It’s my fault. I left it outside,
and she must’ve decided
it was a good place to hunker
down and start lacing a net
with her delicate long legs,
hinged needles that look
so vulnerable, easily broken.
But that’s why, instead of
bringing it inside where
it usually lives, ready
to water indoor plants,
I’m leaving her new abode
outside, letting her get on
with her task in a place
she feels safe. Or maybe,
like me, she’s simply a gal
with a fondness for purple.
(for Lisa Morgan and the Oakmont High School class of 1976)
As if we needed proof in mimeographed
form, on printed programs with only
a small stain testifying to the decades,
the summation of our high school lives
lies on your mother’s kitchen counter,
our names wafting up like 1970s incense,
evidence of the girls we were. And the boys,
too, your mom’s tidy cursive inked on
the program of scholarship winners.
Two days later—fifty years ago today—
we commenced on the quad, you and I
hatted and gowned, rising from our places
in the band to take our spots in line
for diplomas with our classmates,
our parents and teachers looking on,
I imagine, with relief. Then we raced
back to the band to Pomp and Circumstance
one last time before we all vanished
into the ether, to whatever we
might make of our budding lives.
You, the yearbook editor,
me, the newspaper editor,
two girls good with words who divided
our hearts between the band room
and Room 206, where so many
publications were born. As were we,
though I doubt we knew it then.
We study the vintage documents now
like the historical artifacts they are—
our mothers peering over our shoulders,
our fathers nearby, too, all of them gone,
but not—unable to quite conjure
the particulars of who we were.
But there we are, on paper, all 204
graduates marching into the country’s
bicentennial, with, as they used to say,
our whole lives ahead of us, we two
artifacts ourselves, stunned by
the where-did-it-all-go-ness
of an all-too-quick half a century
embodied in your brilliantly
prophetic yearbook theme
that neither of us has forgotten:
So sad, so strange,
the days that are no more.
Even when you think it’s just a gray day,
it’s a day, after all. And you awoke,
if a bit creakily, moved the sore bits,
but you awoke. You moved. You rose,
with or without assistance (there’s always
assistance from those seen and unseen),
and you made your way into the gray day,
which, you well know, has brightness
above it, our chandelier of sun hanging
high, as it does, every day. You rely,
as we all do, on that movement of dark
into light and back again. Perhaps,
on this one, you find yourself in the dark
all day. Perhaps, on this one, you find
yourself in perpetual light. Rhyming light.
Not because of latitude, but because of attitude
mixed with gratitude, aware that shade and
sun amble hand in hand across the heavens,
as they always have. As they always will.
•••
(With thanks to Molly Fisk for the prompt.)
We are rooted in fertile ground,
and our roots go deep and our love abounds.
—from the song “Fertile Ground” by Amanda Udis-Kessler
•••
This spring in my garden
every day is a flower communion
as I walk among the blooming
that surprise me with their radiance.
On Sunday the first red hibiscus unfurls,
while at church everyone receives
an alstroemeria or sunflower or dianthus
to offer to someone else, saying,
“May you blossom here.”
And so we do in a community of folks
who, on our surface, seem more different
than alike. Together, we sing, we’re
“a dazzling bouquet of every kind
of flower. Jump in the vase
’cause we’ve got space for more.”
•••
The song “Dazzling Bouquet” was written by Bret Hesla.
You can listen to it here.
Inventor of the mammogram, who
made it possible—nay, required—
for anyone who owns them to get
their breasts mauled by
unforgiving steel. Men, of course,
invented this torture, going
back to Albert Solomon,
1913, first x-raying breasts,
and Raul LeBorgne, whom
we have to thank for the notion
of compressing them, which,
to give him a little credit,
raises the quality of images
and lowers radiation.
And wouldn’t you know that
a company called Siemens
developed the first machine,
whose descendants squish us now?
Doesn’t help when I know
I’ve been dodging the calls from
well-meaning women wanting to
schedule my biennial abuse, that
I just gotta pick up the phone,
knowing that it will result
in not one trip but at least
two, since my girls will require
ultrasound, too. But they
have to start in the masher,
bruised for weeks, though
I don’t say this to Lisa or Gina
or Carol, nor to Sue or Linda,
whose mammograms revealed
the worst, who lost breasts or
part of them or suffered worse.
My girls and I will live with
the bruises, in honor of
those who were saved—
however brutally—
in memory of those
who weren’t.
Doorbell rings while I’m still in robe
and slippers, working through
the in-box’s overnight accumulations.
Sighing, I rise and pad to the front door
to find a chipper, orange-vested
young man from the utility company,
the descendant of guys who annually
appear, once upon a time bearing
clipboard and pen and paper—now
with small electronic tablet in hand.
“Ah, tree time,” I think, even before
Micah introduces himself as the arborist.
“Wonderful!” I say to this tree guy
who has come to inspect the leafy growth
swaddling the trapeze-like lines that swoop
from tall poles to my house.
Walking to the back yard, we chat,
we two dendrophiles, delighted
by each other’s enthusiasm for trees.
“Sure,” he says, “we can remove that
volunteer fig. You want those ficus out?”
Yes, I do. And then Micah offers
a professional assessment that makes
me beam like a proud parent:
“Your sycamore is in great shape.”
As if I’ve had much to do with this
towering sentinel that’s watched over
this house for close to a century.
“I’ve had it trimmed regularly,
and I water it through summer,”
I say to Micah’s approving nods.
“Any other suggestions?”
He shakes his head.
“She looks good,” he says.
And, as we both walk to the driveway,
I decide that I will take that compliment
on behalf of the sycamore and myself,
delighted by the conversation with
the young tree guy
who, whether out of kindness
or professional obligation, chatted up
an old robe-and-slipper’d gal about
trees on a sparkling May morning
just because we love them.
Open-hearted, we say.
Big-hearted, we think,
of those who are kind,
who seem to have naturally
warm hearts, kind hearts,
and yes, soft hearts,
which is, when we
think about it,
all of us, really,
calling up our most
compassionate selves,
our charitable selves.
Even those who appear
the most hard-hearted,
who seem unresponsive
to the needs of others,
who look unforgiving, unkind,
with hearts of stone,
if we pause and open
our own wounded hearts,
we might find in them
a softness like an
ephemeral sky heart
wandering lonely as
a cloud, as the poem
says. Fleeting, perhaps,
but there, waiting
to be admired like
“a host, of golden daffodils”
by the tender-hearted,
who, even in the face
of one devoid of warmth,
take a breath, choose
to respond with love.
•••
The golden daffodils are William Wordsworth’s from his best known
poem published in 1807, “I wandered lonely as a Cloud.”
My photographer’s text said,
accompanying his photo of
sheep-fluffy clouds rendered
in black and white, as Ansel
often did, finessing the swells
of whites and grays and blacks,
deftly rendering the sky in an
intermediate shade so that
a viewer doesn’t miss the color.
Isn’t that the way of it? We often
linger in the gray undersides,
forgetting that just above
lies the light, that if we step
back a bit, the sorrow that
threatens to rain down on us
billows bright around the edges.
Mr. Adams knew this well,
and we see his genius
not only in his iconic photos
but also in the buoyant pillows
drifting over us today,
taking on all manner of shapes,
periodically shading the sun.
We have only to look up and
see a heart in the cotton ball
cumulus floating overhead —
a little ragged, like ours,
such extraordinary light
refracting into the sweetest
delight.
•••
In memory of Ansel Adams
and in honor of Dick Schmidt,
the photographer who holds my heart.
The wicked smart, clever niece
born on my 29th birthday married
a mechanically brilliant man, and
they gave us Henry and Rosie.
And the sister who is their grandma,
and the brother-in-law who is their grandpa
spend weekdays with these two little ones,
inviting Aunt Jan to visit just for this:
to watch Grandpa Eric toss soon-to-be-3
Henry on the sofa again and again
to the boy’s delighted giggles, and see
Grandma Donna with Rosie, who has
just turned 1 and recently taken to walking,
as she stands and shimmies, then squats
like a long-time yogi, then effortlessly rise
again and again with a big smile.
When I boop Rosie on the nose, her grin
contains a universe’s worth of delight.
And I think, as I often do, of my grandpa,
who liked to say about my sister and me,
“Every generation improves the breed.”
When we look (even with our biased eyes)
at these two, three generations after him,
we know that he was so, so right.
•••
For my peeps with love from Great Aunt Jan:
Donna, Eric, Lauren, Gerald, and, of course,
Henry and Rosie
The garden goddess brought me
a daphne—perfect, I thought,
thinking of the nymph,
who, unhappily pursued by
a man she didn’t want, transformed
herself into a laurel tree.
This newcomer to my garden
has not yet flowered—again,
perfect for the virgin
who chose to remain so,
today planted firmly in good soil
by my garden goddess friend,
herself an independent woman
who chose her love carefully,
who nurtures it mindfully,
as she is teaching me to do
with the plants. None of them,
like us, is immortal—some may
not flourish where they’ve
been planted—but we admire
them for who they are,
living and growing in the world
at their own pace, for as long as
they can, whether or not
they perform as we wish,
whether or not they look or act
like others around them.
•••
Güd wrtr 