Güd wrtr

(In honor, a day late, of National Punctuation Day, Sept. 24)

It is, by its very nature, a possessive little mark,
one that sidles up to an unsuspecting letter

and puts its curvy little arm around it,
not unlike a boy in a movie theater ages ago,

pretending to yawn, extending his arm,
ending up (how’d that happen?) across

the back of his date’s seat. Apostrophes,
the old flirts, wink. They need to be needed,

tied to another to indicate “belonging to,”
though they don’t ask—just velcro themselves

to the nearest letter, often joining two words
that would otherwise stand apart.

It’s a cuddler, come to think of it, a cat looking
for a lap, a pat, a spot to put its soft self,

wanting to be wanted, an I’m-here-for-you
bit of punctuation just waiting in the wings.

(Sacramento, California, late September)

Though her roses still have blossoms,
many look weary, as are we

who have weathered with her the loss
of her dearest friend in May,

she shouldering most of the aftermath,
though she will never take credit for that.

But on an unseasonably warm Wednesday
she hosts a garden luncheon to thank

some of the people who came to help.
We don’t know anyone at the table but her,

though we’ve often been guests
of the two women who’ve been part

of our lives for more than four decades.
Now we are finally properly introduced

to some of their nearest and dearest
who, like us, rallied round in ways

we think of as small. But there is
no small after a loss so huge,

our beloved dead friend might say,
she so grateful in her final days.

And just before we leave, I walk the slate
path strewn with petals from Leilani’s roses,

some giving way after giving their all.
I’m surprised, as always this time of year,

by how many are holding up well,
a few new buds, pearly pink, life life-ing.

Just like our dearly departed,
one who so embodied liveliness,

still blooming all around us.

•••

(For Leilani Hu Yang in memory of Patricia Beach Smith,
with love from Jan and Dick)

I wear the socks as if their message
will sink into my calves and ooze
its way to my lungs, which can forget

to breathe when I’m counting measures
of rest in my head, trying not to move
my lips—a rookie move.

But I am a rookie again in band, even
with one semester under my belt.
Still a beginner. Forever operating

with beginner’s mind, with so much
to learn. And now, on the night of this
semester’s first performance in the college

library, as audience members arrive,
I find myself looking for the ones
I cannot see, but whom I suspect

are nonetheless here. They would not
miss a concert. They never did. For years
I took for granted that the ones who

made us would show up when we played.
It never occurred to me that someday
that would not be the case.

And as I played my bells parts, blending
with my bandmates’ notes wafting
into the air, I remembered to breathe,

trusting that the music we made
was reaching the ears of those present
and those hovering around the edges,

now the music and the breath,
in the now and in the forever.
Amene.

•••

(for Donna, who came in person,
and for Mom and Dad, who came in spirit)

A woman online wrote about her dog,
but it strikes me that Chance, that old trickster,

is our lifelong dance partner, from our
smallest selves wiggling to music as toddlers

to our oldest incarnations learning to maneuver
with a cane, looking down as we walk

instead of up at the sky as we have long loved
to do. We dance with Chance every chance

we get, hoping that we don’t fall, that an
opportunity will arise that lands in our favor,

that by happenstance we might find
ourselves, as this woman did: as summer

officially gives way to autumn on a favorite
beach, her dog’s paws impressing damp

sand, recording each step of his ecstatic,
bounding, soon-to-be-washed-away path.

May all our dances with Chance be like that:
ones of pure, tail-wagging joy.

•••

(for Amrita Skye Blaine)

(with thanks to Crystal Ellison and Chance
for the inspiration)

(Passiflora incarnata)

Listen: All the flowers
you’d hoped to see on your
favorite tropical island

have likely been blown
to smithereens by a hurricane,
and now is not the time

to make a nuisance of
yourself as a visitor.
But honey, take a gander

at the passion flowers
blooming their fool heads
off on the Garden Goddess’s

trellis on the corner, their
purple blooms unfolded like
an open palm, beckoning,

a mini helicopter pad
in the center, tiny yellow
pollen sacs hovering over.

And, as you stand there,
admiring, sure enough, a
small butterfly flits in

for a landing. Just a touch
and go on this blossom
that lasts maybe a day.

Yes, beauty is, indeed,
fleeting, but look at that
wavy fringe over those

lavender petals. Right
here on your block, honey—
so much loveliness,

like a gift you forgot
to open, presenting itself
when you need it most.

•••

(With appreciation for Garden Goddess Katie O’Rourke)

I know it’s silly to get all squishy about
electric red tomatoes hanging like tiny

festive lanterns from the vines, but
look at ’em glowing as if lit from within,

which they might well be. And now,
in late September, nearing what has to be

the end of their season, I still get such
a wallop of joy, knowing that they simply are,

that I find it difficult to pluck them from
their birthplace. But barely touching

one, inhaling its earthy, herbal musk,
feeling it plunk into my hand like the gift

that it is, sends me soaring, as if that
cute boy on the bus had looked my way

and smiled—really smiled—at me.
How nice to be chosen. How my fingers

curl around that tasty token, soon
to nourish the likes of me,

as love has done again and again,
even when I wasn’t paying attention.

Sometimes you give in to the tears,
to the need to take to the bed,
maybe weep there, or sleep.

But if you can, the little voice nudges,
get up. The cat needs feeding,
and if there’s no cat,

put out some water for the birds
in the backyard, maybe some seed,
if you have it,

and just stand in the last
throes of summer, still warm
but not hot,

feeling the long grass tickle
the sides of your flip-flopped feet.
Maybe squirt those feet

as you take up the hose to give
the plants that have summered
on the deck a drink, too.

Soon they will need to move
to the covered front porch or
winter inside, but now,

like you, they wait in silence
for the next thing that
none of us can discern,

which is just as well.
You are not as alone
as you think.

Someone else has the sads, too.
Someone may be reaching
out to you right now—

look for them in the backlit
droplets showering the grass,
winking at you,

still here. Still blessedly here.

(for Laura Martin and Chris Musci)

Furry yin and yang souls
snuggled into each other,
so inseparable that only
you two could discern
where one cat stopped
and the other started.

The pair of black and white
hapa cats (“half” in Hawaiian)—
the big fella delivered unto you
as you still grieved the loss of your
beloved Jake, a kitty with a heart
on his backside.

So, too, did Hapa, who won your hearts.
And it didn’t take long for an island friend
to give the kitty a proper Hawaiian name:

Hapā-ʻu-ʻoli-lua,
Half-grief, double joy.

He was all that and more for you
and matching little kitty sister Kilihuna,
who joined your family a few years later.

Now it must feel like all grief, not half,
with Hapa’s departure into the spirit realm
Hawaiians call Pō—the everlasting night,
the place of origin.

There, souls leap off sacred cliffs into
the sea to reach the place of forever,
their loved ones embracing joyful
remembrance through their tears,
as you do now.

But listen:

The heartbeat in your house that seems
to have suddenly gone missing
long ago melded with yours,
so that all you need to do is put a hand
on your own chest, close your eyes,
and feel the whole of Hapa with you
evermore.

Amene.

(a garden or part of a garden devoted to roses)

Mine consists of three straggly bushes
stubbornly rooted by the backyard fence.

Not the ones Mrs. Young planted here that
we inherited after we bought her house—

those died, one by one, before he did—
but three replacements that long for

more sun, reaching long tendrils toward
the light as morning glories twine

their thorny limbs. I have never prayed
a rosary, but that, too, is the older meaning

of a rose garden, likening petitions to God
to a garland of roses, to the strings of beads

used to count every Hail Mary, Our Father
and Glory Be, as my Catholic-raised husband

was taught. He, who dug holes for the new
roses years before vanishing into mystery.

If all prayers are heard, if those who pray
receive answers in some mystical form,

then let my little rosery grow gratitude
for the generosity that graces my life.

And let me take every opportunity
to bend and inhale each blossom

that comes, no matter how imperfect
or bug-bitten, no matter how long

it lives. Because each is a uniquely
petaled miracle—never another

exactly like it—like him. Like you.
Like me.

•••

(for those Roses in my life who carry the name)

You are such an interesting conversation. You belong here.
—Pádraig Ó Tuama, from “How to Be Alone”

•••

“Listen,” I say to you more often than I care to admit,
“You are not going to believe this.”

And then I unspool some fresh horror or indignity
that supports my worst-days feeling that we are all,

truly, going to hell in the proverbial handbasket,
and I don’t even believe in hell, though I do believe

in climate disasters, certainly not helped by humans.
And then I bemoan having to cancel a vacation after

a hurricane devastated my favorite island in the middle
of the sea. (They don’t need the likes of me there now.)

You understand this, along with other minor indignities
of my lucky, lovely, super-privileged, pensioned life.

You don’t consider it whining, though it is. And you—
from your vantage point on high, which is how

I imagine the after, are probably happily in some
heavenly kitchen whipping up beef bourguignon

(no cows killed in this version) with Julia Child—
would, of course, agree with me as I gripe about

the pain-in-the-ass-ness of compiling another
literary journal (all the randomly indented lines…

poets, c’mon!) or about the rats that might or
might not still be rattling around in the attic

or basement (none in traps today, says the rat guy)
or the mundanities of life. But that’s just it, right?

Life—what we the living do. I have no idea what you,
the dead-but-not-gone, do. You, who always know

what to murmur in my mind, who define BFF,
emphasis on the final F, who truly meant it

when, long ago, you promised this friendship
forever.

•••

(for Georgann… of course)