Güd wrtr

When you as a child learned to speak,
It’s not that you didn’t know words—

It’s that, from the centuries, you knew so many,
And it’s hard to choose the words that will be your own.

—Alberto Rios, from “A House Called Tomorrow”

•••

This, then, is the challenge,
sorting through a long-acquired vocabulary

of word leaves, seemingly millions,
some tiny and greening, new-to-us words,

some thriving and hearty, leaves big as
bread plates, vein-threaded as a human heart,

and many, many brittle and fallen,
crunchy and stepped on, gone.

It’s the gone I fret over, the ones
that leave before I want them to.

The unkind words shouted in anger,
the frosty words of aftermath—

those I’m happy to see fall, the unwanted
detritus, happy to rake them into big piles

and plop them in the big green bin to be
carted away. But that word there, the one

nowhere near the tip of my tongue,
likely lingering near my spleen, the one

I can’t bring to my lips or to the page
when I want it—those are the ones

I worry about, the ones I mourn. When
did these words leave? Might they return?

And if they don’t, do I have enough for
the rest of this existence to see me through,

to speak, to snatch as they drift by
and set them lightly down on a page

like this one right here?

We say to each other when we call
once we’ve motored to our respective

homes, unlocked our sticky locks
and ushered ourselves back in.

We call, minutes or sometimes hours
after we arrive, having forgotten to,

assuming that the other instinctively
knows that we are safely

home, that their love has tagged
along after us like a loyal dog,

that it couldn’t do anything but
keep us safe, embraced from afar.

Because it always does.
I pray that it always will.

Right there, above the big crack
on the edge of the curb,

bracketed by two fallen leaflets from
a crimson Chinese pistache tree,

there it is: Love on the sidewalk.
The inquisitive part of me wonders

who inscribed it and why. How long
has it sent this arms-wide-open

message on the corner of Pala and 50th
to any and all passers- and drivers-by?

Probably goes unseen by most walkers
like the ones this afternoon hanging

onto the ends of leashes, but most likely
sniffed by many dogs, who, even if

they can’t read it, certainly know love
when they smell it.

The green it has grown
over the last nine months

is being overtaken by the coming
crimson, signaling the inevitable fall.

And though the nights are now chillier,
I stand beneath this sun-streaked tree

half hoping the chill and wet never arrive,
that we might live in this in-between,

not-too-hot, not-too-cold, perpetual
Goldilocks state of just right.

Which is where I am temporarily rooted,
reminding myself to tuck this moment

into my storehouse of memory for later,
when, like squirrels unearthing peanuts

they have tucked into the soil of my backyard,
I will reach into my pocket and find it,

delighted by the warmth of the forgotten.

Who baked into me the notion
that I must know the name
of a thing to know the thing?

Sure, the specificity of “oriole”
over “bird,” or “catalpa” over “tree”
provides a better visual,

not to mention a sound. It must
have been thanks to my mother
who sent me to the shelf

in the living room where the
creamy World Book encyclopedias
lived, with a resounding,

“Look it up!” whether a word
in the dictionary or a fact about,
say, American history.

I was barely in double digits when
I realized how much our reference
library lacked, not meeting

an atlas until high school. What I
would have given for a substantial
thesaurus, instead of my mother’s

yellowing paperback Roget’s.
And yes, after years of phoning
librarians to fact check all manner

of facts, the miracle of typing a query
into a search engine with a choice
of sources fanned out like a deck of cards

changes everything. But now, on walks,
I try to resist the urge to pull the device
from my pocket to look up the name

of a flower or confirm what year
Neil Armstrong walked on the moon.
The challenge: to sometimes simply be

without knowing, without categorizing,
do more dreaming, not planning.
What matters is pausing to peer

at a still-brilliant whatchamacallit
grinning over a low picket fence
in early November, or beholding

the colors in leaf mélange carpeting
a sidewalk, not to interview it
but simply admire it,

not insist that it tell me its name.

It can happen this way:
one day gray and dreary,
the rose pocked with droplets,

the next, brightening under fresh
sun, with winged visitors alighting
for a sniff or a snuggle.

All of this on the edge of winter,
fall working its way into foliage,
as it does. But bee. But bug.

But rose. Look at her blooming
brilliance, clearly, thankfully,
not done yet.

And yet the most ordinary of days—
one of barely-there precipitation,
a trip to the store, where, as I park,

I see a pale yellow rose soaring
on a long, strong stem against
a soft gray sky. It pulls me out

of the car, this unseasonal,
persistent blossom, to capture
its rain-dropped glory in pixels

as petrichor rises from asphalt.
No biggie. Rain. Rose.
And yet.

“Look at that,” I say to no one
as a voice chuckles in my head,
one I can’t quite place but feels

like affirmation from the floral
committee. Possibly an invitation,
which I accept—hope lifting

like the clouds—to lean in
for an improbable rosy sniff
on this singular afternoon.

Oh, God, really? After whipping up giraffes
and hummingbirds? After forging forests
and icy poles and oceans, for Your sake?

We realize that we sound like Your angelic
cheerleading squad (You’ll beget those later—
just wait—they’ll call it evolution)‚

but that’s the exhaustion talking. Of course,
there’ll be more You’ll poof into life
down there—You’re nothing if not creative,

You, the Creator. You don’t have to know
what the next thing is or the next. When
it’s time, You’ll know, and You’ll make

the next thing. No one’s thinking of You
as a failure—trust us. Yeah, koalas do look
a little goofy, but they’re gonna endear

themselves to humans. Unicorns
are better left to fantasy; zebras now,
that’s a clever turn on a horse.

You just relax and let us fan You with
our snazzy, You-given silver wings.
Hark, the Harold angel, will sing, too.

(We know how You love Harold’s voice.)
Truly, You did good in seven days.
Most of what happens down there

on Your Green Earth won’t be up to You,
though You can bet You’ll be asked
for help when the humans muck it up.

Of course, they’ll muck it up.
Of course, You’ll help. It’s what You do.
Not now, though. After a good nap, OK?

Is what the astrologers call it,
this falling back into the darkening
months of the year,

leaf litter increasing underfoot
and, sitting between Earth and sun,
the invisible new moon offering

a quiet, fertile space to plant
ourselves in deep stillness.
Whether we want to or not,

it’s a time of excavation in this
introspective moment, on long evenings
at home, perhaps by firelight

with a book and cinnamon tea
to lift the spirits. Time to release
the need to appear presentable,

to simply feel all the feels,
as the kids say, in this dark,
bountiful pause.

It’s not another death,
I remind myself. If I can trust
the quiet, insights will rise

like the moon solidifying
in the sky, slowly becoming whole
and bright and clear.

(Latin: for each day)

Daily I wish for
the best version of me

to show up, the one
with an expansive heart,

an elastic mind
and far-reaching arms

ready to embrace
the world.

Each day’s spacious beginning
stretches wide

over a pinkening horizon,
and ends that way, too,

which is what I dream of:
this great earth holding us

till the end of you,
till the end of me,

which, as we know,
is not truly the end,

just a beginning
dressed in a new outfit,

sparkling in the light
of forever.

•••

Today is the fourth anniversary of the daily poems I share here.
I have no idea—and people do ask—how I’ve produced a poem
daily for four years, but I’m grateful to the muses that appear
with phrases and images that I can follow down the page
to see what happens.

They’re not all poetic gems, but each (of more than 1,460 poems)
is a little miracle, which I post daily with my favorite whispered prayer:
thankyouthankyouthankyou.

And yes, in 2027 a book of some of these poems will be published
called “Per Diem.”