
little salt crystals shining in the night.
A Fruit Ritual
Seek out the farmlands, from Pine Island groves to country roads in Fort Myers and Naples; pick fresh fruit, born of this land. Savor the tart, juicy flavors. Think back to generations of growers living off the bounty; imagine a future with your kin indulging in the same.
We divide summer between us,
you and I, even in winter—
an Immokalee orange peeled like an apple,
one long spiral
then a spray of citrus,
as my hand and your hand
break open the palm-sized globe,
now two halves.
The Valencia drips to the ground
as a blossom rises.
The sun, and its grove,
pierces the landscape,
nourishing, full of heat,
squares of sunlight
everywhere and all at once.
The old folks used to say,
Even the alligators dream of oranges.
Farmland coursed across South Fort Myers
through to South Naples,
families compassed accordingly,
a sticky, sweet constellation of ladders and pick sacks,
crates bowled over, trucks mounded,
reaching for the heavens.
Many of those farms have disappeared,
their splendor now a shadow,
through which we step each morning.
We seek what remains—
those perfect pieces of tropicalia,
broken open like tulips at sunrise—
fences lined with passion fruit vine
and crabgrass, the paradise pinks
of a dragon fruit cacti
large enough to shade a house,
mangoes full and expectant,
grapefruit the color of a sun-bleached
terracotta floor, its flavor both
honeyed and tart, lemons
unabashedly sour.
Across the horizon, another remnant—
cabbage palms and rounded tangelo trees
line up in neat rows. Centuries prior,
the groves were less like orchards,
more like thickets—wild
with thin, sapling-like trees,
planted by the Seminoles,
the seeds acquired in Spanish trade.
I wonder,
when they peeled that first orange,
before it became two halves,
did they press their thumb to its center
and feel the sun
held in place?
A Shell Ritual
Gather the troops; set off toward the Gulf. Comb the beach, collect shells; admire their striations and shapes, feel their grooves and ridges. Consider the larger ecosystem contained in the palm of your hand.
There is an end to things, but not here.
The tide falls beneath the purple feet of dusk,
as the sun, in its dangling descent
calls in her children—
little currents down the horizon line,
breaking against ten thousand islands.
Salted soil and sand blanket the evening
as a stretch of seashells emerges—
slight gemstones pearling for miles,
scattered where once
they were mounded, shell upon shell,
across the soft side of the island.
My daughter, curious about what lives here,
picks up one shell, then another,
tracing each with the tip of her finger.
My mother, a Florida native, walks alongside her,
speaking of those first fishers,
how their nets dragged
across the island’s muddy banks,
its network of mangroves—
now clouds upon the water.
Junonia, I hear her whisper,
that rare spindle-shaped shell
named for the queen of the gods.
After each storm,
she searches for its cream-colored tile,
its mahogany dots
scrawled like some ancient language—
a dash, a revelation.
Heavy winds tend to stir up deeper mysteries,
she says, as my daughter
combs then shakes loose
another dream.
A Flower Ritual
Gardenias abound in Southwest Florida gardens. Meander through the streets, allow the flower’s scent to pull you in, let your fingers linger over the delicate petals. Think about loving hands tending the bush, steadfast and strong.
With the onset of spring,
which I might as well call summer,
colors are lifted,
freckling my backyard
with little white flowers—
the gardenias have returned.
Triumphant as a spray of orange blossom,
Naples neighborhoods
turned botanical gardens,
are awash in cream-colored flowers—
snowy clusters,
not absent of color,
but rather, drenched in it.
The bunches illuminate glossy,
emerald foliage—like morning light
picking up the edges of a room,
brilliant, springing suddenly
from the dark earth.
They yearn for the warm huskiness
of a Southern night.
The blooms hang heavy
like wild grapes on the vine,
their fragrance a fine vintner.
I allow myself one bloom
to twirl between thumb and index finger,
the fragrance spun into a frenzy,
strong and floral,
thick and intoxicating.
My body absorbs the perfume,
grounds itself in the moment,
while mourning the sweetness just out of reach.
Moon tears, that’s what the Greeks called them.
They believed the aroma could transport
a person to Elysian fields of paradise—
ivory whorls set upon ancient shards of jade,
each lost to the rapture.
South Florida gardeners speak of their difficulty,
yet plant them with fervor.
Listen to the blooms, they say. Give ’em heat,
and they’ll talk to you.
I bring the bloom to my ear
And for a moment, the petals widen.
