Güd wrtr

How can you watch this huge O ascend
and not drive to find a vantage point,

a spot to frame its levitation between
the towers of a suspension bridge

you first walked as a college student?
How can you resist the urge to drive

onto the campus that shaped you,
that gave you the boy who walked you

onto that bridge more than five hundred
moons ago to watch this same orb,

creamy in its corpulence, climb the night
and kiss you under its fullness?

You can never have too many moons,
never enough nights to marvel over

celestial brilliance, to stand alone
over water-glistened supermoonlight,

bridge cables swooping around you
like promises, attempt a photograph,

and another, knowing you’ll never
do it justice, not come close, but

you’ll never stop trying.

our father, Roger, who art in heaven,

The little girls in this photo couldn’t understand
why you moved them far from a town called Orange
to a lake called Folsom, pulling them away from

sidewalks begging for roller skates and bikes,
away from Disneyland, to a rural life of poison oak
and no sidewalks and taking the bus to school

and summer heat the likes of which we’d never felt.
But you and Mom taught us to waterski on that lake,
and we learned to avoid the poison oak, spending

hours walking in the state park across the road,
plopped on our bellies in spring grass, surrounded
by wildflowers—blue dicks, shooting stars and lofty

lupine, the artistic Indian paintbrush, and oh,
the poppies that bobbed their happy heads at us,
a different kind of orange, welcoming us home.

Thank you and love,
Jan and Donna

•••

In memory of Roger E. Haag
Aug. 2, 1930 – Oct. 8, 2004

You dwell in the breath of gratitude,
every in, every out
an ongoing prayer of thanks.

This is given to you, this thankfulness
for all that you are, all that you have—
the words, the hands of helpers,
seen and unseen,

appreciation of the abundance
that is yours, always,
in the gift of words that come from
a source you can barely divine,
in birds that sing and flowers that bloom,
all without your assistance,

the trees of the forest and the tropics,
sturdy and upright, even when they sway
under wind or fire.

Notice that assistance is there, always,
for you and all beings everywhere
even in darkness, especially in darkness,
aware that light is yours on this,
the shortest day or the longest,
or any in between.

If you make your way to the steps
that appear seemingly unbidden,
allow your feet to find each one, slowly,
then, at the top, take the next step,
illuminated in welcome,

know that grace is yours,
that love is yours,
you who live in praise,
in a perennial state of thanksgiving—

grateful.

Looking for a part time line cook.
Must be good with eggs.
—Facebook posting from The Paisley Cafe

•••

I am excellent with eggs—
the collecting, the scrambling,
the neat put-away in the fridge,

the coloring for Easter,
not to mention the hiding
as well as the seeking,

but I imagine you’d want
someone who can land one
perfect sunny side up

as well as a cook who
can poach or fry a just-
right over easy, too,

and if that egg-tastic chef
also does that nifty one-handed
trick with the crack and drop

right into the pan, well,
a little showmanship
doesn’t hurt either, right?

So I’m afraid I’m probably
not your egg lady (all mine
having expired some time

ago), but I’m happy to
show up as an eager
customer, ready to order

and to applaud the one
who has a way with eggs
that has eaters like me

coming back for more.

•••

(For Lena and Jason, new owners of The Paisley Cafe, Orangevale, California)

for Lauren, Liz, Sonya, Toni and other July 30 kids

Here’s to us July 30 babies
born on (who knew?)

International Father-in-Law Day
National Whistleblower Day
National Cheesecake Day
Paperback Book Day
Share a Hug Day

and at
the end of National Moth Week

But I like best that I emerged
onto the planet on a day
the celebrates friendship
around the world,

especially since I find myself
fortunate to have amassed
so many over 65 years,
which is what I celebrate
today—

all of you who have made me
me with your lovingkindness,
your encouraging words and hugs
and the present of your presence,
thank you very much—

may it,
may we,
long continue.

The Southern Delta Aquarids
dance through the heavens,
reaching their peak this year
on the 65th anniversary
of my birth,

breathtaking meteors
streaking the sky at
at 25 miles per second.

A tiny few leave behind
trails of glowing ionized gas
that stick around for a few
seconds after the fireball
has gone,

which makes me long
to be atop a mountain,
watching, whispering
my thanks to the universe
for getting me here, in the dark,
brimming with astonishment,
eager to see what dawn
will bring.

we say to each other, so automatically
when someone asks how we are—

yet if I look into your eyes, even onscreen,
I see exhaustion, despair, frustration,

honest anger, sorrow about this thing that
never should have happened but did,

this life-altering devastation that’s left
you forever changed and, on many days,

without hope. We hide in plain sight to
shield blows real or imagined or from

predators—like the camouflaged giraffe
standing tall on the wooded savannah, or

the great gray owl that blends into the fabric
of a tree. Fine. Admirable. Excellent.

But none of you hides when I ask. One of you
brightens as you talk about the ex-son-in-law

who comes to help, and one of you is excited
to collect your poems into a book, and

another of you remembers your late
husband’s birthday today.

I resolve to not answer “fine”
when someone asks, to say instead,

I’m purple today, thank you very much.
I’m fierce. I’m balmy. I’m sun-sational.

Summer haze converts
the creamy half cup

of moon angling
toward the horizon

into half a lemon slice—

in another month
the coming wildfires

will stain it
blood orange

(after Nikita Gill)

You are still the 8-year-old girl who
brightens at unexpected kindnesses—

the boy on the playground at recess
who offers his sweater after he leans

toward your small shell of an ear
to whisper that you have a spot on

the back of your dress, that maybe
you’d like to tie his sweater around

your waist to hide the whatever-it-is
you sat in or—oh, no!—came out of you.

Blushing, you accept, tie the cardigan’s
arms around you like a hug as he lopes

like a young deer toward the grassy field
to play catch with the other boys.

You have carried that particular kindness
with you for more than a half century,

the memory of his ruffled blond hair and
black-rimmed glasses, his name—Tom—

a boy who died much too young but
whose generosity lives in you,

grateful you.

two states south toward home,
solo this time, I anchor myself
to the window of the flying

capsule with wings, lean my
head against the too-hot
window, fascinated all over

again—as I was when I first
flew as a child—by creamy
columns of clouds beneath me

fluffing thousands of feet tall.
And I wonder again if clouds truly
take on three-dimensional shapes,

or is that an illusion I recall,
really not knowing clouds at all?
And then the song’s in my head,

so I hum as, 30,000 feet below,
squiggles of water flash like silver
ribbons over the mirage of earth,

as gingham checks of cropland grow.
And yes, the brilliantly white
cumulus congestus towers might

well contain thunder, but those
ice cream castles in the air still
and always from up here on high

look good enough to eat.