Güd wrtr

We mourned the felling of the old walnut
tree, having no choice in the matter,

the decision of unseen higher-ups
in his condo community.

One of us took photos of the other
atop the remaining stump, and one of us

cried when she came back to find it
ground into shreds. But we were cheered

when one day someone planted what
seemed to be a skeletal shrub, without

identification. Dendrophiles that we are,
we consulted a plant lady friend

three states away who declared it
a crepe myrtle. So Myrtle she became,

though apparently she’s monoecious,
with both male and female parts.

The question became: What color is she?
Not expecting blossoms her first year,

we figured we’d live in the mystery for
some time. But she has sprouted, well,

sprouts on the ends of her luscious leaves
that looked as if they might be wee buds.

And yesterday, we swear, within hours
after we checked, we got our answer:

Myrtle has baby white blossoms
popping out already. We’d hoped for

a showy deep pink, but as with any
offspring, you get what you get.

And you love them no matter what,
our precocious girl. Top of her class,

we imagine as proud foster parents, one
of us who regularly waters her, even before

sprinklers were installed, which now shower
her with silver sparkles in late afternoon

light, this new neighbor who, we hope,
will outlast us for many summers to come.

•••

• dendrophile: one who loves trees

• monoecious (muh-NEE-shus): having both male
and female reproductive organs on the same plant.

Of course, she did, seeing as how her son
had just announced he was leaving home,

heading for God knows where—God knows why—
Gonna be gone for some time, don’t know

how long, any shekels you can spare, Ma?
You’d throw the loaded pig at him, too—

not an actual pig, not kosher, not clean.
But you get the symbolism, as she must have

even in the moment of losing her cool,
which you can’t imagine her doing,

saint that she is. But you get it. She bore
him in Bethlehem, so that’s how she was

identified. Not by name. Not, certainly,
as the mother of the one who set off,

as it happened, to save the world.

•••

The headline and story that inspired the poem.

(For Dickie)

Mine is South Pacific, 1958
Yours is For Whom the Bell Tolls, 1943

South Pacific is so much more you,
filmed as it was on Kauai, your favorite
Hawaiian island, which you gave to me,
along with Mt. Makana, renamed Bali Hai
for the movie.

And while you can’t beat the combination
of Gary Cooper and Ingrid Bergman
as guerrilla fighters, For Whom the Bell Tolls
was not about WWII, which you were born
in the middle of, but Hemingway’s take
on the Spanish Civil War.

But it was filmed in California, our home state,
in the Sierra near Sonora Pass, the actors
and crew having to scramble around
snowy granite boulders,

Gary Cooper and Ingrid Bergman allegedly
engaged in an affair to remember,
which, is, of course, how we entangled
ourselves nearly five decades later.
Cooper and Bergman sparked, flamed
and burnt out quickly.

We, my dear, are still here—
creakier, crankier, the bell beginning to toll—
our days together certainly numbered,
but we’ll take the ones allotted to us,
we’ll take ’em all, happily (won’t we?)
ever after.

May we surrender all cynicism and doubt
about the state of the world to her,
she of the serene face

and gentle countenance, her leafy crown
blooming the deepest red of—
what else?—her great heart embracing

for all growing things, which certainly
includes plants and animals
great and small,

not least us two-legged ones
who marvel at her profuse array
of colors, her hardy persistence,

flourishing no matter what nature
throws at her—she, come to think of it,
the embodiment of Mother Nature

herownself.

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.