Güd wrtr

(for Donna)

You could probably still get into yours,
though I am far, far from the hundred-pound

lifeguard chick twirling her Acme Thunderer,
ready to blow it if kids running on the deck

failed to heed my call of “slow down!” with
all the force of my 16 years behind it.

But you, dear sister, also rocked the red bikini,
our preferred poolwear for guarding,

saving the one-piece Speedo for mornings
when we taught little kids how to float

face up and face down, to pull and kick
and glide, preferring to be a bit more

covered as gasping faces and grasping hands
reached for whatever part of us they could.

I still love the image that ran on the front
page of our local paper—a classic weather

picture, as the photographers called them—
you, floating face up in the pool

in shades and red bikini, ankles anchored
to the tile gutter, hands behind your head,

beyond cool. A babe, for sure, unruffled
and calm, as you’ve been all these years,

a steadying force in my life and those
of the ones you made into family.

You, my unwavering anchor, my mooring to all
that was and is, the womb-mate who later

occupied the same space in the one who
made us, rocking in that ocean

of the ever and the after.

•••

For the best sister ever, Donna Gail Haag Just, on her 66th birthday.
I so wouldn’t be me without her, and I wouldn’t want to be.
Thank you, DG, for all you do for me, for the fam,
for Mom and Dad, who are certainly, always, cheering us
on from the heavenly bleachers.

The little green torpedo
still hangs on a gnarly vine,
probably past its prime,
but I can’t persuade myself
to cut the cord and bring it
inside.

The cukes and tomatoes
have given me such a lift
on summer’s hottest days—
baskers, they are, lolling
in the patch by the garage
under so much sun.

The piece of me unwilling
to let go of the still-persistent
warmth hopes that the cute
green globes hanging like earrings
from Juliet the tomato plant’s leafy ears
might redden, allowing one last taste
of summer in a tomato/cuke/feta salad.

Just look at them in their natural
state—that hardy little cuke
and giddy tomatoes yahooing it up
like teenagers at the pool
on a sizzling day.

“The party’s not over,” the kids insist,
spreading their towels to lie face up,
eager to soak up every last ray
that shines down on their
perennially golden selves.

I don’t mind following a big bus
through my neighborhood,
especially when I get close enough
to see the license plate holder
that reads: Gillig.

A descendent of the snub-nosed orange
behemoth that carried us to and from
Eureka Elementary, ours creaked and squealed
as it pulled up at the Balmain‘s driveway
next door,

its weary hinges complaining
as Mrs. Capps grasped the push-pull handle
to open the door for the sleepy, the stragglers,
her charges for the morning.

’Twas Gillig and Mrs. Capps who
delivered us safely, day after day,
to school and back home in the tradition
of bus drivers around the world,

as they do in my city in their comparatively
quiet, fuel-efficient, clean-lined conveniences,
transporting their occupants smoothly
from one place to another, hither and yon,
from pillar to post, far and wide,

a challenging job on the best of days,
thankless, I imagine, on others,

which is why I offer my vocal gratitude
to the bus ahead of me—not only for
its service to thousands in my city
but also for this sweet ride
down memory lane.

You, sitting here — having no idea what to write,
wondering what made you think you could do this —
are hereby authorized to:

• watch your monkey mind leap from branch to branch until it settles,
• shift from overdrive into low gear,
• idle a while and allow what wants to emerge to emerge.

Permission granted to:

• write the hard stuff,
• scribble the missteps,
• record the mistakes,
• scrawl the blunders,
• even the embarrassing I-can’t write-about-this stuff.

Here’s your release form to:

• forgive (yourself most of all),
• let go,
• dismiss what needs dismissing,
• love anyway,
• apologize,
• be forgiven,
• write it all,
• read it aloud (if you want to),
• cry if you want to (it’s your party),

• &, once on the page, let what needed to be written
work its healing into your cracked-open heart,

then (best of all)

• watch those malleable words turn into art in your
capably imperfect, compassionate, writerly hands.

•••

Here’s to the writers of Team Haag who debuted the 15th annual chapbook
of their work Oct. 16 at the Sacramento Poetry Center, reading their
challenging and engaging, funny and heart-tugging writing
to an appreciative audience.

I’m so honored to host this group of writers in person (in two locations)
and online and to hear their just-written work that never fails to move
and amaze me. We continue to be grateful to the late Pat Schneider,
who created the Amherst Writers & Artists method of generative
writing that we use, and to AWA, the international organization
that promotes Pat’s belief that “A writer is someone who writes.”

The heart is a coiled hose
of ventricles and corpuscles, dear one,
winding and twining in ways
too complicated to untie.

And why would you want to?
Your dented heart has acquired
asteroid-sized impressions that have
bruised it, certainly, but also softened it,
as well as causing it to ache—sometimes
with sorrow, sometimes with love.

Honey, we see your heart hose lying there,
down for the count for the moment but
doing its job keeping you upright
in the world, no matter the latest
acquired hurts.

We’re not going to sing the pick-yourself-up
song—not even hum it. You decide when
you’re ready to rise. But we’ll be here
with a hand to help you up when
it’s time.

And if you like, we’ll sit with you
and watch your heart hose pulse
as we feel ours, too.

Watch, beloved—
they’ll synch even before we touch,
hearts finding hearts, as they do,
beat after beat after beat.

I was watering in the backyard
by the standing Buddha with extended hand,
a gesture of lovingkindness
if there ever was one,

and I picked up the hollow resin “rock”
that says peace on a stump in the ivy,
and it cracked in my hands,
the bottom falling out, as it so often does,
even in a peaceful moment.

And, hose in hand, I watered the fractured
thing, perhaps with some faint hope
that it might regrow. But then I
saw the sculpture of open hands
holding a great heart of a rock

sitting atop the stepping stone
that reads Seek Peace and Pursue It,
and I said aloud,
“Even when it looks broken.”

And I kept watering, as one does,
when it is it the only thing—
perhaps the best thing—
we can do.

I attend is his, is hers,
the ones that never happened.

I marvel at the graveside, at the coffin
holding not him, not her,

but someone I loved, which I could not
always say about them.

And later, when I go sit on the grass bed
spread over the friend in my neighborhood

cemetery, I sit with him, with her, too,
looking out at the expanse of lawn,

the shorn green quilt over so many
who were. And they arrive there,

in that moment, to settle themselves
into the damp grass

like companionable dogs, some
I knew, some I didn’t, all those

heaving sides and lolling tongues
keeping me company.

“It’s OK, honey. We know,” they offer,
the benediction of the dead,

gentler now, softening this old,
hard heart beating atop the grave

of one who adored me, and I her,
rooting me to my family tree,

closer to those who made me
me.

Fill in the blank:
• cat (especially about my big guy)
• flowers/tomatoes/Jan’s yard
• tree
• butterfly
• companion spirit(s)

But you get them anyway
because they show up, fly in,
even at the end of a season

of fullness, so much plenty
that I blush as its recipient
(for me?!).

“Yes,” the universe/God/
divine spirit / great whatsit
nudges. “For you who share

but also partake,” as I watch
what surely must be the final
two dozen green tomatoes

on Juliet the magnificent
ripening under October sun.
“Still here!” they beam

each time I go to water them,
like the kitty I didn’t ask for
but adore, like the butterflies

that flutter my mother by,
always, the companion spirits
hovering, if not speaking,

their quiet presence
the greatest present of all.

(for Dick Schmidt)

More than any other on the calendar,
this might be your favorite holiday,
now that I think of it,

so me and the girls salute you
by removing the booby trap,
the over-the-shoulder-boulder-holder,

the flopper stopper, the melon harness,
the hooter hammock, the cleavage commando,
the double-barrel slingshot,

because although I sometimes
take the girls for granted,
you never have, bless you.

Running vertically, splitting the night sky,
the dark seam of interstellar clouds

entwines the magic of the Milky Way,
the inky river meeting the smidgen

of galaxy our eyes can perceive.
Not a division or a disagreement

amping into argument or war,
it’s a nursery for new stars and planets,

engines of elemental creation woven
from dusty cocoons of our galactic core

that I long to lasso and drag onto
my planet of tumult and disarray.

To peer through the windows behind
which the newborns lie, swaddled, sleeping,

and say, “Aren’t they adorable?” Then look
at each other with those generous eyes

and say, believing every word,
“Just like you.”

•••

(Thanks to Neil Dickie for the use of this stunning photo,
which inspired this poem.)