Güd wrtr

for Lucie

As aware as I am of
the Is-ness—the all that Is
that fills me, the trees, the wingéd
and the footed, the dirt and detritus,
everything—Lucie says that all energy,
all spirit embodied in the universe,
is aware of me, too.

That this feeling of being held,
like floating in warm ocean,
is purposeful, she tells me,
divinely ordered.

Call it God, Lucie says,
the divine, the universe,
whatever you like.

Howard, I tease her,
as in our father, Howard,
in heaven.

She chuckles at that, my
spiritual master beaming in
onscreen from another dimension,
someone I hadn’t known I needed.

The divine, which is love itself,
knows you, loves you—yes,
specifically you, she tells me.
You are of it and it of you.

How could it not return your
admiration during a glorious
afternoon walk, when you pause
to peer closely at the ruffly
red of a fresh camellia? When
you look up and, beholding that
so-blue sky, inhale all that love?

How could all that Is, Lucie asks,
beckoning to you from every
living thing, even the stones,
not know your name?

Tucked under my bed
wearing the fuchsia spread
from Sears lived in the biggest
square box I could find in the garage
collection, not too tall but deep
enough to hold treasures I carried
indoors that grownups thought
should be left outdoors.

Bits of metal that, when picked
up off street or path, thunked
satisfyingly into a palm. I had no idea,
for the most part, of their provenance
or purpose, what mechanical beast
they’d separated from, but there
was something about their shape
or size (had to fit in the box)
that called to me.

I liked the short, fat screws that
looked like little people with hats,
the smooth slimness of washers,
their doughtnut-hole centers
perfect to plug a finger into,
springs that sproinged, and,
if I was really lucky, old keys,
bent and rusty that sent me
spiraling into imagined locks
that would never receive them
again.

My father had a workbench
full of this stuff—it wasn’t as if
we lacked for hardware. He was
perplexed by my junk museum,
tried to persuade me to keep it
in the garage, but I wanted it
under me as I slept, the solidity
of missing items found, treasured,

felt when my hand reached
into a denim pocket, a silent
specimen offering itself to my
imagination, spinning errant
metal into precious nuggets,
brimming with potential.

(Jan. 30, 2023)

My half birthday this year
falls on a Mom Monday,
so I spend the afternoon driving
around the one who long ago
coached me through the sticky
business of clutches and shifting,
who carried and birthed me
64-and-a-half years ago, who
passed on her love for, among
other things, tuna melts at Mel’s
followed by ice cream—

both of us chalking up our half
birthdays this month, because
your years are your wealth, darlin’,
as a friend of ours used to say,
and not everybody gets so many.

When you got ’em, you celebrate ’em,
the half birthdays, especially at the end
of the 10 darkest weeks of winter,
as the sun now lingers a wee bit longer
through the diner window, haloing
the 91-and-a-half-year-old and her
bowl of mint chip,

even if, as my father might have joked,
we old gals ain’t what we used to be—
in so many ways, we’re even better.

for Amy Roark

Amy must have a gig soon,
I think on a Sunday morning
as the second-story strains float
from her apartment into
my closed windows,

which I open in the bathroom,
preparing for my shower,
partly to let the steam escape
but mostly to hear the flutist
next door practicing.

Her fingers arpeggio those
silver keys, breathing runs
that scale the highest peaks
of classical pieces I can’t identify
and don’t want to.

I want Amy’s flute solo,
for once not part of the large
orchestra across the country
to which she travels, just
this flute, these Sunday
morning grace notes

as gray clouds wander
over our lives, heading east
as Amy will soon, hoping
there’s good weather where
she’s bound, knowing that
once she opens her case and
assembles her magical flute,

sunshine will emerge like
birdsong.

for Lois Mae Haag Dietz
Jan. 29, 1923–Sept. 26, 2006

If she were still here—
or we made it to her musical
heaven—wouldn’t she be at
the piano, fingers moving
smoothly over her own
happy birthday?

All of us singing along
in that celestial space—
her parents who gave her
and her brother so much music,
instruments all over the house,
piano lessons with the pianist
who became one of my
grandfathers, the one who
pushed the piano out into
the village to play for street
dances on warm evenings.

She, who taught so many hands
on both piano and organ in what
my sister and I thought of as
Auntie Lo’s music room,
where older cousins Dede
played the marimba and Pat
the clarinet, where the family
would gather after dinner,
we little cousins urged to
“sing it out, girls!” to so many
spoonfuls of sugar and let’s
go fly a kite and every kids’
song that Auntie Lo knew
by heart.

Because that’s where the music
was embedded, what she held
in her generous heart, shared on
keyboards, spread around the table,
with so many she loved, what
endeared her to two nieces
who loved to walk with her
and the long-legged chihuahuas
to the park, old bread bits
toted along for the feathered
friends at the duck-duck pond.

She who’d later come to the guest
room those nights we spent on
Ostrom Avenue, stand at the
threshold and cue us to blow
out the light. We’d purse our lips,
and whoof out the overhead
as her finger switched it off,
Auntie Lo’s voice floating down
the hall:

See you in the morning, girls.
Sleep tight.
Don’t let the bedbugs bite!

After so much rain,
historic, biblical, stupid
amounts of rain,
we are drying out.

And, as the first month of the year
can sometimes do here,
hints of spring tease us with
unseasonably warm days,
which we happily accept,
after so much cold and wet.

But already we hear the predictions
about what is coming, and,
never knowing how much, how long,
how devastating, we stockpile
the dry like cord wood.

We rush out under the sun,
collecting it in buckets.
We gather warmth into
the solar panels of our cells.
We unbundle and walk in the world
for the moment, carefree,
ignoring the possibility
of what might be.

pandiculation (noun): the act of stretching oneself, especially on waking.

Example: “After a long session of pandiculation, the bleary-eyed panda
rose and set off in search of breakfast.“

—
I do the stretch, you do the stretch,
the cats stretch in downward cat after
awakening, so do the dogs, of course,
but pandas? Had no ideas that pandas
also stretch as they open their eyes
after a good nap.

But it’s right there in the word—
pandi-culation. I know that word,
have used it occasionally. Never
occurred to me that pandas -iculate,
too. But now I will carry through my day
the image of roly-poly black-and-white
balls of fluff blearily opening their black
eyes with the black splotches underneath,

lifting a front leg, extending one bread
plate-sized paw for a good stretch, then
the other front leg, too, yawning and
allowing a panda sound to escape
as I do in the morning, especially
when morning seems to come too early

(as if it doesn’t show up at the same
time every day).

But though we want to roll over and
drift back into blesséd sleep (of which
there’s never enough), we dimly recall
that there’s a reason to rise if only we
can… oh! breakfast!

And then, panda-like, I rise with
the cats, who will eat before I do,
all of us together in the kitchen,
one of us pandiculating, in the soft
light of a new day.

Waiting to meet a new friend
at the big-chain coffee place
off the freeway—convenient
for many people,
for many reasons—

I order what you used to:
iced green tea, no sweetener,
no ice. Medium. Or whatever
they call it.

The young barista punches
it into the register, reads
my request back, and I nod
as your proper green tea
order floats into my head:
extra large (whatever they
call that), lots of ice,
sweetened.

And when mine comes in
its plastic cup with lip-shaped
slit in the lid for easy drinkability,
it’s more bitter than I remember,

and here you are with me
in a spot of sunshine on
a spring-like January day,
as our patch of planet dries
out after weeks of storms,
whispering,

Get it sweetened next time.

And I think,
I already have.

(for Georgann)

When people ask,
Where do the poems come from?
or
How do you write a poem every day?

I say,
First, I have no idea,
and second,
If I knew, I think they might not
show up.

But if I lace up my shoes,
head out onto the block
I think of as mine, and start
to move, if I get out of my own
way, walking at a good clip,
bright kites of words float by—

sometimes disguised as leafbuds
on bare branches or paperwhite
blossoms, a wagging tail or
the smile of a toddler gleefully
pedaling his trike.

Just a phrase, maybe a line or two,
compels me to reach for the strings
attached to those precious syllables
and, thanking them for scudding by,
tuck them into pockets of my
receding memory.

Then the trick is to gently grip
the slender threads long enough
to walk home and pull out
what I’ve gathered—

found marbles, smooth pebbles,
colorful streamers and whatnot—

tenderly setting them on the page
so they might find their feet,
dance a little, and begin to make
a poem.

I really love what you’ve done with your hair.
Really.

That’s such a nice color on your—is it mauve?
Lavender? Doesn’t matter; it’s lovely.

What a great smile your dog has. And yours matches!
I feel smarter/cooler/wiser/enlightened after reading one of your poems.
That’s the best thing you’ve written so far.
That poem was interesting and weird.
That’s so cute.
That’s so you.

Really.

My mom would love your earrings.
You clean up real good!
You got that job? Wow!

I didn’t recognize you from your photo. You look younger/
hipper/prettier/handsomer in person.

Your house has that lived-in feeling. I love how unpolished it is.
You’re so talented that I’d hate you if I didn’t like you so much.
You know so much about, well, lots of stuff.

You don’t look a day over… wait, how old are you?
Wow, you look so good in this light.
Really.