Güd wrtr

Three young men showed up
not long after 8 a.m. ready to
carefully trim the old sycamore,
its caretaker a bit trepidatious
about what Braden, the climber,
might decide to remove.

It’s a heritage tree, the estimator
said, which means that they take
extreme care with the old girl—
no chainsawing, just long-handled
pole cutting here and there,

there and here, on a day of chilly
mizzle. Braden, the sculptor, dangling
from the rope high in the sycamore
like an orangutan hanging by a long
arm, taking his time, surveying,
removing what isn’t needed—

wielding the chisel not unlike
Michelangelo, young at his craft
but evidencing a good eye,
moving through the century-old
limbs like the pro he is, at a vantage
point I envy, one I’ll never see—

while groundsmen Austin and Max
apply chainsaw and rake to a couple
of volunteers, one of which has died,
beneath the great tree.

They are artists and barbers,
surgeons and coroners, as well as
those who tidy up after the messy
business of disposing of death,
of tending the living who,
after the team’s good work, will,
the tree gods willing, continue to rise
tall and strong.

for Deborah Meltvedt on World Poetry Day

The river looks like a muddy lake,
milk chocolate spread from bank to bank,

the swollen American not at flood stage,
but definitely a crest that will recede

in the coming days. We walk the west
side levee now that the bulldozers and

earthmovers have moved on farther
upstream for more repair, mourning

the taking of so many trees and habitat
of river dwellers we no longer hear or see.

We understand about necessary reinforcement,
flood protection in times like these when

so much water careens down this narrow
course. But we wonder where the otters

and beavers have gone, where water fowl
have relocated. We walk close to the river’s

edge near a small copse of trees up to
their knees in the deceptively still stream.

A mallard pair swims between spindly
trunks like drunken bees weaving from flower

to flower. You’ve seen these two here before,
say that you like to think of them as a mated

pair—imagine them floating together on
hot days on this thin ribbon of river just as

they now cruise the high water. They paddle
into a sunspot, pause, look our way, then

synchronize a turn downstream, heading
someplace we cannot begin to follow.

toward spring even as
winter still whooshes through us,
shakes us like a wet dog
pelting us with spiky drops.

Turning
the heart toward mystery,
toward the divine,
as we walk into what
we cannot see,

as we turn
rounding this sharp corner,
then that one,
the winding path unclear
but, we trust, leading
to some bright thing,

a centering where we
might find wonder,
we might hold awe
in our trembling hands.

We turn into transformation
even as we cannot see it,
a pilgrimage we make
daily, step by step,

a circuit through
the inner journeys
of our souls.

But how pretty, like a peony
blasted open with a starry center,
WR124 surrounded by watercolor

gases that signify its approaching
end, before it undergoes a turbulent
transformation, before it supernovas

into glowing cosmic dust. It’s shedding
its outer layers now, a molting star,
petals loosening at the edges as we

do when the end is near, letting go
of what’s not needed—in this case,
10 suns’ worth of universal material.

It’s hard to look away from the bright
core, even though we know its days
are numbered, even though we

remember it as a brilliant fireball of
orange, red, yellow dazzling energy. It’s
a mystery, what happens at the end,

especially if we’re not there to see it.
But all that starstuff it flings into the
universe makes us us—we who are

forged in iron and calcium from
ancestors that exploded billions of
years ago, as this one will one day,

spreading shimmer and dazzle through
the cosmos, baby planets born in star
nurseries, creating all that is, bringing

me to you and you to me in this
twinkling moment we share,
exquisite, yes, radiant,

and oh, so finite.

for Cliff

Look at them:
all that rainbow-y nylon dripping
like bridal veils—one whose face
wears a happy rainbow over
white clouds and half a circle of sun,
the other with a prancing unicorn
under the little purple and green
tissue paper diamond, dented
and torn, two big spools of thread
and one little one.

Our kites still live in the big striped
cloth bag you sewed for them
almost four decades ago—
kites we flew over coastal beaches,
sea spray dotting our cheeks,
watching the broad faces
of their light bodies get smaller
and smaller as the spools unfurled
into the sky.

We flew them from the bluffs of Mendocino
and on the sand below the Cliff House
in San Francisco, where, years later,
I buried some of what was left of you
after you soared and tangled and dove
to an early end.

I don’t remember when I put them away,
how long it’s been since they tasted wind,
even at the end of a thin leash.
But I imagine they can still fly.

I bet they can propel themselves
upupup, a shimmering palette against
a March sky—their red and orange,
blue and green and purple tails
whipping the spring wind,
dancing up there,
aloft for as long
as we liked.

For Clifford Ernest Polland
May 21, 1952–March 18, 2001

On this day of green, of imminent spring,
of green beer and drunken celebration,
I think of you on that terribly ordinary day,
setting off to eat corned beef and cabbage
with your siblings,
me planning to see you the next day,
none of us having any idea what was soon
to happen.

As it should be.

We should all live fully to the end,
death sneaking up on us like a little one we love
tapping us on the shoulder, smiling,
gently saying, Come with me.

And we do.

We should drink that last green beer
not knowing.
We should hug those we love
and say goodbye as though we mean it.

We should not mind so small a flower.
—Emily Dickinson

The lengthening days of Lent
with its increasing light
coaxing the swelling buds,
the unfurling ferns, greening,
the blooming of everything

in this season of awakening,
in every sense of becoming.

The opening of irises,
of eyes, as well as
broadening hearts
pointing toward love,
toward the mysteries
that warm us—

let us revel in the flourishing
of the earth, what has sprouted
there and there, poking their
wee heads up through dirt,

bursting forth on branches,
on supple stems that remind us
of the hope springing,

the lengthening of
everpresent grace.

Three years ago at this time
we could not see what
was coming at us, could not
imagine the unseen that
would lock us inside, afraid
of the very breath of others.

We learned too well about
isolation, about grief and pain,
gripping hope to our chests
like a soft pillow, not entirely
able to absorb its comfort.

Two years ago at this time
a young muralist wielded her
imagination and brushes to
flower my century-old garage
with poetry and poppies.

We were not entirely out of
the woods, but hope slowly made
itself known, unfurling like
the iris bulbs I’d forgotten
lying in the back yard bed.

Last year at this time
we felt hope rising along
with the iris’ purple tongue,
with new buds on the Japanese
maple and ginkgo in the front yard,

and the muralist returned to
paint giant wings on the back
of the garage, flowering, thriving.

And this year, drenched,
finding relief in the sunny
moments between storms, we
pay attention to the tiny pink
flowers springing from wispy
branches, as living things seasonally
do, filling us with breath, light
strength of spirit to take a small
step forward, and another—
onward.

Last night I stared hard
at the clear vase holding
two dozen pointy green
stalks like paintbrushes
tipped the color of canaries,
willing them to open.

If I ignored them, I thought,
one might shyly loosen
a lemony petal,
let it begin to fall
like a satin camisole strap,
or another might open
enough to reveal a bit
of sunny petticoat.

This morning,
when I turned on
the light, all 24 girls
stood tall, unfurled,
twirling their parasols,
beaming with the brightness
that can only mean spring.

Had they explained it to me in math class
using the circular plate, pressed in a crust
and prettily fluted the edges, added a filling

tempting to taste buds—apple, cherry,
any kind of berry, pumpkin—but not mince,
never mince—then baked it to a gentle bubble,

I might have understood or at least gotten
a glimmer of the miracle of mathematics.
But being told that pi is the ratio of a circle’s

circumference to its diameter made no sense
to my teenage brain. It was all I could do
to remember its first five digits—3.1415.

They held no meaning for me—I could not
taste, touch, feel those symbols. But pie, I
could understand—Grandma’s cinnamon-y apple

with its lattice-top crust. A small Chinese man
walking through his restaurant with his
banana cream (a recipe, he teased, that he

brought with him from China).
A man I loved fork-feeding me bits
of cherry pie he’d made from scratch.

Pie, it turns out, is love in all its infinite forms.
Numerical or baked, it is a constant. It is both
irrational and transcendental, and, I have

learned, this miracle of numbers and dough
and filling continues, without repetition
or pattern—on and on and on, ad infinitum,

amen.