Güd wrtr

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.”

Fluttering around a casa garden
called Romantica on a cliff
overlooking the sea, three of them
helicopter through foliage planted
just for them,

alighting on velvety purple
Mexican bush sage, intricately petaled
zinnias and a rainbow assortment
of lantana.

It’s not that I see every monarch
as the one who flew from us,
she who loved anything adorned
with butterflies but didn’t think
to plant foliage in her yard
to attract them.

My logical self knows that it’s
highly unlikely that, though she
would have loved to, she has
reincarnated as one of these
beauties.

But in a garden only 50 miles
from where she birthed me,
I sit on a bench watching the trio
play tag from blossom to blossom,

flowers that will thrive here
through winter, as I hope
the butterflies will in this
Mediterranean climate.

And I get now, as I always do when
they flit by my field of limited vision,
a big whoosh of her—light and lovely,
warm and wingéd—

what she aspired to in human form,
what she may have cocooned into
and broken out of, emerging from
her chrysalis with soft, crumpled
wings, fluttering into a new life

like that one there, resting on
a floribunda rose before
lifting off again into the light.

•••

(In memory of my mother and all the
companion spirits on this Day of the Dead.)

This is one more way I know that I’m old:
every year getting a bigger kick out of
kids’ costumes on Halloween.

Younger me would spend the evening
somewhat annoyed when the old-fashioned
doorbell (truly a bell) shrilled,

forcing me to rise from the sofa and
some engaging TV program to deliver
candy to strangers. But this, too,

is one more way that the man I married
changed me: He, a pushover for cuteness,
would answer the bell and beckon me

to the door, insisting, “You gotta see this,
Toots.” And there’d stand a trio of tiny witches
or a mini Luke Skywalker or a toddler

in a doggie onesie. And he was right—
they charmed me, so much so that now
I greet every Halloween doorbell

with a big grin, even the too-cool teens
half-slouching on the porch, but who
light up when I offer chocolate.

The day before Halloween 42 years ago,
he had his chest opened and his aortic valve
replaced, leaving him with a wicked,

ghoulish scar and a lifesaving device that
tick-tick-ticked as it opened and closed,
opened and closed, as his damaged one

had not, buying him 17 more Halloweens.
Every year since, as I close the door on
some exceptional cuteness, I will say, more

than once, “Didja see that one, Clifford?”
not expecting an answer. Though neither
will I be surprised, later in the night

to awaken to a familiar tick-tick-tick
and take that as a whispered,
“You betcha, Toots.”

Joy to the fishes
in the deep blue sea,
joy to you and me

—from “Joy to the World,” Three Dog Night, 1970

•••

And so we sit on the pier,
over a deep blue sea of fishes,
eating some of their brethren,

tasty joy for us, if not the fishes,
for which we are grateful, along
with some of their yummy

invertebrate sister shrimp,
and cousins from farther away,
like ono from Hawaii or

the Gulf of Mexico and halibut
from Alaska along with
the closer-to-home swordfish

of our west coast—we two
happy humans imbibing in
sea and sun and fishes,

joy to you and me.

•••

(for Dick Schmidt—with thanks and love for the sweet
SoCal getaway to warm ocean)