Marshland Magic

Bright sunshine cast the sharp, dark shadows of leaf-barren trees across the landscape, but the warm air hinted of spring. I pulled a long yellow legal pad from a book shelf, picked up a pen, and headed out to stand on our sprawling redwood deck.

The narrow creek was higher than usual. I could see pine trees from the other side reflected in the still waters. I often wondered if this was one of the creeks branching off the York and Mattaponi Rivers that Captain John Smith explored by barge long ago, soon after the settlement of Jamestown. Pocahontas and her friends might have played in our woods that edge the creek. I wondered about that, too.

Something compelled me to step down from the deck and hurry to my spot where I often study and photograph the marsh. Drawings and paintings have resulted from those studies. Angels live in the marshland. I am sure of that.

"Angel of the Marshland"
©Mary Montague Sikes

Angel of the Marshland

Angel of the Marshland, your colors amaze me

And you have such a vibrant glow.

Like lost among the brown grasses

You’ve changed the colors to suit you.

 

I love the trees and waters of the marsh.

Do you hide there often?

                                                                                                                 I will look for you next time I go.

                                                                Then, I’ll touch your golden hair.

                                                                                 ©Mary Montague Sikes

This is a painting that resulted from my visit to the hill overlooking the marshland that day. The poem (there are two more verses) came to me later. I could sense the presence of this angel standing near a tree soon to come alive with bright green leaves. The dogwood would have flowers as well. 

My painting and poem became part of my very special book, Artful Angels. This is a book filled with spiritual beauty and poetic wealth, designed to heal the body and the mind with its mystery and magic.

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A Ghostly Vision at Rose Hall Plantation

When I first visited Rose Hall Great House, the scenic beauty of the grounds captivated my imagination. Although there were others in the gardens, a somber quiet surrounded me. This adventuresome trip to Jamaica was one of more than a dozen that would follow in the next few years.

The air that January day was like perfumed velvet, and the lush foliage was like nothing I had seen before. Everything around me reminded me of a little reading book from my childhood, Visits Far and Near. I longed to travel. I longed to experience the adventure of the tropics.

I knew as I stood in the garden that someday I would write about Jamaica, about Rose Hall, about the visions growing in my imagination. Or was it my imagination?

A ghostly quality surrounded me that beautiful warm day. Somehow, I was surrounded in fog. The people around me disappeared into a far-off gray shroud. Their voices faded into nothingness.

Then I saw her, Annie Palmer, the mistress of Rose Hall, the woman who tortured her slaves, the woman who killed her lovers. There were blood-stained floors. I’d read about them.

 Annie Palmer was a woman of mystery. She lived for a while in Haiti where she learned the ways of voodoo, ways to control the slaves who worked her land and cared for the spacious Caribbean mansion.

 Her dark hair glowed and sparkled through the mysterious fog. Annie Palmer would be part of my book. She would be the reason for my heroine’s confused connection to the past and to Rose Hall Great House.

 Was she real? I wondered as her face grew more obscure in the dim morning light.

 Perhaps not, I thought, as her form blended with and was lost in the fog. Perhaps not, but I will make her real in my story.

 

Read more about Annie Palmer in my novel Hearts Across Forever. See how good overcomes evil. Read the prologue (with horses that remind me of Heartland) on Amazon.