Said the guy towing a small trailer
behind his bike on a Friday
garbage morning, after he stopped,
opened the blue bin in front
of my house, searching for cans.
And I thought—as I installed
a new little flag on my front yard
with two fingers waving a peace sign—
That’s the flag I want, one that says,
Peace, Love and Bagels.
And make it an everything bagel
to reflect everyone,
especially those who come along
behind us and quietly clean up
what we so casually discard.
I insert the key into the venerable door
behind which home has sat, solid
as an old oak, for 103 summers now,
though I have spent a mere 38 of them
as its owner. I like to think of myself
as the caretaker for now, though
on sticky summer days I wish for
a property manager to call when
the front door will not budge,
when I stand and turn the key
from right to left, and back again,
wondering if my aging brain
has forgotten how to operate a lock,
when I am literally locked out, and
I do not have a key to the back door,
which the devoted housekeepers,
bless their protective hearts, have
locked, though I asked them not to.
When all that conspires to keep
me out of house and home,
I consider my options for entry,
until it comes to me that heat
and humidity make the old door
swell, and that, combined
with a damp wood floor, means
that, with luck, a good shove might
open it. Two good shoves later,
it gives way, and once inside, I
inhale the scent of the long-gone one
whose presence gently lingers.
“Thank you, Clifford,” I say, smiling
at his husbandly voice in my head
suggesting that I hunt down
that back door key and hide it
in a place where I might be able
to locate it in a future pinch.
Because inevitably sticky
situations call for resourceful
solutions, perhaps even
a little force instead of our
inclination toward a gentle push
as we make our way back
into the familiar, the place
of memories, one that we
think of, for now, as home.
Some days we have a lot of it—
the pre-9 a.m. walk for me with Deb
by the river, a good 3 1/2 miler,
later a haircut with Susan,
then a massage with Kat,
and later still, a hearing aid
appointment for the beloved.
And in between all that,
a pedicure for Maxi, followed by
a squirt of flea medication
from dear Chris, the vet tech,
who comes to the house
and gently wrangles this
still-learning-to-be-held boycat
into her lap for a gentle snip snip
of the toenails,
so that all of us emerge, tidier,
shorn, tuned up and massaged,
downright pampered, as all of us
marvelous beasts should be.
Not the same as in the snazzy swim spa
with Terri, the iPad set up to watch
Coach Stacy put us through our
water aerobics paces,
but I am grateful to those two women
for teaching this old lifeguard/
swim coach/instructor some new
tricks for my solo workout—
not least with water barbells
that offer are-you-kidding-me
underwater resistance, which
is not only arm strengthening
but soul strengthening,
much needed as the aging body
tries to stay in the game,
using it, not losing it,
in the name of fortitude,
for all that is coming at us
so much faster than we
ever imagined.
•••
(for Terri Wolf, my water aerobics workout buddy,
who inspired me to pick up the floaty barbells!)
By mid-August, this is getting old, you guys.
I mean, I’m glad you’re out here blooming
your fool heads off, but to make sure you
don’t expire too soon, I come outside
and squirt you every other day,
sometimes daily when it’s
so ungodly hot we’re
all burning up.
It’s not your fault, of course. I put you here.
I’m responsible for you—at least for half
the year. Come October, I figure you’re
on your own. I’ll move some of you
of you inside or to the front porch
for a little protection over winter,
but you guys in the big pots,
in the ground, your survival
is up to you and the whims
of the garden gods.
Still, I fret in spring when it appears
that some of you have not made it.
I tend to leave even the brownest
of you tucked in the ground, with
the hope for life I can’t yet see.
Now I watch the decay of stalks
brittling in the heat, frown
as the sycamore molts,
throwing off curling
browned leaves like
so many feathers.
But hey, morning glories, you viney,
invasive beasts, you’re still going
strong, forever charming me
with your show-offy purple
skirts just translucent enough
to gleam with fresh gulps of
sunshine all day before
twisting yourselves tight
for the night, then like
parasols you unfurl
under the sun,
earning my
perennial,
slack-jawed
admiration.
(for beloved ducks everywhere,
including mine, whose half-birthday
is today)
We have seen real mallards,
the Duck and I, floating in pools
where I love to swim,
paddling and quacking their
way through turquoise ponds
quite unlike any wild water
in this neck of the woods. But
in the little oval pool where I find
myself one summer night,
a single yellow plastic duck floats.
I paddle over to what appears
to be this permanent resident
with a smiling bill and upend it:
Property of Pool #3, it says in neat
black Sharpie. Please do not take!
You must be the greeter duck,
I tell it, setting it back to bob
on the surface I have disturbed
with my own bobbing and
breast-stroking. The duck stares
straight ahead, as they do,
resumes its place in the deep end,
where it floats day and nigh
in this land where the Duck—
long ago dubbed by his then-young
niece and nephew—lives. I wonder
if the neighborhood mallards
swoop in for visits now and again,
if they acknowledge this imposter,
or if, as the Duck and I do, take it
as a tribute to their high-flying
selves from a wanna-be waterfowl
with a friendly countenance
welcoming all of us,
the feathered and the un-,
who drop by for a dip.
It’s only in the after that I see it:
How I should’ve slowed down,
stopped, actually,
that time, a hundred times,
and, fitting my small hand into
your larger one, just sat in the quiet
of the back yard, as I do now,
under the big sycamore tree
that’s still here,
where you amble over as casually
as the dog once did, putting his
head on my thigh for a pat.
Don’t we all do this as we miss
the beloveds, the two-footed
and the four-footed?
Isn’t this when they reappear
as if we summoned them,
which, of course, we do,
as your hand squeezes mine
one more time?
Not a sunrise gal,
but when I’m in an east-facing
place with a view of
a. horizon
b. water
c. mountains
or some combination thereof,
the lightening of sky into
a gently feathered gray-blue
over a band of soft tangerine will
often propel me to the vertical.
And, before undertaking
any other half-asleep business,
I make my way to a window
to gently push shades aside
to see what the day might be
made of. Those who do this
on the regular might chuckle
at my open-mouthed awe
over the purity of a moment
magnified by capital N nature.
But I, night-hunting poet that I am,
generally miss the day’s first
rays because I have lingered late
on high branches, scanning
below for the just-right rhythm,
the scurrying words that
prompt takeoff into the dark,
my vision sharpened, gliding
until my talons can snatch
the wily verbs, the soft adjectives
and sturdy nouns to consume
before sleep. Before I am
awakened by blossoming light
that brings me half-lidded
to watch the impending arrival
of our nearest star in its full glory,
when I get to behold the cascade
of land meeting sea,
of mountains peaking into
an always glorious,
don’t-wanna-miss-this,
never-gonna-have-this-precise-
moment-again
dawn.
•••
(Thanks again for your generous hosting, Terri and Al!)
(And other names for the August full moon)
To many, it’s the Sturgeon moon named
for the great ancient fish that shines
deep-water wisdom and endurance
upon us earthlings. It reminds us
that we live through sacred cycles,
hold the changes. We, too, know how
to swim upstream against the current.
Under this moon, say the first peoples
of this land, we are both star and sky.
We must stand in our own light,
remembering that we are part
of a larger constellation of truth.
The Cree call the August moon
Young Ducks Begin to Fly, while to
the Lakota it is the Moon of the Ripening.
Cherries Turn Black, so say the Sioux,
and Corn is in the Silk to the Ponca. To
the Potawatomi it’s the Moon of the Middle.
And hearing the Haida name—
Cedar Bark for Hat & Baskets—
summons a vision of a craftsman
harvesting cedar bark, then coiling it
to hang and dry for a year, before
slicing it into strips to form
a gracefully sloping arc to a brim
atop a head tilted back to gaze
up at the fullness,
which by any name is a Joyful Moon,
a Moon of Ripening and a Time of Freshness
when it makes its monthly climb
into the heavens, shining its brilliance—
without seeking approval or asking
for anything in return—
on every blesséd living thing.
…your very flesh shall be a great poem and have the richest fluency not only in its words but in the silent lines of its lips and face and between the lashes of your eyes and in every motion and joint of your body.
— Walt Whitman, from the preface to “Leaves of Grass”
This is when you get lost in the remembering,
in the silent lines of the beloved’s lips and face,
in every motion and joint of the body that once was,
and not just in the nakedness of that body,
which was, yes, a beautiful thing, but also in
the remembrance of your very flesh,
in the days before jiggle and sag, which you
no longer see in the body you own now.
But in photos and in dreams, the flesh that was
a great poem comes to you, and you wish again
that you had admired it then, that you had
listened to elders who admonished you
to cherish your beautiful body, the lovers who
adored it, though you did not find it adorable.
It was, you know now. It so was.
And the surprise of this moment is discovering
that this body, the garage for your soul,
still contains the richest fluency, that someone
still gazes at you, loving the silent lines of your face—
the ones you wish you hadn’t earned, but you did,
the ones cherished by someone who loves
every motion and joint of your body
just the way it is.
Güd wrtr 