(a nod to Shel Silverstein)
But, really, who else could you be?
You have to be you, as I have to be me.
If I tried to be you, I surely could not,
nor would I want to be.
For you are the very best you
as I am the very best me.
So you as you and me as me,
together let’s be we.*
(*Or, if you insist, “us,” my grammatically correct friends.)
(for Ursula, who said, “This sounds like a poem”)
For a long time I shut my
poetself tightly in a closet
crammed full of miscellaneous
words and stray lines,
and over the years it got
quite crowded in there,
just me and all that verbiage.
And now and then I’d unlock
the door, peek out at the
Real Poets poeting their
hearts out, boldly, unafraid,
flinging stanzas and sonnets,
chapbooks and publications
into the world. And though
they never did anything
to actively discourage me,
neither did they invite me
to poetic coffee chats or
share a draft or ask to see
one of mine.
I can’t recall the day when
I decided to use the key,
burst out of the closet,
poems in hand, ready to
fling them at unsuspecting
folks, but when I did, I
remembered that as a child,
I’d scribbled in notebooks,
filling one and offering it to
a friend as a gift, then going
on to the next and the next—
unafraid of whether
Real Writers thought my
pieces were good enough,
just poeting and storying
my own heart out.
So now I Poet in public
and urge others to do
the same, not worrying
whether pieces are met
with cheers or ignored—
a daily practice like
meditation or yoga or
putting on a favorite
pair of shoes, lacing
them up and heading
out for a walk, paper
and pen in a pocket,
ready to capture
an image as it floats
by, setting down a
line if one comes,
grateful for the gift.
They once looked so much alike
that they had a hard time telling
themselves apart in photos.
I stood on the right, Mary would
say to Sheila, and the identical girls
would agree—that’s you; that’s me.
Seeing them is a highlight of our
year—Sheila does Dick’s taxes;
Mary does mine—each of them
sitting with one of us in their
back-to-back offices, catching up
on the news of the year, which
we will all later share with
the one not in the room. We
are tickled that we can once
again see the sisters in person,
sit across from them as their
fingers fly over calculator keys,
eyes on computer screens as
they chat, ink in numbers by hand
on worksheets—all in an hour.
And though I dread the annual
sorting of paperwork, the assembly
of little piles in my living room,
the adding, the notations, I smile,
knowing that I get to watch Mary
in action, as Dick marvels over Sheila.
Even when I’m likely gonna have
to write a couple of big checks, I also
know that Mary and Sheila have
done their best work for us,
taking excellent care of our taxes.
And what’s better than paying
a rainy day visit to the talented
twin accountants who’ve made
our lives, in so many ways,
so much brighter?
for Mom and Dad,
one here, one always in our hearts
Of course, I wasn’t there,
but I see them in the photo—
her, slim, dark-haired and lovely
in her sleeveless tea dress
with the floral lace over
the foofy skirt, as her eventual
daughters would come to call
the fullness of petticoat,
and him, slim, blond,
handsome in a dark suit
and perfectly tied tie that
perhaps she helped him choose.
After vows and cake cutting
and kisses bestowed upon beaming,
smooth-cheeked relatives, I hope
they danced, his hand
on her waist, one of her hands
in his, to some romantic song,
gazing into each other’s eyes
with longing, perhaps imagining
the promise of what was to come—
not that night or the next or the next,
but gliding to music that would
carry them far into the future,
making a life together,
making children together,
unaware of what was coming
toward them, what they were
heading into. I want them to have
had the sweetness of a moment
of possibility, overflowing with hope,
with the promises they’d just made
bursting in their tender hearts.
Six neighbors head out
on their morning stroll as
six of us oldies work out
to the oldies with Shelley
on Marilyn’s lawn.
The couple across the street
emerges from their house, each
holding onto a leash-tugging dog,
and two leashless cats trailing
a good distance behind,
like teenagers not wanting
to be seen with their parents—
but not wanting to be left out.
The hefty calico and equally
ample gray tabby with white
undercarriage amble along,
as they often do with their
people, Marilyn says, and
we all stop to watch.
Do the cats always come
along? we ask the couple.
When they feel like it,
the woman responds.
Cats, someone says,
and we all nod.
Later, as we oldies heft
hand weights overhead,
the party of six rounds
the block, and we stop to
cheer them on, especially
the cats, both of them far
behind, trotting to catch up—
their workout almost over—
heading for the barn and,
with luck, a nice snack.
We hear about the late ones—
maybe we are the late ones—
but the early ones present
their show-offy selves on dates
that seem too early,
but really, they do this every year,
I remind myself. The Yuletide
camellias appear for Christmas,
and by February, their cousins
hang heavy on the bushes,
making my neck swivel as I drive
by so many other early bloomers
blushing pinks or bursting whites
on branches that just yesterday
looked like barren sticks.
Crabapple blossoms impersonate
mini tutus for tiny ballerinas,
and magnolias emerge saucer-y
white and rosey, while sweet
redbuds cheerfully climb
vertical branches on creekside
trees. And don’t get me started
on almond blossoms exploding
in a torrent of snowy fluff
already, so soon, right on time,
just when we need a deluge
of loveliness, a gush of flourishing
to remind us that this is just
the beginning, that there’s so
much more yet to come.
for Rebecca
Made by her mama in Grandma’s
Jello mold, just the way G made it—
with canned fruit and whipped cream
to dab on top—
served at her mama’s house after
a fine dinner out, a childhood favorite
of this kid now 45, tall and gorgeous
as ever (we’re just a tad biased, but
we’re not wrong).
And though we’d been well fed at
the restaurant (some of us had dessert
there, too), the cry went round:
There’s always room for Jello!
So we spooned up the red sweetness
into G’s bowls older than any of us,
plopped the whipped cream on top
and dug in,
the collection of humans that makes up
this family—some by birth, some by choice—
delighted to celebrate two birthdays
(not forgetting the 80-year-old uncle)
as we remember the ancestors, the ones
who’ve passed into mystery, holding
them in our hearts, saying their names,
tasting the love on our tongues,
swallowing it with big smiles.
for Mary Tsukamoto (1915–1998)
The sweet-faced older woman
sat with me for hours telling
the story she’d relayed hundreds
of times.
She taught me the word “redress”
the same year she testified before
Congress, quietly but firmly,
one of 120,000 sent into exile
in 1942 for the crime of being
of Japanese descent.
She, the wife of a Florin
strawberry farmer who
who bundled up husband and
daughter before being sent
to “camp” in Jerome, Arkansas.
We did nothing wrong.
Though the paper had not yet
been posted, we knew the order
was coming. We left strawberries
in the fields just before harvest.
If they’d given us more time,
we could have had that food
for people.
She spoke of it all her life,
after returning home, becoming
a teacher, speaking for many
who could not, offering the lesson
again and again:
We say,
Nidoto Nai Yoni:
Let It Not Happen Again.
Remember this day
when the order was given.
Don’t let them tell you poetry is for the birds.
—Lawrence Ferlinghetti
(1919–2021, owner of City Lights Booksellers and Publishers)
But it is, Larry.
(Can I call you Larry? I’m sure I didn’t
when I interviewed you years ago at
your place—half bookstore, half writers’
shrine, bless you. Ever since I’ve
considered you a kindred spirit.)
Poetry is for the birds, if we call out lines
to them as they balance on sky wires
with their brethren, singing lines
back to us.
The wingéd ones I see sit on poems
every day, transmitting power
and voices (as good poems do),
communicating over miles and miles,
line to line to line.
Though I’ve heard that birds perch
there because the lines are warm,
I like to think that those little airplanes
of the heart absorb poetry through
their powerful clinging claws,
soaring lines, as you wrote them,
earthshaking lines by Alan and the Beats,
and you published them, Larry—
put them onto the page, into the world,
defended them against censorship—
you painted the city’s light.
And the wheeling angels still watching
over the bookstore, descendants of long ago
sky poets—how could they not carry lines
on their wings, words in their beaks?
Inside, people are still invited to sit
and read as long as they like. Outside,
on high wires, the birds safely rest, too,
electrons having no motivation to travel
through their small bodies.
Then, as if responding to a divine signal,
they wing away as you and your friends did,
trilling notes of poetry into the air,
leaving marvelous echoes behind.
(Quote from Lawrence Ferlinghetti’s “Poetry As Insurgent Art” © 2007, New Directions Books)
C’mon, you can do it.
Put a little love in your heart.
Spread it around on this day
that celebrates the simple
act of being kind to others.
Let’s make the world
a little brighter, a little better
with a gentle gesture, a smile,
a friendly word or two,
an act of generosity.
Set your softheart loose
on the world today—
its tongue flopping as it runs
toward a stranger with
an affectionate greeting.
Go for bounteous, exude
compassionate goodness;
extend your great benevolence
of spirit, and see, just see,
if it doesn’t come bouncing
back to you because, not only
is kindness always possible,
as the Dalai Lama says, but it
also stretches from you to
this one and then to that one.
So go on—paint the planet
with big-heartedness, then
tell me about it so I can send
some of your glorious goodness
right back to you.
(Feb. 17 is National Acts of Kindness Day!)
