(Lake Tahoe, west shore)
Red hammock
under tall Jeffrey pines
set against bluest blue,
I eye a soaring specimen
that divides in two
forty feet up.
Like us, one trunk,
two offshoots,
still reaching
for sky—even
as we add more
rings to our core,
around our
increasing middles,
surprisingly
strong and
sturdy, so very
well rooted.
•••
(for Dickie—mahalo nui loa for the great Tahoe getaway)
As I type with my eyes closed, as I often do, I think of my favorite high school teacher who made me type and retype student reporters’ stories onto clean, half sheets of newsprint. In the mid-1970s I was the editor of the high school newspaper, and the bonus of doing all that typing was that I got to do it on the first IBM Selectric I ever touched, the first typewriter I fell in love with, which lived in Mrs. C’s small office.
“If you can type clean copy with your eyes closed, you’re a pretty good typist,” said Mrs. C.
Over the years I worked hard to become that pretty good typist, my fingers growing stronger as they took me to other typewriters—from my mother’s small Smith-Corona portable to the gray elephants of Underwoods in their hard plastic skeletons at the college newspaper to the keyboard of my first Macintosh computer and many that followed.
But I never lost my affection for the Selectric, which, even without a correcting ribbon, was the smoothest typewriter ever made. (I still occasionally type on a 1960s red Selectric that lives with me.) I was never as fast on it as Mrs. C., though, or, I imagine, nearly as accurate.
After she was handed the responsibility for the yearbook and newspaper at a new high school in 1966, Mrs. C. sought guidance from editors at the local newspaper in our town. She’d been an English major and told me years later that she had known next to nothing about newspapers. But over the years she turned herself into a truly gifted journalism adviser who gave me and so many others some of our best lessons in reporting.
A couple of months ago, prompted by another one of her former students, I started looking for Mrs. C. a couple of months ago, wondering why, despite sending emails over the years, I had not heard from her.
She and her longtime partner had moved, so that was part of it. But when I recently reached her partner by phone, he told me that Mrs. C. was struggling—as had her mother and a sister—with dementia, though she is still in good health.
He said that Mrs. C. had opened my email and sat before the computer as if she intended to respond. “But she just couldn’t,” he explained. “I think she’s forgotten how to use a computer.”
He offered his help, and she refused it.
That’s when my eyes filled, and the crack in my heart widened a little for all those we lose in one way or another.
I wonder if, somewhere deep inside, her fingers still know their way around a keyboard, even if plaque in her brain is blocking the signals to make them perform.
When I knew her, Mrs. C. seemed at the height of her powers—not only a very clean typist but also a champion writing teacher, editor and encourager. She also advised the yearbook, and my dear friend Lisa, the yearbook editor, and I, editor of the newspaper, came to both cherish and fear Mrs. C’s left-leaning handwriting on copy she returned to us. She tapped my sister (also a leftie) to edit the yearbook two years later, and Donna got similar notes of correction and praise.
Though a serious taskmaster who did not tolerate sloppy writing or laziness, Mrs. C. had a delightful laugh and (years later she told me) loved “most of” her students. Even more important, she served as a springboard for many young people, including me, who bounced into college and later into careers as writers and journalists in print and broadcasting, teachers and professional communicators and much more.
She was not my only excellent writing teacher/adviser/coach, but she was one of the very best who installed important skills at a crucial point in my development as a writer—not least insisting on good typing habits.
My eyes are closed as I type this, remembering that petite, strawberry blonde-haired woman bustling around the small room in a high school in a small Northern California town where so many newspapers and yearbooks were born. I feel her still, leaning over my shoulder, noting a typo or praising a phrase.
My mother, who died in December, and Mrs. C. were two of my first, best editors, both gone now in different ways, both embedded in my writerly editor’s heart that—dear god, please—will carry on their lessons as long as I have breath and brain to do so.
(Lake Tahoe, west shore,
in memory of Margery Thompson)
Five days after you die,
we head to the Big Blue,
the high mountain lake
where all manner of
spirits live, and now,
we imagine, you have
joined them.
The Wa-She-Shu,
the ancestral people,
migrated here each
summer from the hot
Carson Valley to fish
and hunt and gather
berries at da-ow-a-ga,
“edge of the lake.”
Surely they continue
in spirit form, their
Washoe descendants
honoring them to this
day,
as we remember you,
talking story about
“the time when…,”
carrying your love
with us to the ends
of our days.
With luck, one day
we might join you
and the spirits whose
lights we see dancing
under dark clouds
to the east,
from our spot here
at the end of your
final summer season,
in a little room called
Evergreen Heaven
at the edge of the lake.
(for Rebecca)
Once again, after the quiet
explosion of death,
the presence of the beloved
persists, as companion spirits do,
lingering in the present tense
near those who cherish them.
We cannot yet think in the “was,”
as we sink into the after-space
that they occupied in the filing
cabinet of our hearts,
catalogued under “the living,”
not yet comprehending
their move into the file
marked “past tense.”
We’re not ready for that.
We find ourselves opening
the file folder again and
again to allow their souls
to waft up at us like the scent
of bread rising, the kneaded
dough still imprinted with
their fingerprints. Go ahead.
Take a whiff. Inhale their
essence as often as you want.
They are right there with us
even as we ache for their
vanished physical selves,
as our hearts, blasted open,
ooze in the aftermath with
the love that will carry us
all the rest of our days.
(Lake Tahoe, west shore)
On the second day at the lake
a storm warning and prophetic
graying skies, rimmed by a hint
of light over the mountains
to the east.
Sure enough, about mid-afternoon,
I walk to the same spot overlooking
the beach, where yesterday beamed
with unseasonable warmth
and happy lake-goers,
where today I watch a pewter sea
of clouds turn thick and muscular,
cumulonimbus body builders
obscuring the far shore,
and beneath them a vertical
a wall of white moving north.
I love listening to thunder
when it rumbles through this
great granite bowl like
the lowest note on the biggest
tympani, though not when it
turns ominous, slamming the sky
like a sharp whack on a bass drum.
Now the temperature drops as
the wind picks up, the pine boughs
above me starting to shimmy,
the lake matching the sky, no longer
the rich cobalt of yesterday.
But two mallards swim and float
near shore as I imagine they do
daily in their ongoing search
for sustenance, seemingly
unconcerned about weather.
Now comes the rain, gently
polka-dotting the surface
at first, drops bouncing as if
the rain gods have loosed
thousands of marbles along
with the rolling thunder
and lightning I cannot see.
I think of the boatful of family
and friends celebrating a birthday
on this lake two months ago
on the summer solstice, caught in
a wicked afternoon storm that
no one predicted, choppy ocean-
sized waves capsizing the boat,
drowning eight.
Today one small boat churns
steadily south, and I, the only one
watching from this rise above
the beach, raise the hood
of my jacket, whispering,
Peace, white light and safety,
my constant prayer these days,
hoping that this boatman soon
reaches safe harbor, gets securely
tucked in, as we all need to be
until this storm passes.
(Lake Tahoe, west shore,
Labor Day 2025)
You are here—
me, too—
by the Big Blue
that is so cold…
(how cold is it?).
I remember two
little girls who grew
up next to what they
considered “their”
lake, who were long
ago brought to this
ginormous one
situated in a
equally ginormous
granite bowl
rimmed by pines.
They shivered as
their tender toes
curled in the brisk
cobalt water, feet
treading the stony
bottom, inching in
up to their knees,
quickly stumbling
out with numb soles.
“What good is a lake
if you can’t get in it?”
they demanded of
their amused parents
standing onshore.
Today we watch kids
and dogs and even
several grownups
wading, floating
in the Big Blue,
smiling, chuckling.
Even on this warming
planet, this lake is still
the second deepest
in the country, holding
37 trillion gallons of
mostly snowmelt that
never sees daylight,
only the top layer
barely sun-warmed.
Those brave folk?
“They must be
Europeans,” you say.
“Or from Alaska,”
I say, as we admire
their bravery,
an act of adventurous
souls who—in a
different way from us
timid landlubbers—
are making the most
of their Labor Day vacay.
That, when I bent over and kissed her cheek as she lay on the sofa—the spot from which she would not rise the next morning—I didn’t say, aloha nui loa, mahalo nui loa—much love, many thanks.
That I didn’t say the same to her adoring husband sitting in a chair next to her, ready to get her anything she might ask for.
That her brother, my longtime sweetheart, stood nearby, thinking, like me, that we’d see her again.
That I said we would return in three days to talk about details for her “after-story.” That I didn’t want to use the word “obituary,” though she knew what I meant. That her generous, struggling heart was already counting its final beats.
Sorry that while I still have breath, she no longer does.
That as my belly swells and my ribs rise, air filling my chest up to my collarbone, she will never issue a hearty chuckle or sing a favorite song or dance to a good jazz band or cook a family dinner.
That I will never again sit at her table, happy to eat anything that woman put on a plate
That her essence will hover in my kitchen each time I make custards the way her mother taught her, the ones I brought this sorta-sister-in-law in her final months.
Sorry that I still don’t have all the particulars to write a proper obit.
That we will never again stand together before the fridge in her kitchen, looking at one of my poems affixed to the silvery box with a magnet shaped like a flip-flop.
That she—who claimed that she didn’t “get” poetry—will no longer tell me that she got a kick out of a particular poem and quote lines she liked.
Sorry that we’ll never again see her smile, which was—to so many who loved her—the perfect poem.
•••
(In memory of Margery Thompson, 1946–2025, the best sorta-sister-in-law ever.)
In late August when the sycamore
starts tossing leaves brittled by
unrelenting sun, I’m always
surprised to find the lawn
littered with the dead and
dying. It happens annually,
but it feels unseasonably early.
I’ve called this sycamore mine
for 38 summers. Perhaps
our real purpose is not to
imagine that we own anything,
but to embrace the notion of
caretaking, that we are here
to take care of what needs
taking care of. Especially
each other, I think as
my feet crunch over what
lies beneath, as I take up
the wide fan of a rake,
and begin taking care
again.
“It’s always more fun to eat out,”
I tell my neighbor whose kitty
wanders down to my porch
most mornings. “Hi, Hercules,”
I say, as he sits politely
but expectantly, waiting
for breakfast. Sometimes dinner.
It’s not that he doesn’t
get fed at home, his mom
has told me more than once.
But look at this perfect al fresco
dining spot—atop my car on
this early evening in late summer—
as the little prince rises from
the warm roof to stretch
in perfect cat pose, blinking
as I set the plastic dish
before him. He needs
no urging, diving into his
chicken paté with the gusto
of an eager patron
at one of his favorite
restaurants, looking up
at me after a few bites,
licking his lips before
returning to his dinner
in what I’m pretty sure
is a fine feline thank you.
That’s the pisser—
the dilemma with no
easy resolution,
no good answer:
when to hold on,
when to let go.
We are a holding-on
species, reluctant
letter-goers,
especially when our
tender hearts
ache with loss.
We want this one
back, never wanted
that one to go,
the clench of grief
squeezing the woulda
coulda shouldas
of regret. Let us sigh,
pen little love notes
onto sticky squares,
and tuck them into
a handmade blue
urn, gently settling
the lid on top, and
sigh again, hoping
that with time,
the messages may
grow wings,
alight and find
their way to those
who need to hear
the I miss yous,
the I’m sorries,
the I wish I hads,
the I love yous,
the thankyou
thankyou
thankyous
that we can
never say
enough.
Güd wrtr 