Güd wrtr

Be kind… It feels good

The license plate ahead of me
suggests on Easter morning,
having just come from

a labyrinth walk at church
where, as I circled the perimeter,
holding space for the walkers,

I could not keep from smiling,
watching the faces of pilgrims lighten
in the light of a new morning,

even as they carried their cares
and sorrows and joys with them
along the path. As we all do.

The little license plate reminder
embodies the generosity of spirit
infusing this day of rebirth and hope,

walking under the reassuring rustle
of new leaves whispering in their own
language what sounds like peace.

And in the pouring, somehow a blessing.
And in the pounding of my heart, somehow a blessing.
And in the gaps, somehow a blessing that gathers itself
even now, that has been gathering itself for ages,
that will never stop.

—Jan Richardson

•••

And to say it aloud,
not asking or pleading
but blessing,
without needing a holy one
to do so—

rather, recognizing
the holy in you that gently nudges
you to speak of the broken,
of the lost, of the unrelenting sorrow.

Somehow a blessing stutters
through your heart, makes its way
through the gaps, winds around
the suffering you have taken on,
pushes itself between your lips,
becoming breath,

as you praise and praise and praise,
as you voice the anger and the ache,
as you walk the path before you,
letting what needs to
pour from the overfull pitcher
of you, the vessel,

you, the blessing,
you, the blessed.

•••

Lines from Jan Richardson’s “Sparrow: A Book of Life
and Death and Life” © 2020, Wanton Gospeller Press

I am going to listen for the water at the edge of things.
—Anne Lamott (quoting a child at her church)

Listen.
I know that walking my neighborhood,
marveling at the show-offy flowers,
spring springing, is a distraction.

I know how much awful we are in,
that the world is in. But I also know
that when it rains, as it did this week,
gentle showers in my corner of the world,

as I walk, I am quiet enough to listen for
the water at the edge of things. I love
walking a labyrinth in rain, amid the patter
of drops, hearing the spontaneous creek

burbling its way to the big river down
the street—even under an umbrella,
this is the blessing, the answered prayer,
if not the answer I was hoping for.

Awful is still awful. But good is still good,
too, and goodness and grace go on. Look
at the splashy flowers, the canopy of trees,
leaves popping out, growing each day.

Is this not reason enough for joy?
Babies celebrating their first birthdays,
Tongue-wagging dogs tugging at leashes,
Smiles of strangers, who, if we stop

for just a moment, say hello and exchange
some neighborly words, are on their way
to becoming familiar. So close to family.
So close to friend.

•••

(With thanks to Anne Lamott for the inspiration and a version of the line
“goodness and grace go on.” And in honor of Rosie Mae Just Giel,
whose first birthday our family is celebrating today.)

I came home to find
a purple-hatted wizard and a
red-lipped fish with a dragon-y tail

on my doorstep, two creations
dropped off by my clay-artist friend
after I had admired them.

I grinned and perhaps let out
a squeal when I saw two of the ones
she thinks of as wizards and monsters,

but I see as spirit guardians, little
oracles embodied in clay and glaze
that stand guard with long white beard

and googly green happy eyes
catching mine, which crinkle around
the corners with delight.

•••

(for Rose Varesio with my thanks)

(for Clifford)

I imagine you’ve been keeping an eye
on things from your spot in the mystery

twenty-five years after your departure,
watching our front yard transform from

a rectangular swath of lawn (to be generous)
known for its impressive annual crop

of dandelions (which we loved) to the mostly
lava-rock-too-freepin’-hot-in-summer-what-

was-I-thinking? landscape (to be generous)—
neither of which I loved, to be honest.

But this latest incarnation, an aspiring cottage
garden, done with the thoughtful advice

and hands of experts, has me on a padded
kneeler under cloudy skies on April Fool’s Day,

tucking 21 baby plants into nicely amended
soil. The elegant, long-limbed Japanese maple

bows over me, and the ginkgo (its top
inadvertently snapped off some years ago)

is now taller than I am, its new green fans catching
tiny pearls of rain. Though I’m feeling gluteus

maximus muscles I typically don’t after all
the kneeling, I am prayerful in the plantin’

as I bless the little ones with the words
my Master Gardener friend said to those

she planted yesterday: “Welcome home.”
And now I whisper it to you, husband,

you who thankfully has never left.

My friend the Master Gardener shows me
how to properly transplant the wee ones we

brought home yesterday, which makes me
realize that I’ve fumbled through the process

for decades. I do know to gently remove
the immigrant from the only home it has

known, to loosen its roots and admire
the delicate tendrils dangling like curly hair.

I know to dig the hole deep enough so that
the newly arrived one sits level with the soil.

But I didn’t know about sprinkling the chasm
with compost and mixing some with freshly

dug earth, too. I didn’t know that a few drops
of good liquid fertilizer mixed into a gallon

of water provides a nutritious first shower.
Best of all, I learn this plant whisperer’s secret.

On her knees, patting dirt firmly into place
around the settler in its new location,

where it will, with luck, root and thrive,
she offers the simplest blessing:

“Welcome home.”

•••

(Again, my thanks to my plant whisperer friend and teacher, Lindsey Holloway.)

(for Lindsey Holloway)

We chart a course through a vast sea of sprigs
greening from small pots to which my friend
the Master Gardener has brought me.

As we sail down aisles and ooh and ahh over
the miracle of so many varieties of growing things,
I am grateful for her navigation—without which
I would be lost in this ocean of floribundance.

One needs a guide here, someone at the helm
with a plan to choose the little sprouts that will,
with luck, grow into bigger ones in my front yard.

Her giddiness with the profusion of it all
soaks into me, she who launched me on this project
of re-sculpting my front yard into a cottage garden
wonderland.

Already—thanks to her good eye and the labor of men
moving rocks and soil—passers-by comment as I water.
“How pretty your yard looks,” strangers say, and I beam
as if I had the vision for this little plot of earth that
will soon become laden with more growing things.

And I think of friends like this one who have
accompanied me on different parts of my voyage,
beautifying spaces that are, for the moment, mine.

But I just smile to those strolling by and say,
“Thank you,” hoping that those words reach the ears
of the dear ones who have, over nearly 40 years,
helped me make this old house a sweet home.

•••

(With thanks to my friend, Master Gardener Lindsey Holloway,
for her visionary revisioning of my front yard and for the field trip
to Curious Flora in Richmond, California, a true gardener’s paradise.)

After I gave up that car and
retired the license plates,

I hammered one into the graying
redwood that is the back fence.

The nearby rose bush pruned
for winter means that I can see

the plate without surrounding
foliage for a while, which means

I think of the one who gave me
the plates and came up with

the goofy abbreviation. She who
loved me to the moon and back,

as she did all her beloveds, she
who called herself my best friend

before I knew she was. And now,
BFF, I see you in this show-offy

red rose, all look-at-me, look-at-me,
which was not like you in life.

But now, I figure, you, dear companion
spirit, might think that you have

to get my attention, make sure that
my easily distracted self catches on.

If that’s not you, I don’t want to know.
But if it is, nice job, BFF, I’m leaning in

for a hearty sniff. Those crimson petals
look so good on you.

•••

For Georgann, wherever you are in the mystery.

After a mid-afternoon linner
at a spot down the river road that
feels as if we’re miles away from
our city,

we cross the Freeport Bridge
to another county and head
south for some miles, the river
to the port side

on a spring Saturday that feels
out of time. It could be any time,
any year, the timelessness of
the river

meandering, as it so reliably does,
through the Delta, bound for the sea.
We have no place to be, no particular
place to go

when I pull off and stop so we can
stand in late afternoon sunshine
and watch a single boat motor north,
listen to birds,

spy on fuzzy black bees helicoptering
around long stands of purple vetch,
dipping in for sips of pollen. How
blessedly lazy.

How pleasant. How ordinary this
purposeful pause as we sit on a bench
with each other and our memories,
watching the river run.

“Oh, God, no”—the half-prayer
burst out of me when I saw the
severely pruned wisteria over

the driveway trellis. I’d asked
Miguel, the efficient garden god,
to take the tangled limbs in hand,

and boy, did he. It was January,
and it occurred to me then that
the now-stubby sticks could not

possibly flower before leafing
in March. It’s an old plant anyway,
putting out fewer blossoms every

year, but I can’t bear to think about
replacing it. Besides, it produces
offspring that pop up on both

sides of the driveway that has me
pulling them out as they sprout.
But I’ve let a couple take root,

get tall, and provided a tower for
one to climb and a fence for another.
I did not hear God or her earthly

representatives say, “Oh, ye of little faith,”
but somehow, those sweet purple clusters
emerged in March, right on time,

as wee clumps of green sprouted
around them. The wisteria never lasts
long—maybe a week, ten days,

if I’m lucky. But when it makes its annual
appearance, I make sure that I stand
in the driveway daily to admire all that

lavender loveliness, tell those short-lived
beauties how gorgeous they are,
reminding myself of the possibility,

even the likelihood, of resurrection,
even in our short-sightedness,
our bumbling humanness.