Güd wrtr

We are all ancestors in training.
—Francis Weller

Whaddya mean, you didn’t know there was a class?
The whole freepin’ thing’s a class, for heaven’s sake.

And we do mean “for heaven’s sake.” That’s why you’re here.
On Earth. In a body. You’re an ancestor in training.

You’ve been studying your whole life. Learning to ride
a bike? Falling off and getting back up? Major lesson.

Your best friend’s dog dies? Advanced class in compassion.
Your dog dies? The one you love doesn’t love you?

The ones you love most die? Heartbreak and tears,
grief and loss—graduate level stuff, at any age.

The hardest of the hard. That’s why there’s so much of it.
Ample opportunity to love much. Practice love and more love.

Along the way—if you do this well—you become a teacher,
then graduate to wise elder. Not everyone gets there,

but we see potential in you. You’re always a student, too,
which is the mark of an exceptional ancestor-to-be,

when you understand that. Yes, life is short. Sure,
sickness and stiffness, pain and illness, death and taxes.

But joy. Gotta practice joy. Spread it around like a good germ.
Shower folks with smiles as if they were free (because they are).

Delight in the smallest things as you take up the hose to water
the old gardenia in the front yard—the tail-wagger leaving

the apartment next door with his person, as they do every day.
The little boy across the street coming home from preschool,

running to the door, that day’s painting in hand, hollering
for his mom. Dad following. Toss them a friendly wave,

you soon-to-be ancestor. Graduation’s right around the corner.
Of course, you’ll pass. Everyone does. You, with flying colors.

I knew I’d been losing them for years,
dropping them like fall leaves here
and there, there and here.

But I never imagined they’d appear
in the little square cigar box that long ago
sat in my closet with other childhood

belongings, consigned by my nearly
15-year-old self to a sturdy packing box
that my father then hefted into the rafters

of the garage. Fifty-three years later
my sister has retrieved the weighty thing
on which my teenaged hand scrawled

in Red Sharpie: “This belongs to Jan”
with a brief list of contents: sand dollars,
artwork, Girl Scout manuals, yearbooks.

Nowhere did it indicate, when I lifted
the lid off the box that had not seen
daylight for 50 years, that I’d find

a cluster of shiny marbles like colorful
pearls waiting for someone to rediscover
them, winking their cat’s eyes at a much

older me, blinking in surprise. So that’s
where they went—not lost, just tucked
away. And now that I’ve found them,

I have no idea if it’s possible to put
them back where I need them
in this aging brain. But look—there’s

a shooter and a clearie, translucent
and air-bubbled, tiny time machines
in this creased palm that holds them,

ricochetting me way, way back to
the then, on the playground with friends,
on my knees, shooting my favorite

glassy green boulder into a chalk circle
polka-dotted with so many marbles
I had yet to lose.

Ripe and ready, one of her offspring
wears a scar, which is not surprising.

Even the young among us acquire
boo-boos, which, if we are lucky,

heal nicely as our growing selves
lengthen and thicken. The early

scars are joined by later ones,
just as Juliet, the lanky tomato plant,

has popped out a good number
of juicy ovals this summer, some

misshapen and odd. A thin line
on one’s side does not dissuade me,

when the fruit is just-right red, from
gently plucking it and bringing it

into the kitchen with several of its
brethren, bound for tonight’s

corn salad. We swallow our scars,
rather than letting them swallow us,

imbibing all that healing that makes
us these perfectly imperfect selves.

To be reminded who we’re meant
to be, stand here still. Look up.

—Kim Stafford, from “Bright Dark Sky”

•••

We are meant to be vast, like the sky,
why birds draw our eyes upward,

why trees’ long limbs and great height
do, too, why the susurrus of wind

though leaves reminds us that what
can’t be seen is powerful beyond

the heart’s measure. We are large,
as the poet said, contradictory, yes;

we contain multitudes. And when
we are still, standing in our infinite

selves, looking up, we see that
we, too, are sky, the blue-black sky,

day and night, cloudy and bright,
astronomical, limitless, extraordinary.

•••

susurrus: a light whispering or rustling sound like wind through leaves; a murmur.

(In memory of Georgann Turner
March 1, 1951–August 17, 2021)

Decades ago, when I first heard you
say this, it had not yet morphed into
cliché, inscribed on rocks and plaques
and pendants, something grownups
say to children or lovers to each other:

“Love you to the moon and back.”

An impossibly far-away number,
about 477,000 miles, so distant as
to be mythical, this sentiment that
heightens and dramatizes devotion.

But several years after you vanished
into—well, the wherever—on a dusky
purple evening as I drove through
a pioneer cemetery in the high desert,
I saw the stenciled words that I heard
you so often say to your beloveds.

I had to stop the car, leaping out
to take a photo, certain in that selfish
way we the living embrace that this
was a message from you. Silly,
of course. Certainly not original.

NASA officials spoke of going
“to the moon and back” when three
men did in 1969, two of them
imprinting their Earthly soles
in fine lunar soil.

But seeing it there in bold blue
with other dearly departed
zinged you back into me with
such tympanic force, I felt my
heart tremble. In a good way.

I love when you swoop in,
as companion spirits do. I think
it’s how you play with us—
though yes, it could be wishful
thinking.

But since there you were, letting this
be a sign unto me, how could I do
anything but pixelize the moment
as my stuttering heart ba-bumped
its way back into action?

How could I do anything but thank
you for all that love rocketing back
at me from the far side of forever?

Which sounds related to crows,
as in “corvid,” which they are in a way,
carved stone supports projecting

from walls to support weight, often
colossal weight of great structures—like
cathedrals’ massive arches and beams.

A corb in old French was a raven, and
corbels resembled the hooked beaks
of the massive black birds and their

smaller crow cousins. Which leads me
to think of all the silent, sturdy supports
I take for granted, like corbels

underpinning medieval buildings
for nearly a thousand years. Not unlike
crows that surely land on some

of those ancient corbels, or their American
relatives I see every day on my street,
pecking hot asphalt for anything edible.

We are held by the unseen—like my
Neighbor who each morning quietly
sprinkles birdseed on the corner

for hungry avian friends. Like you
and you and you, my great footholds
in the world, cornerstones that

serve as the bedrock of my existence,
my corbels, without whom I could not
touch down nearly as solidly,

always offering a safe place to land.

Never doubt that they remain with us,
the elders keeping watch,

time-traveling sentinels standing
guard, offering silent protection,

their heartstones testament to
their mission: keeping us safe.

That they occasionally make
appearances, shimmering into

physical form pleases us
when we behold them,

these temporal voyagers
who then vanish into mystery,

as we will do one day,
with luck, joining them

in their assignment of
cosmic caretaking.

It is time to remember the unfolding,
To remember the river comes to me.
—Meg Kaczyk, from “Still, Life”

•••

I am one of the folded—
like an accordion,
both instrument and file,

the bright yellow origami box
folded by a retired engineering professor
that sat for years on my desk,

the rainbow umbrella waiting
in the hall closet for rain,

my father’s pocketknife that
he used to dig grit from under
his nails,

and my mother’s smaller gold one
that lived on the table beside
her chair in the family room,

ready to open what needed opening.
Like butterflies folding their wings
vertically as they rest,

or the forelegs of a praying mantis
waiting, snapping them out in
50 milliseconds to snatch prey
from the air.

Now to unfold from the crouch,
to slowly uncurl the backbone
like a wave lifting from the base
of the ocean,

taking an upright stance, shake out
the geological folds of tectonic
compression

and remember what wants
remembering, perhaps within
hearing of the river,

whispering, Come in;
the water’s fine.

(in memory of Margery Thompson)

And now, on the brink of the first birthday
you are not with us,

rather than think about that, or your final
birthday barely two weeks before

you lifted off, surely, into the heaven
you imagined,

I stumble into your cheesecake recipe—
“more pie than cake,” you said—

then hunt down the photos of Rebecca
and me learning from you, the master,

the secrets of your late son’s favorite
cheesecake (honestly, all of our favorite),

four summers before you died—a favor
to me who wanted to make cheesecake

for my mom’s 90th birthday. And I did,
serving yours, along with three other

recipes I tried, to partygoers on a 110-
degree afternoon, walking pieces out

to people and urging them to eat fast
so the delicacy wouldn’t puddle on

their plates. Yours, of course, was
my mother’s favorite, creamy atop

its graham cracker crumb crust.
It was everyone’s favorite—

the clear pie plate littered only
with crumbs by the party’s end,

which was how you left us
after so many wonderful parties.

And no matter how much we
celebrate you in your absence,

no matter how much we trust that
your gentle spirit hovers around us all,

it’ll never taste the same.

(for Maxi, the moggy* at my house)

Dude, forgive me.
I missed your day
four days ago.

It’s not as if
every day isn’t
Cat Day

around here,
but when all cats
across the globe

are celebrated, and
your clueless person
missed it,

well, yipe. To you,
my mama’s moggy
who has made me

your human,
I thank your huge
feline self for

all the love,
all the purrs,
so much you.

Feather on a stick
time? OK, dude,
let’s play!

•••

*A moggy is a British slang term for a mixed-breed,
non-pedigreed house cat.

•••

Photo snagged from a Sacramento History Museum video
of printer Channey making this letterpress print on the museum’s
1852 Washington hand press. I love the daily videos like this one,
which can be seen on Facebook, of the History Museum’s printers
using the classic press to commemorate historic events.