Güd wrtr

(In memory of Julia Ellen Cook)

Her voice still ricochets around in my head
when I’m chewing on a problem or in grief—

Honey… in Julie’s nasally twang—though I have
no idea where she picked that up, not having

grown up in a place where folks twanged
their vowels. I met her when I rented her

studio next to the garage on Serenity Hills
Drive. Out my window I could hear the

neighbors’ two horses and a goat munching
sweet grass in season and where I learned

that a cut-up apple or chunks of carrot
could make you a friend in short order.

Julie’s Honey… came out as kindness, not
condescension, always accompanied by

a heartful smile of affection. In my twenties
then, I wondered how old you had to be

to carry off such an endearment without
sounding patronizing or, well, old. And I’d

never have her twang. Years later when I
found myself standing in front of roomsful

of college students, some of whom appeared
at my office door in tears, I heard myself

Honey… a young woman who reached for my
hand and squeezed hard. I squeezed back.

I found that if I delivered the sentiment
(or maybe an occasional Sweetie…)

with the right smile and honest compassion,
it could convey a gentleness and the kind

of sympathy that feels like a just-right hug.
Now that I live in the land of older ladies,

I hear myself Honey… people—hoping
they feel the verbal embrace, a kind of

holding that says I’m sorry, I’m with you,
How can I help? Which we all need more of,

that sweetness, that tenderness, that mercy.

Singin’ and swingin’ and gettin’ merry like Christmas.
—Maya Angelou

They are makin’ merry, those ladies harmonizing
in the California statehouse, singin’ and swingin’,

jingle bell rockin’, winter wonderlanding and
hearing the angels sing for twenty-five years

in the rotunda to let their voices float high
into the dome—my mama in the front row,

this year rockin’ a zippy walker-with-seat.
Not that she needs it, mind you, but it does

make things easier, she’ll allow, walking from
the parking garage across L Street, into

the north entrance to the Capitol, then
standing for a good hour in silver and red

sequins, gettin’ listeners into the spirit
of the season—not least me, humming along,

capturing this sweet moment of my mama
so happy, makin’ music with her friends,

ho, ho, ho, hallelujah, and to all a good night.

For Deborah Meltvedt

On a Friday walk-and-talk
by the river, Deb spots him
first—the dog-like head

periscoping out of royal blue.
We’ve seen him before here,
this sea lion who’s apparently

vacationing far from the sea—
or perhaps he’s decided to relocate,
given the ample supply of…

Has he got a fish? I wonder aloud

as the big guy’s back curves
like a new tire on the surface
for a moment, followed by

a whopper set of thrashing,
tail-flipping, water-churning,
gymnastic moves.

I think so, Deb says.

Riveted, we watch nature in
action, wait for glimpses
of silver glinting in morning

sun, likely a salmon trying
to make its way upstream
caught in the jaws of a hungry

predator. We, who would
typically root for the underdog,
cheer on the mammal working

to subdue and swallow breakfast—
though he is the interloper and
salmon need to spawn upstream.

But what do we two soft-skinned
creatures know about catching
our own food? We’ve never

had to kill another to eat it,
never had to cultivate
the strength, to summon

the determination, assume
a posture of predator,
though our species creates

them in numbers we don’t
want to imagine right now.
Which is perhaps one

reason why we stand
in awe as the dark head in
the river tips back and, little

by little, gulps his catch
until the silvery prey
disappears.

All those years ago
I stood facing him, my small
hands in his large ones
as we promised each other
our forever love.

Though I left him, and, later,
he left me, we kept that promise,
my companion spirit and I.

And today, on the 40th anniversary
of those I do’s, I will stand before
a different audience to introduce
an author I have published,
my old self an entirely remade being
unrecognizable to the young
woman deep inside who walks
with me still.

How could she know what we
would become?

Through the gauze of memory
we can only wave at
the where-we’ve-been,
keep looking ahead to
the where-we’re-going.

Because, I remind us,
if we’re still here,
our human experiment
continues—

we’re not done yet—

lucky us,
amene.

Is there any other kind?
The kind I offer too often?
But I have such good suggestions.

Like: Nibble a little. You might like it,
I tell the cats when they turn up
their noses at food they practically

inhaled a few weeks earlier,
laser beaming a feline what else
you got? sneer in my direction.

Or when I look at the sycamore
still clinging to its brittle leaves
as if they’re its best friends.

Let go, I urge. You’ll feel better,
lighter, ready to grow new
little buddies in the new year.

But does it listen to me? Of course not.
The sycamore just stands like the stoic
it is, arms folded, back turned.

Look, I say to the unseasonal
camellias already blooming their
pink heads off a good month early,

save some for later, why don’cha?
You, too, narcissus, popping up tall
with your merry paperwhite flowers

just as December frost hits,
just as rain is on its way and will
do its best to drown you.

But you know what? They all
ignore my advice, thankfully,
and proceed according to

timelines embedded deep in
their cells, all of us living things
heeding our own itineraries,

doing exactly what we need to do
precisely when we’re called to do it.

When I was a kid, I thought I had
only two: Pat and Dee, daughters
of my father’s sister, our Auntie Lo.

And then Pat and Dee grew up
and had babies, and my sister and I
learned about second cousins,

a nice concept. And then those
babies grew up and had babies,
and we now have third cousins

like Emily, whom I will take to lunch
today to celebrate her completion
of another quarter at college.

And that’s just on one side
of the family. It turns out that we
have many more cousins—ones

we may never know. But Mom
and I had lunch yesterday with her
first cousin Kate, whom I’d thought

of as a second cousin until a friend
deeply into genealogy patiently tried
to explain the “removed” thing—

like Kate, it’s someone one generation
away from yours. I’m still a bit fuzzy
on all that—maybe Emily is really

my third cousin once removed?
But none of that matters. When
Kate comes toward me with

a big smile and bigger embrace—
when I do the same with Emily—
there’s no remove, just closeness,

just that sweet magic of family.

When I ask, you smile
and agree, every time,

as I present the top
of my right hand,

and you don your
close-up glasses,

take manicure
scissors in hand,

and snip the oddly
long hair growing

from the center
of that hand that

has stroked your
head and loved you

in so many ways
for so very long.

Sure, the temp’s in the mid-40s, but
it’s sunny in Sacramento this fine morning,
and we’re into something good,
singing along with Herman’s Hermits—

the five of us exercising with Shelley
this morning on Marilyn’s driveway—
Something tells me I’m into
something good.

I cannot help but sing along;
I learned every word when I was 11
and my best friend Suz discovered
Herman’s Hermits a few years after

they became part of the American
rock’n’roll scene, thanks to the British
invasion of the musical kind. We
adored those four mop-top guys

whose voices floated out of the record
player in a house in Granite Bay,
California, singing a song written by
Carole King and Gerry Goffin,

later swooning over “Tapestry” when
Carole sang, My life is such a tapestry
of rich and royal hue, an ever-changing
vision of the ever-changing view.

And, oh, the view on this blue sky
day, as Marilyn, bundled in black,
walks out of her house to join us,
upright and ready for exercise,

looking good as she recovers from
her stroke, lifting pink hand weights
up, down, overhead, behind,
following Shelley as we all do,

our hearts rising on a brisk, almost-
winter day into something good,
so, so good to be together
again.

The morning after we land,
as I maneuver onto the freeway,
head east to the place where I was raised,
I am stunned to see more cars coming at me
then all the vehicles on the small island
where we just spent three tropical weeks.

It has been ever thus on every return
to the place I call home—a slight hitch
in the get-along on re-entry day,
the herky-jerky of where am I again?
mixed with glad to be back,
multiplied by a little sad to leave the place
I’ve just been.

We are odd creatures, we humans,
never quite satisfied with where we are
in space, in time, often longing for
a remembered space-time that cannot
come again. It never can.

But oh, those embedded space-times
lodge deep in our bones, take up their
own space in our cells, infusing us
with something humans call memory,
but the gods know as joy space,
as love buds, as heart crumbs,

the glory in our own back yard
always available to us, even if, down
the road, we forget some or even all
of the details.

(Hanalei town, north shore, Kauai)

Ten miles of repainting double yellow
lines punctuated with reflective squares
on each side will take three weeks,

so the flashing road signs indicate.
And when we see the crew
painstakingly lining the rural road

through Hanalei, we understand why.
In our freeway-filled world, huge
machines do this work in hours,

but here, it’s two hard-hatted men
operating a much simpler unit, guiding
it down the center of the road like

a horse-drawn plow, while other
hands apply chalk far ahead of them
to indicate where the lines must go.

Then another couple of workers
follow the line-makers and affix
ornaments guaranteed to glow

at night like protective fireflies
paired on either side of the fresh
yellow lines. This afternoon,

pau hana, after the road crew’s
departure, we pull off the road,
pause to admire the day’s progress,

this stretch of newly decorated
asphalt where patient, artistic
hands have been hard at work,

and where, tomorrow, they’ll
pick it up again.