Güd wrtr

(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)—
none 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.

What I remember
is that they were heavy,
the pair of crash cymbals,

and picking up the two
big discs tonight at band
practice reminded me

that parts of me used
to be in much better
shape, younger parts I

never had to think about,
like hands and wrists.
After one rehearsal

it’s clear that I need
a workout plan so that,
by the last concert

of the semester, my
forearms are gonna look
like Wonder Woman’s,

and my hands will
handle those heavy
metal copper crashers

with grace and ease,
smoothly bringing
them together

at just the right
angle to generate
just the right sound

(please, dear
percussion gods)
at just the right time.

Her helmet is gold, his is black,
and when she leans her body left

to speak into his ear at stoplights,
they look like side-by-side bowling balls.

That was, for a moment, me, sans braid,
risking my neck—and far more than that—

along with the ire of my father, had he known,
behind a young man revving his brother’s

borrowed bike. Four decades later, waiting
at a stoplight behind these two helmeted

lovers, I smile as they wait for the signal
that will propel them down this road,

bound for whatever kind of adventure awaits.

I always think of you as the blue gal,
drawn toward turquoises and teals,

even a soft baby blue. And today under
a spring-blue sky, I made my way out

to what was your house to drop off gifts
for your descendants who have made it theirs,

only to step out from what was your car
and look up into the pinkiest pink

of your dogwood tree, under which
the babiest pink of azaleas bloomed.

In your final couple of springs, when so
much of you was vanishing, I would come

in the house, saying, “Ma, the dogwood
is blooming.” And you’d brighten

then slowly come down the garage steps
and make your way to the front yard,

looking up into the mass of blooms.
Unable to see the petals, you’d nod

at the pinks, inhale the blue above,
as I did today, not needing to see it,

but stand under it, luxuriating in
the hues of the season,

absorbing all the love.

Because I didn’t want to miss the last
of the early wildflowers,
and because it was such a perfect, blue-sky day,
and because I knew the lake surface would run
to cobalt under that sky,
and, suspecting that the water would be
quite high, which it was,

I made my way to the lake I still think of
as mine, a folder of stories tucked under my arm,
imagining that I would sit in the spring breeze
under the shade of a white willow tree
near the waterline, get some work done.

But there were two boys at the lip
of sand and shore attempting to cast a line,
and a woman with three dogs heading
for a point to the north that I love.

And on the lake, a motorboat droning
a familiar hum zoomed toward the dam
as two riders on horseback meandered
across the sand, a dog leading the way,
as if summoned for a photo.

And when I finally found a place to sit
under that willow, I heard but did not see
a fish jump in the shallows,

and one of the boys, who had put down
his pole, walked the shoreline with
a confident stride much older than his years,
ankle-deep in my lake that is now his, too,
off to go see what he could see.