Güd wrtr

August feels like a deep inhale before the year tilts toward fall.
—Carissa Potter

We feel the tilting, the planet beginning
its annual lean in this hemisphere,

the trees already letting go of their shade,
though summer has not let go of us yet

in our neck of the woods. The deep inhale,
we find, is September, the final month of heat,

which could nudge its way into October—
fire season going easy on us this year,

which we hate to say, tempting fate,
knowing how flames can race through

our world at any time. Still, we inhale
the swerve toward fall, which ignores

the calendar, having already overtaken
other places, calling for sweaters and jackets,

which those of us still sweating long for,
while others feel our lizard selves

soaking up what we can as long as we can,
storing it up against what is coming—

whether we like it or not—
what is surely headed our way.

Thoughts. I have so many. If overthinking was a crime, I’d be serving a life sentence.
Maybe a run-on sentence.

—T. De Los Reyes, from “Read a Little Poetry”

Maybe not a crime, maybe more
of a grammatical sin, though maybe not,
the overthinking, the fly-by thoughts
zooming through, of course, it’s a life sentence,

born with this brain you can’t change,
and while it means that you barely draw
breath between thoughts, much less
plant a period between sentences, that

whoosh of material, those images, those
words, those snippets of music and lyrics,
scenes from movies you saw decades ago,
they’re part of the corpuscular river

rushing through the veins of your cranium,
and all those who urge you to slow down,
take a thought and chew on it for a bit, then
swallow it, let it go, this constant life review,

a revisitation of conversation and actions
about what has been or not, what might be,
is not always your friend, but hey, you can’t
help it, you chalk it up to a creative mind,

a brain built to juggle all manner of input,
and, by the way, where did you last see
those juggling balls, the ones you literally
used to toss in the air in front of college

students lost in their thoughts, you trying
to briefly still their wandering minds
and get them to focus on whatever you were
trying to teach them, only later did it hit you

that you had no control over what stuck
in their brains, over what they might take
with them, but oh, how they’d giggle as you
literally kept three balls in the air, hoping

a clever metaphor would emerge from your
mouth, listening to them guffaw when you
dropped a ball, how someone would retrieve it,
toss it back to you mid-juggle, one of the rare

moments when your great river of thoughts
temporarily stalled, when for some reason
you could focus on what was right in front of
your eyes, the loop-de-loop of pink rubber

balls landing softly in your hands, you
concentrating only on the catching and tossing,
breathing in time to the rhythm of controlled
flight of spherical objects, watching the cascade,

oh, yes, again, again, again.

Yours was lilac, though you didn’t wear the scent,
but planted two in the back yard, walked the sloping
grass to sniff them when they bloomed.

Hers was tea—at least to me—she who kept a tea
drawer before I did, who loved good tea from a
Canadian company and had it shipped, along with
the lemon curd she loved.

His was wood shavings from boards hewn in the garage,
the bits clinging to him like fleas that he brought in
the house, where I still sometimes walk in the front door
and smell the shavings of pine and redwood, long gone
but not.

Now and then I smell the dog who died a decade ago
when I walk in, too, though I’ve forgotten so many others,
which reminds me to sniff those I love when I am
in their presence, craft a sense memory, and somehow
embed it in my cells

so that when that scent comes,
when they no longer can,
so will sweet tears,
bringing them back
as a reminder that they’ve
truly never left.

(for Lindsey and Chuck, bound for England)

Clouds stacked up for miles ahead
like planes waiting to land—

or flat-bottomed sailboats scudding
across endless blue—

I wanted to follow where they were
headed, but the road turned southward,

and the flotilla continued east,
and as so often happens, I was left

longing for the direction I could
not travel, over thataway—

no idea why it beckoned me,
just knowing that it had—

and how much I yearned to go.

(with apologies to Miss Dickinson)

Hope is the thing with flowers
that germinate in the soil
and push their way toward the light—

and somehow spring into their
short-lived lives with such joy
that we smile every time we see them—

and, like the butterflies and bees,
bless their presence in our lives,
in this world that needs their

persistent, glorious promise.

Today of all days—
the day after another unspeakable act
that is spoken of over and over,

joining the chorus of tragedies
humans visit upon each other,
the killings and starvings,

the bombings and beatings—
we think of those in the towers
when they fell,

of those we love afloat
across the veil, our hands reaching
to penetrate the thin places

to connect with them. You
hold someone in your heart
right now, as do I,

perhaps many someones,
as your tender core pulses,
as you wish theirs still did.

We so easily divide into us
and them, we the living.
I hope that the dead do not,

that every soul, every pinpoint
of light, is an us, that we,
blasted open by grief,

allow ourselves to rest in
the thin places, at the sacred
sites, the unhurried moment

this morning as I folded
the laundry in the bedroom
he and I once shared,

just the current kitty and me,
as he arrived in a whoosh,
lingering in the corner

as he does more often than
I notice. As he so blessedly
does.

(Sept. 11, two dozen years later…)

So this honey bee lands smack dab
in the center of a Mexican sunflower
and sets about doing its business—

which is, of course, pollinating—
when it is joined by another bee-like
insect called the hover fly.

One fly, one bee feeding on the same
nectar. Impossible for us overthinking
humans to know whether the two

flying objects meet each other with
curiosity or confrontation. But look
at them, each seemingly earnest

about its work, not pestering
the other. Yes, the bee could
claim the flower as its territory,

defend it against the newcomer.
The fly could launch an all-out
attack, attempt a hostile takeover.

But neither does, which zings
me with hope for the peaceful
co-existence of different species,

praying as I do for simple
tolerance and cooperation
among my own.

•••

With thanks to photographer Kathy Keatley Garvey whose image inspired this poem.

Mellifluous isn’t on one list, though it is on others.
Because it rolls over the tongue so smoothly,
it should be highly caloric. But tremulous is,

which makes me quiver saying it, and
luminous shining its bright self, as well as
diaphanous. All these -ous suffixes,

I realize, sweeten the mouth—even
nefarious, a less-pretty word, meaning-wise.
But so many of the prettiest words

on the list that found its way to me
depict something lovely—gossamer
or tranquility, incandescent and murmuring.

Oh, the epiphany of petrichor, that pleasant,
earthy smell after rain, so ephemeral
in its gossamer radiance reminding me

that some of the briefest moments,
like a new day’s aurora, filling me
with ebullience, watching the gleam

of a halcyon moment—one, the dictionary
reminds me, characterized by happiness,
so calm, so peaceful. One we’re all

looking for, which might find its way
to us when we stop searching, when we stop,
take a breath and, instead of being,

just be.

As we assemble our star in the heavens
with every good deed, the smallest
bits of kindness deposited like seeds

along the paths of others, I find
myself considering how I might
furnish that star before I get there,

what color I’d like it to be,
where the sofa might go. I look
into the night sky, guessing

in which neighborhood my star
might live (I love the idea of
Alpha Centauri—closest to

our Milky Way) and toss questions
out to the twinkle twinkle:
how I wonder what you are

and how my essence,
lacking a body, will get there.
Should I plan on redecorating,

or will it matter if my star
resembles the sun I’ve grown up
under—a blazing ball of light

and energy that will not require
paint or wallpaper? I’m guessing
it won’t have rooms or a garden.

But I hope to start the conversation
with my star brightening its
corner of a galaxy:

How did you come to be born
and become your fiery self? Are
you expecting whatever’s left

of me? Will there be a welcome
party? Balloons? Might this be
where my companion spirits

have taken up residence?
Or perhaps you’ll pull me
into your embrace, tuck me

into your orbit as a little
exoplanet where I’ll reflect
your brilliance and shine

it over kabillions of miles
through the darkest space,
back to this little blue marble

where I and so many others
that we think of as humans—
everyone we’ve ever known

and loved—have called home.

As a kid, I used to feel my hopeful heart
lift when I’d see the red flap hanging,

the one Dad installed below our mailbox
on its sturdy post across the street.

That meant the mail lady had come,
as we called our carrier who drove around

in a right-handed-drive Jeep, delivering
through our rural neighborhood. What might

be in the box today? A note from Grandma
all the way from Southern California

pounded out on her cursive typewriter?
Mom’s longed-for Publishers Clearinghouse

letter announcing that she’d finally won?
Any number of magazines—Time and Life

for the parents, Seventeen for me,
American Girl for my younger sister?

A half century later, living in my
century-old house in the city,

my heart still rises when I hear
on my porch the telltale metallic

clunk of the red mailbox lid,
the mail person’s hand having

deposited the day’s offerings.
Though many of the magazines

now arrive in my electronic in-box
along with the bills, there’s still

the hope of an old-fashioned
postcard or letter, perhaps even

written by hand and introduced
to an envelope with a stamp affixed

in the upper right corner. A note
of thanks or an invitation,

a birthday card, a bit of reaching
out in this digital age that says,

I remember you. Thinking of you.
Wish you were here,

sending love through the mail,
which is almost as good,

we tell ourselves, as a
live, in-person hug.