Güd wrtr

Two weeks ago it stopped,
mid-cycle, as we aging machines
can do, and flashed a two-word
mystery at me:

Pump block?

How should I know? I said.
But the washer ignored me,
flashing its persistent message
until I turned its knob to off.

I asked Leaman, the handyman,
who grinned sympathetically
as he wrestled with my dishwasher
and told me where to call. One
appliance at a time, he said.

So I did, and the appliance gods
delivered Adam, who, once shown
to the machine, plopped himself
and his puffy red beard in the tight
corner between washer and wall
and set to work, so focused he could’ve
been fine tuning a moon-bound orbiter,
one of which splashed down several
days ago—mission accomplished.

Which is what I told Adam after he
masterfully unblocked the pump
and carefully removed the small lake
in the washer, not spilling a drop,
which, as far as I’m concerned,
makes him a pro, one whom NASA
should consider hiring.

The man’s got wicked good skills.

Noun [man-swi-tood, -tyood]: mildness; gentleness

Is it because he was a man
that I found this his most
attractive quality—

his mildness, his gentleness,
his great heart, which,
by the time it stopped,

had grown three times                                
its normal size thanks to
malformed valves?

What if those leaky
flaps that never fully
closed and jacked up

his heart muscle like               
an iron-pumping      
bodybuilder

were what made him
such a gentle man
with such capacity

for love, the kind
that echoes around me
to this day, that

somehow powers
the beat of my own
imperfect heart?

(for Clifford Polland, 1952–2001,
on the 39th anniversary of our wedding)

she scribbled on a yellow pad in her lap,
sitting in my city, leading a workshop
of tentative writers, most of them
unsure about calling themselves writers.

A writer is someone who writes,
she’d declared long before, creating
the encouraging method she left us,
along with her own poems:

May you hear in your own stories
the moan of wind around the corners
of half-forgotten houses
and the silence in rooms you remember.

May you hear in your own poems
the rhythms of the cosmos,
the sun, the moon and the stars
rising out of the sea and returning to it.

Another woman more recently met
asked me to lead a writing group
for those in grief, a woman whose
mission in life is to offer resources
for those who’ve suffered great loss—
and isn’t that all of us?

And all the while, lost though you may be in the forest,
drop your own words on the path like pebbles…

After a year of writing together,
she made me a pendant with the last line
embedded in silver:

…and write your way home.

as we all are, keeping each other
company on the healing journey,
walking over rough stones toward
the great mystery, finding solace in
the outstretched hand of a stranger
who, step by precious step,
word after word after word,
becomes a friend.

—for Jill Batiansila, founder of Together We Heal, and for Pat, with much gratitude

—excerpts from “Blessing for a Writer” by Pat Schneider © 2022 by the estate of Pat Schneider; and from “Spelling” by Margaret Atwood © 1981, Simon and Schuster

with four Santa-sized bags around him,
khaki bits winking out of mostly dirt brown
lumps, his eyes crinkled even in shade

as though the sun shines perpetually in them,
I offer eight granola bars and a bag of garlic
naan, oval hunks of thick bread, which

seems a bit impractical for a man on
the street, but who knows what he
likes to eat? All I know is that there’s

something in those eyes whose color I
cannot determine, in the salt-and-pepper beard
reminiscent of a graying beard I once loved,

in the way his hand reaches for what I have
to share today, in his bless you, which
makes me want to linger for a while.

But I have places to go this day, every day,
tucked in with a tiny bit of fear and reluctance,
so I smile, offer my silent blessing in return

and walk away.

Gotta guy on a pole
in my backyard at 8 a.m.—
not something that happens
every day,

especially on a brisk almost-
winter morning like this one,
but he’s giving it the old
college try,

tinkering with wires,
trying to speed up my
internet, which guys like
him have tried to do
a couple of times
in the past
without success,

and that’s fine,
if it doesn’t work—
I’ve got all the speed I need,
I told the kids at the
phone store as they sold
me a cute purple phone,
insisting that my system
could move faster,

and I think,
Tell my feet that,
as they hit the sidewalk
this chilly December
morning on the way
to feed a friend’s kitties.

The walk does me good,
I tell myself—
the cold, perhaps,
not so much,

especially for that shivering
man outside on the pole
doing his darndest
to get me more speed,
enough, if I’m lucky,
to carry me into
the new year
and beyond.

for Georgann, of course

How many times did you have to forgive me?
How many times did I have to forgive myself
for my judgmental thoughts, for the minor
irritations I must have conveyed to you?
Far too many, I think, now that you’re gone.

Though just yesterday, coming down N Street,
I didn’t have to summon the Parking Fairy,
the one you graciously bequeathed to loved ones.
“Help me find a space, Parking Fairy,” you’d say.
And the goddess of vehicle positioning would,
every time—except when you hung from
the rearview the little sprite I’d found,
a poor representation of the spirit who made
sure there was always a space for you.

“I think she feels replaced,” you said, removing
the imposter, and, thus placated, the Parking Fairy
returned you to her good graces.

“You don’t want to piss off the Parking Fairy,”
you liked to say.

How many times did you have to return me
to your good graces? To forgive my overly
busy life that too often kept me from you,
the unasked-for advice, the thoughtless
comment made in jest that landed badly,
the trespasses I never realized I’d made?

Yesterday, I didn’t ask for your help,
Parking Fairy, because you seem to provide
an open space whenever I need one now,
though your time on the meter has expired.
You’re still finding me places to land, much
as you did when we journeyed together—
you who forgave me, believed in me,
navigated my weary self to the surface
now and then to catch a breath—
who accompanied me on this voyage
as good friends do,
who travels with me still.

Oh, little teapots
(yes, short and stout)
I broke one’s handle
and the other’s spout

and put a hole in the
white one’s round bottom—
two teapots in two days,
kaput, thanks to my
clumsy fingers.

And the search began
(online, of course) for
the largest teapot that
I could lift when full
since I make a lot of tea
every day.

The first one arrived,
a taller, more modern
design, and I realized
it wasn’t big enough.
I looked at glass versions
with cylindrical baskets
for loose tea, and knew
the chance for breakage
was even higher.

And then I electronically
stumbled into a classic,
fat-bottomed 60-ouncer
made in England,
deep purple with white
polka dots. And today
I pulled her out of her box,
offered her my American
Cheerio! as I carried
Violet’s empty heft
two-handed to the kitchen,
set her carefully on the counter,
trying to decide which tea
to brew first.

Though a hearty English
Breakfast might make her
feel more at home in this
strange new land, I think
it will be Orchid Vanilla,
perfect for sharing on
a cold day, and you are
most welcome to join me
in a cuppa any time.

Waking in the night,
I listen for the predicted rain, a whopper
of a deluge, maybe an inch of rain,
wicked wind, a true winter storm
before the season officially lands.

But each time I come to consciousness,
shift a cat, wait, I hear no drops
pattering the deck outside my window,
no susurrus rustling the last of the leaves
on the old sycamore whose craggy limbs
could use a good trimming.

This has happened before—
the prediction that does not arrive,
the assurance that comes up empty,
the promised loved that evaporates,
the clouds that decide to float by
and drop their burden elsewhere,
leaving us high and dry. 

Or perhaps it’s still coming, we hope—
not the wicked storm, but just
the right amount, in the right form
of what is needed, making space
for what is wanted, to keep us safe
and warm and loved.

Be willing to be a beginner every single morning.
― Meister Eckhart

My favorite students to teach, those summer
mornings at the high school pool, were
the Beginners. A couple levels up from

Non-Swimmers, still tentative, some reluctant
to put their faces in the water. They taught me
that insisting they do it my way did not work,

that for some, just blowing bubbles on
the crystalline blue surface was a brave act,
like trusting the water to hold them when

they stretched out on their backs, little chests
puffed up toward the sun, my hand barely
between their shoulder blades for reassurance.

I’d whisper in their ears, half above the surface,
You’re floating! and they’d grin and start to giggle,
flailing and sputtering as I caught them.

Try again, I’d say. Take a deep breath. I’ve got you.
And now I wonder where such insight bubbled
up in a 16-year-old girl, herself a beginner,

barely launched in life, in love. Or was I giving
myself advice I’d later need for the journey,
for the beginnings that would inevitably arrive

unbidden, requiring a starting over, a call to
embark again, always the neophyte, the perpetual
apprentice with so much to learn?

This night
go outside to find yourself
caught in the spotlight of our
only natural satellite,
inhale yourself illumined in light
reflected by our star, as Da Vinci’s
wild imagination postulated
500 years ago.

The full moon embraced in the arms
of the crescent, he said, is
earthshine. If you could stand
on the lunar surface, as a dozen
earthlings have, your shadow would
be cast by your home planet.

As it is, all you can do is go outside
this night and find yourself joyfully
caught in full moonshine, a bit woozy
at the sight of your shadow self
splayed upon the ground. Admire
your constant chaperone, your
devoted consort that coexists,
envelops, protects.

Who is to say that’s not your soul?

Walk toward it and watch it
edge away. Kneel and touch it,
your shadow soul self.
Bless that part of you
that transcends death for now;
thank the heavens for the shroud
that accompanies you through
the eclipse of this lifetime—
oh, so brief, so dim,

the penumbra shadowing
your celestial body,
your silhouette of mystery,
this night, each precious day.