Güd wrtr

At the end of every day,
the Committee in Charge of Sunsets
sets in motion a sky show

that draws humans to look
west over an ocean to watch
our nearest star slip below

the horizon, periodically with
gorgeous lighting effects—
pinky oranges with beams

angling through clouds or
a simple, cool blue over a
horizontal tangerine ribbon.

For eons we earthlings have
been as mesmerized by the sun’s
temporary departure as by its

reappearance at what we call dawn.
I like to think that the members
of the Sunset Committee

(whose colleagues on the Sunrise
Committee and the Rainbow Coalition
also conjure eye-popping displays)

are modest souls jogging around
the heavens, not expecting or
requiring applause. But when

I have the rare pleasure of
watching the fiery ball seemingly
dip below the horizon,

words of admiration and praise
spring from my lips: “Wow!”
“Excellent work, you guys!”

“A stunner for sure!” Though
I realize that the Committee
may not hear the message—

already launching another
sky show someplace else
in the next moment

and the next and the next.
But as our blue marble
of a planet slowly rotates

away from the light,
peaceful dusk overlaying
sea and sky, I count myself

fortunate to draw breath
and again bear witness to
another everyday miracle.

Let it be on a painterly blue-sky day like
this one under an artistic wash of light clouds,

on a trail that feels like ours, weaving through
pines with periodic peeks of the calm Pacific.

As you lean into a slight rise of soft,
slanting light, I capture an image

I hope to summon the day one of us rises
into mystery, leaving the other with

the sweetness of such an ordinary moment—
which turns out to be extraordinary

when we recognize it as fleeting,
as unbearably precious,

vanishing on a single breath.

(Tidepool watching, Pt. Lobos
State Natural Reserve, Carmel, California)

(for Sue Lester, DVM)

•••

Hermit crabs of various sizes
meander the little crabby highway
of a low-tide pool as I sit and watch

the show on a spring-like afternoon.
I cannot peer in tide pools without
thinking of you, my childhood BFF,

who bequeathed your love of marine
life and taught me the names of
sea creatures and wildflowers

and so much more. So I carry you
with me as I eavesdrop on the shallow
dip of wave-sculpted sandstone

under a few inches of saltwater.
And this dude wearing a light-colored
shell scoots down-pool as a bigger dude

sporting some black-and-silver muscle
heads for the littler guy, and, with one
whopper of a crab leg, upends him,

landing him bottom up, his little legs
waving helplessly as the bully moves on.
All my defenses rise in outrage.

How dare this ruffian shove that littler
guy around? He seemed to be minding
his own business. And, though you

might point out that this is nature
taking its course, before that occurs
to me, my hand reaches into the water

to right the little guy, who, once he
has his little crabby legs under him,
wisely heads in the opposite direction.

How many times as a kid did I witness
such meanness? How often did I stand
up for one being bullied or jeered at?

And how now might I lend a hand
to right someone upended, offer
a sympathetic touch or a kind word?

As you do every day in your work
with animals and their people,
helping them rise again, if possible,

and, if not, lending your gentle voice
and hands to say, sometimes without words,
Good boy. Good girl. I’m sorry. I care.

•••

If this were Hawaii,
we’d be looking for honu
as we walk this blufftop trail.

But this is California’s central coast,
where kelp forests shimmy under
the surface of the sea, not turtles,
though a few slender-necked
cormorants on the hunt pop up,
then dive to surface again.

We take it slowly and pause often,
which is easy when so many views
command the eye, literally stopping
us in our tracks—

from the sleeping seal doing
an excellent imitation of driftwood
on the beach of the aqua agua cove
below to squadrons of pelicans
overhead arrowing north.

At the base of Bird Island, where
today no avian committees meet
and preen, a park docent with
an angled scope invites walkers
like us to pause, bend, and look
through the giant eye to see
what ours cannot—

two otters gyrating in a slender
channel of deep blue. And—bonus!—
two more hauled out on rocks,
sleeping close like small, fuzzy seals.

“That’s unusual,” muses the docent,
since otters prefer to sleep in the sea,
wrapping themselves in kelp fronds
to keep from drifting, dozens floating
in a raft of fur, whiskers to the sky,
some sleeping paw to paw.

This strikes us as an excellent idea,
knowing that our raft waits nearby
in a room with a view that stretches
to the horizon—two shades of blue
divided by a thin ribbon—

where we can hear the cries of gulls
and make like napping otters,
floating on waves of dreams,
hand in hand.

•••

(For Dick, with my thanks for this perfectly timed getaway
to some of the prettiest coast in our fair state.)

The first tentative foray
of a not-too-long walk
puts us on an elevated path

above Pacific waves smashing
rocks into sand. We both
get easily winded,

especially coming up steep
stairs that lead to and from
the tiny cove mostly hidden

(as its name testifies)
unless you know it’s there.
We know it’s there,

the little beach made up
of a kabillion sea-washed rocks,
most so small and smooth

they roll like pearls in
the hand, cushion my tush
for some idle contemplation

of wave formation. It took
all day for the sun to shove
aside the foggy curtain,

but now, late afternoon,
the sky and sea paired in
complementary shades

of blue, the messy waves
curling their backs like
annoyed cats before

mashing themselves back
into ocean. I sit and watch
on what feels for now

like my beach, sending
gratitude into the surf, the sky,
the kabillions of stars

from whence we all come
and will one day return,
for bringing me through again,

for bringing me here again,
for all the agains to come
and for those

in the ever and the after.
Amene.

hover over a quartet of almonds,
which sidles up to a couple of olives,

alongside a bit of goat cheese
the color of the streaky clouds

high over the ruler-straight horizon
dividing sea and sky.

You, butterfly lover, would admire
this arrangement. He, a cheddar fan,

would appreciate the neatly cut
square on the plate. Add to that

my favorite tea in a mesh pyramid
in matching white cup and saucer,

and here you are with me and my love
overlooking the Pacific where,

300 miles south on this coastline,
ages ago you baptized my baby toes,

and later those of your second daughter.
I watch the butterflies lift off the plate,

swirl in motes of early evening sun
meandering toward splashdown.

We the living imagine that we have
been granted another hour of daylight

today, and though I was not thinking
that I’d brought you with me,

here you are. Here you both are.
In these shadows, in this light.

•••

(In memory of my parents, Darlene and Roger Haag)

No birder, I can’t identify them,
except as birds, and I don’t need to.

What moves me, far away in warmer,
western weather, is the snow falling

in the video, the chirps of birds
that, I hope, indicate some kind

of delight. Some human has hung
a small wire cage of food from a

Central Park tree, where the wingéd
jockey on the trapeze to get their fill,

others on the ground or nearby
ice-capped bushes waiting their

turns. Or perhaps they’re content
to watch their brethren feed in

the harshest conditions, somehow
understanding that they’re all in this

together, these birds of a feather
weathering the storm.

•••

You can watch the birds feeding in the snow in Central Park here.
Video: Rtanphoto, New York City

There is something more to come.
—Dorianne Laux

It’s the amorphous, pliable, sticky
something that stops us,
clenches us in fear,

the what-ifs mounting like bricks
mortared in place to keep us in
or something out.

But oh, dear ones, what if
we took up that gooey something,
held it tenderly in our hands

like a newborn learning to suckle,
and whooshed all hope, all love
into it, praising its sweetness,

even as we have no earthly
idea what it will become?
We cannot know. We can only

hold all the somethings as we
ourselves are held by the seen
and unseen. We, too, are

some things. We, too, can
embody kindness, listen fully
and well, we who people

this whirling speck of a planet
in a greater galaxy of stars,
stellar remnants and dust.

•••

(With thanks and admiration to Julie Woodside, Bowen practitioner
and writer, who works with moms and their tiny babies learning to nurse.)

(for those struggling and in pain)

It is no easy thing to hold pain.
The sharp, porcupine-y points
pierce your palms, fine threads

of blood embroidering your life line,
and even if you set it down,
trying to shake off the wounds

like a dog trying to dislodge a bee
on its snout, pain will leap again
at you, affix itself like a burr

or turn into a weighty mass,
almost too heavy to lift, though
you do because you have to.

There’s no getting rid of this,
you think, once pain has painted
you in a garish shade, which

oddly, no one else can see.
How can they not? You stand
there with your pierced palms,

the heaviness in your hands,
which by now has seeped through
your pores into your bloodstream

And oh, there’s your heart
tenderized like the poor abalone
he used to de-shell and beat

with a mallet into submission.
As if the dead thing was going
to rise and float away.

Which is what you wish this ache
would do—leave you, find some
other heart to infect.

But if you sit with it, whisper
sweetness into its pointy bits,
with time, pain begins to soften,

and with more kindness becomes
puppy-dog soft in your hands,
leaping joyfully in your heart,

glad to see that you’ve remembered
that it still lives within you. Acknowledge it,
bless it, pat it on its bouncing head,

this pain that’s not going anywhere,
but with time morphs into gentle
remembrance, sending happy snapshots

to your overfull mind—the one once
beloved who has taken up residence
inside, the one with its tongue out,

always ready to deliver a slobbery kiss.

•••

(With thanks to Skooby’s people, Pamela and Dave, always gracious hosts…
along with their dogs!)

It is difficult to get the news from poetry, yet men die miserably
every day for lack of what is found there.

—William Carlos Williams, poet and physician,
Sept. 13, 1883–March 4, 1963

•••

Within every problem is a poem,
and your job, poet, is to clear

away the excess and find the essence,
which is simpler than you imagine,

takes only breath and allowing your
focus to fuzz a bit. Maybe let your

top lashes rest on your bottom ones.
Then, allowing them to flutter

like new moths drying their wings,
without trying at all, see what you see,

make a note. Call it poem, if you wish.
Watch and wish it well as it lifts into

mere air without your assistance,
on its way into the who-knows-where,

powered by the who-knows-what,
as the who-knows-why it came to be

whispers into the dreams of trees
holding the tightly furled within

swelling buds, preparing a
great canopy of green, each leaf

to come a poem.