Güd wrtr

(for Ryan Montgomery on his birthday)

You will likely not remember,
but it was one of your best lines
ever, especially clever

for your seven-year-old self,
who, after I cut your hair, at
your mother’s request,

and I asked only for a kiss
in return, blurted, “Can I give
you a penny instead?”

The laugh burst out of me
like a pop of pink bubble gum,
but you were absolutely serious.

And you should have been.
You shouldn’t have to kiss
ladies as old as your mother

or your teacher, in their 20s,
for goodness’ sake. And I
said, “Sure, a penny would

be fine,” prompting you to
hop off the tall stool, you
newly trimmed blonde boy,

going to hunt up a penny.
I think I accepted it, not
wanting to insult you,

but more than four decades
later, I owe you many pennies
because you and your brothers

later repaid me with cheek
smooches that I treasure still,
and a line that I repeat to everyone

whose hair I cut, should
they ask the price:
a penny or a kiss.

And sometimes, I get both.

When, after nine months gestation,
the cat you brought home from
your mother’s house after she died
decides that you are, for better or worse,
his person—

though he still runs when you walk
through the house, but will come to you
when you sit on the floor and waggle
the feather boa on a stick in his direction,

and at night, when you lie in bed reading,
he hops up with a small cry, walks across you,
and arranges himself on a pillow on your right side
conveniently positioned for skritches
around his head and shoulders,

and periodically climbs the stack of pillows
on which you rest and winds himself around
your head like a big furry crown, extending
one long front leg alongside your face—

how could you feel anything but chosen?

(for World Inclusion Day, Oct. 10)

Remember that pale blue dot,
that tiny speck of light in the dark
photographed by Voyager 1
beyond Neptune, some 3.7
billion miles from the sun?

When mission managers
directed the little spacecraft
to turn and look over its
aluminum/titanium shoulder
toward home one last time,

it snapped this photo and
transmitted it through space,
where, once received by Earthlings,
it was greeted with awe.

That’s here. That’s home. That’s us,
planetary scientist Carl Sagan wrote.

On it everyone you know,
everyone you ever heard of,
every human being who ever was,
lived out their lives… on a mote of dust
suspended in a sunbeam.

All of us alive on Valentines’ Day
1990 are included in that last
snapshot, before Voyager’s cameras
went dark forever.

In 2012, the little spacecraft
that could crossed into interstellar
space, and has not been heard
from again. But it’s out there
somewhere.

Just as everyone who inhabits this
pale blue dot is right now. How can
we not embrace each other as miracles
orbiting a small star in this galaxy?

How can we be anything other than
a collective of beating hearts in
this Earthly space reaching
out for others like us?

(for Rebecca)

You know, it occurs to me
that I haven’t said to you,
dear niece,

how sorry I am for the passage
of your dear mama from life
into mystery,

feeling my own sorrow
swirled with gratitude for
the way she embraced me

as she embraced so many
others, her kind heart a
chip off your big-hearted,

tiny grandma, also DNA-linked
to your uncle, my squeeze.
But I am. I’m so sorry

that you’re paying this
huge price for deep love,
but so glad you got,

truly, one of the best
mothers I’ve ever seen.
You carry your foremothers’

big-hearted-ness, too,
you know, though you
will deny this,

just as your mother did.
But I know with my own
thankful heart what a

blessing it was to walk
into your mother’s house,
see her delighted look

as though the person
before her was exactly
whom she wanted to see.

Like you, her beloved
daughter, the one
she cherished every

day of your life,
you, the R. all of us
so treasure.

Beneath the floorboards of this old house
a young man named Nick, a genius with pipes
and fittings, has wedged his slender self

between the dirt on which the foundation rests
and the old redwood planks that form its base.
He’s a spelunker, his boss says admiringly

as we stand in the basement looking at Nick
pretzeled into the womb of this old house.
His headlamp shines on the work before him,

his body cradled into a graceful U. This literal
cave man alone is worth the enormous cost
of this project, though I again ask myself,

Why replumb a century-plus old house
while this noble experiment in democracy,
the house on which we all stand, seems

to be crumbling? There’s no guarantee
that it will withstand what I fear is coming.
On the other hand, guarantees are for new cars.

We’ve never had a warranty on survival.
And we cannot know exactly what’s coming
our way. Meanwhile, beneath the floorboards

of this old house, a spelunker—who showed
me photos on his phone of magnificently
water-carved caves that he and friends explored

over the weekend, less than 100 miles from here—
jigsaws his way through the old pipe to install
the new. My feet detect the vibrations as I walk

through what I think of as home, praying that
it might withstand such a massive reformation
of its innards, that all this will ultimately

bestow new magnificence, adding to
the previous artistry, that things unknown,
being undertaken in darkness, are somehow

exactly what needs to be done.

•••

For Nick Heath and his colleagues and bosses at Drain Time Plumbing
with my admiration for their skill and my thanks for their speedy work
and kind understanding.

I have her Porsche,
a cookie jar version
with its wild paint job,

and though, as a teen,
I heard her “Bobby McGee”
growl on the radio,

I didn’t resonate with
this Janis who spelled
her name like mine

until after she was gone.
But the car—eventually
I, too, had a vintage Porsche

(not nearly as fancy
as hers) in my keeping,
primer gray for years

until a kind friend painted
it. Mine needed restoration,
thanks to a departed husband,

who, had he lived, would not
have left without the car.
But our name, dear Janis—

how did our mothers decide
to drop the standard “-ice”
on the end for “-is”?

Perhaps they didn’t want
to raise icy daughters, hoped
that we’d grow into thoughtful,

friendly, smart girls, the kind
who grow into strong women,
knowing their own minds,

confident in their gifts
with a sense of just how
great their worth “-is.”

And we did. We are.

•••

In memory of Janis Lyn Joplin (Jan. 19, 1943–Oct. 4, 1970)
from Janis Linn Haag (1958– )

(for Donna and Eric Just’s
41st wedding anniversary)

•••

Cherishing is love with its sleeves rolled up.
—Gregory Boyle

You two make it look easy,
always have, for four decades
plus a year now. And while

the rest of us don’t see all
the behind-the-scenes
goings-on, what we do see

is a great team working
together seemingly seamlessly,
doing what needs doing,

caring deeply, each backing up
the other. We have observed
years of cherishing as you

continue to hold each other
dear, encouraging and
appreciating from

the early days when you
chased after children,
teaching them to walk

and talk and become good
humans, eventually launching
them into lives of their own.

Now look at you—
toting and chasing
grandchildren, again

making it look easy
as you swaddle the next
generation in the kind

of love you bestow on all
of us lucky ones circling in
your sweetly swirling orbit.

(for Shelley Burns, who brings happiness
to so many, especially when she sings)

“Forget your troubles
and just get happy,” she sings.
“You better chase all your cares away.”

We walked carrying our cares, toting
heavy concerns and fears, but when
Shelley sings at the close of the show,

“The sun is shinin’, c’mon get happy”
her voice hallelujahs us into sunshine,
the blues chased away to a place

where there is no judgment—
the promised land as promised.
Some of us oldsters might remember

Garland’s version of Harold Arlen’s
first hit, but tonight we who sit
in the dark listening to this good band

find ourselves grateful for
a here-and-now rendition that
reminds us that our times,

fear-filled as they are, are not
the first we or the worst that this
country has seen.

We are not alone in wishing for
fewer troubles, for more happy.
Our hearts sing along, too—

please let us get to happy,
to that place where it’s all so
peaceful on the other side.

•••

Thanks to Shelley Burns and Avalon Swing for their great show at The Side Door Oct. 3, 2025, featuring the music of Harold Arlen, including “Get Happy,” which he wrote in 1929 with lyricist Ted Koehler and became the songwriting duo’s first big hit.

•••

You can watch Shelley Burns and Avalon Swing perform part of “Get Happy” here.

She smiled when she asked, her
7-year-old self so serious, so sincere,

and like all grownups confronted with
hard questions we haven’t answered

for ourselves, I said, “It just stops.”
And she said, “No more lub-dub?”

because she had heard hers
lub-dubbing away through a

stethoscope at the doctor’s office.
“No,” I said, “no more lub-dub.”

And I gave her a smile to match
hers. “Okay,” she said, and turned

to head for the swings. Halfway
there, she turned and looked back,

gestured for me to come with.
When I got close enough, she asked.

“What happens to my heart
when you die?”

She took my hand as I felt
the engine of my being miss

both a lub and a dub. “It gets
very sad,” I managed.

“But I’ll already be in your heart,
so you’ll carry me with you.”

She nodded. “Wherever I go?”
“Wherever you go,” I said.

“Okay,” she said, dropping my hand
and skipping toward the swings,

taking her seat and, pumping
her little heart out,

having no idea how deeply
embedded she is in mine.

Surfers talk about it in terms
of waves they’ve zigged and zagged
and ridden till the swell fades,
dissolves into ocean.

But poets shred, too, tearing
into language with high energy
and skill. For those who surf
water or snow or concrete,

they mean mastery of the board,
confident wave control, a powerful
skillful style, perhaps a bit of flash
and flamboyance, too.

We word nerds try not to look
as if we’re trying too hard, that
we’re not kicking up a lot of spray
or carving big turns,

even when we are. Effortless,
we hope readers say.
Shreddin’ those lines, baby,
makin’ a nest that something

with feathers might want to
settle into, might sing the tune
without the words, and,
as the poet so gracefully said,

never stop at all.

•••

(in honor of National Poetry Day in the UK)