Güd wrtr

Our very life here depends directly on continuous acts of beginning.
—John O’Donohue

It’s an invitation, an opening,
like so many that have been offered,
a portal into, yes, the uncharted,

but when has there ever been a beginning
that did not require a wee bit of daring?
Whether your heart is ready or not,

here it comes—the surprises, the possibiles,
no matter how much you resist them.
So dear one, listen:

Breathe deeply, exhale slowly,
and, with your whole, courageous,
far-from-small self,

take one shaky, trusting step
into the unknown,
and begin again.

Glittering under the final
sparse rays of a winter day

near the end of a year,
rising above it all helps change

our perspective on the place
we think of as home,

as the Nisenan have done
for thousands of years,

basking in golden light long
before this city began its life

in the rush to gold, bordered
by the spine of a river that

shares its name with this place—
something sacred, a mystery,

a solemn oath—this River of
the Most Holy Sacrament,

viewed from on high, moving fast,
ocean bound a hundred miles

downstream, the true home
from whence we all came

and where one day
we will all return.

•••

The Nisenan are a group of Native Americans and an Indigenous people
of California from the Yuba River and American River watersheds
in Northern California and the California Central Valley.

—Handbook of North American Indians

•••

(With thanks to Hector Amezcua, ace drone pilot and Sacramento Bee photographer,
for this stunning aerial photo of our fair city—looking west over Tower Bridge
and the Sacramento River into West Sacramento—at sunset on Dec. 27, 2025.)

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Thanks, best wishes and more

•••

These subject lines truly are from my in-box over the past couple of days. Maybe you’ve gotten some of these, too—or ones like them. Each one could be a writing prompt, if you’d like one!

Thank you for reading my poems and, when you feel moved to, liking them and commenting on them. I love every response and am grateful to you all as these daily poems have made their way into the world for the past three years and (about to be) two months.

As we used to say in the old typing-on-paper newspaper days of the previous century, “More TK.”

More to come.

Happy new year.

I completely understand.
I don’t want people knocking on my door
trying to sell me something either.

But listen, what I have for you
is something that you can’t pay for,
even if you wanted to.

I have for you a poem of the day,
though I understand from the wince
and the head shake that you

may consider yourself someone
who doesn’t like poetry,
who doesn’t get it,

who would rather listen to
a hundred leaf blowers in a
raucous symphony

than listen to a minstrel poet’s
humble offering on such a
glorious day. But bear with me.

It’s a love poem.
And here’s the secret:
They’re all love poems,

whether they seem to be about
the inconstant sun or the morphing moon,
whether they’re celebrating

a season or mourning the dearly
departed. And as another famous
foursome once poetically crooned,

Can’t buy me love
everybody tells me so
Can’t buy me love
No, no, no, no.

So here it is, a poetic offering
for you from your friendly
neighborhood poet

because we can all use a little
unsolicited love, can’t we?
Yes, yes, yes, yes.

•••

With great appreciation to The Beatles for “Can’t Buy Me Love,” here in a remastered
2015 version sounding as fresh as the day it was recorded.

When you paused for a poem
it could reshape the day
you had just been living.

—Naomi Shihab Nye
from “Every day as a wide field, every page”

•••

As you move about the place you call home,
lines come to you unbidden,
snippets of conversation remembered
or imagined as your soapy hands
massage the spoons,
rinse the morning’s cup.

Bits of a nursery rhyme your
grandmother recited to your little self
roll through as you pull wet clothes
from the washer, heft them into the dryer,
or, in good weather, pin them to the line
outside to flap like prayer flags
under a sunny breeze.

Lyrics from songs, some you haven’t heard,
much less sung, in ages, leap in the attic
of the mind where music lives
as you take up the rake, humming,
your shoulders embracing the swing
and the pull.

On a walk, at the grocery store,
allow the poetry of the everyday
to reshape it. Tune into the shoosh
of the last of the leaves crunchy underfoot.
Admire the winter citrus stacked just so
in the produce aisle—the oranges,
the lemony yellows, the particular
limey greens.

Pause. Lean in and inhale.
Let the lines come to you.

They might be yours.

The old muscles complain, we all say,
but they, as it happens, are among
the many things that need stretching,

especially at the end of a year that
has required our hearts to resist
the urge to contract as we witness

such hard-heartedness among those
we had hoped might find their
Grinch-y hearts expanding.

And so we must stretch and stretch
again to keep supple that which
tends to tense at news of such

hateful acts, such meanness. So
we extend a leg and bend, trying
to loosen the tight hips,

unkink the knotted muscles
caressing our spines, rise on our
toes to strengthen the calves,

and gently, so gently, tilt our
heads to one side and roll them
slowly, so slowly, listening

to the crackle-pops of our
loosening infrastructure,
hoping to release stuck spots,

sending deep exhales of
compassion into these bodies
of ours, and into the world

at large, with great helpings
of lovingkindness, our own
tiny bit of resistance.

•••

(for Shelley Burns and the exercising women with thanks and love)

After weeks of intractable fog,
after passing showers that grayed over Christmas

with occasional bursts of sunshine before
the next set of showers oozed in,

weather on the move at last, for the moment,
not a socked-in shroud of cloud.

At last, to walk outside on a clear night after
The Day to see, even in our well-lit city,

a few winking stars and a half cupful
of smiling moon on its way to the western horizon,

lifts my heart for no special reason
other than, despite everything,

this is still the season of joy,
and I am reveling in it.

And so it is Boxing Day,
the day after Christmas, and
here comes one of my angels,

the little frizzy, red-haired one
with her stubby wings,
flitting around at an odd angle,

listing to starboard,
as if she can’t quite achieve
a straight line, always tilted

like a quizzical hummingbird.
I move slowly amid the detritus
of present sorting and wrapping

as she zooms in closer, her laser
blue eyes narrowing for a better
look, and I realize that she might

be off kilter because she’s tossing—
is that red glitter?—while humming
“We Wish You a Merry Christmas,”

like some form of benediction,
which I suppose it is. I hate to tell
her, “That was yesterday,” knowing

that there are likely no clocks in
her part of forever. Why should
they care about time? Clearly,

this visitation, like other angelic ones,
is about receiving an unexpected,
glittering gift. As one of my

once-upon-a-time earth angels
liked to say, “A girl can never have
too much glitter”—though she can,

really—the stuff infiltrates everything.
All this takes maybe four seconds
before the angel zooms straight

for me, lips pursed as if she’s going
to let loose a whistle or deposit
a zinger of a divine kiss, when

the dazzle of all that glitter erupts
into a holy light show of volcanic
fountaining, sparkly pinwheels

spiraling (are those galaxies?),
and I stand there, mouth agape like
a shepherd who’s just been visited

by an angel and told to get moving:
There’s a miracle to see, darling,
and you don’t want to miss it.

(In memory of the late, great Nell Lester)

Of all the things you gave me as a child—
as Girl Scout troop leader, purveyor
of my favorite tuna and noodles,
oh, and not incidentally, mom to the girl
next door, my first/forever best friend—
I am gobsmacked by your plants
that have come to live at my house.

Your only child bequeathed them
to me after your passage into mystery.
She, who lives with a plant-eating cat,
could not house your indoor beauties.
I trundled home a dozen that had lived
with you for who knows how long,
determined to let them summer on
my deck and winter indoors.

And look—your Christmas cactus—
the sprawling, pinky white one—
is blooming its fool head off on time,
Right Before Christmas, which feels,
honestly, miraculous, if also a bit
show-offy.

And though you, in all your modesty,
would likely point out that you have
nothing to do with the timing of such
glorious blossoms, I am here to say—
as we often did as kids—Nuh uh.

Because, I figure, you must be in
the Heavenly Blooming Department,
green thumb gardener that you were.

And while I am an enthusiastic amateur
at best, I take my position seriously as
Apprentice Plant Tender Here on Earth,
knowing that these cotton candy blossoms
festooning your cactus in the darkest
part of the year is truly grace in action.

So I hope that all of you up there in
the Heavenly Blooming Department
hear my joyous exclamations and
delighted applause for this bit of
Christmas floral transcendence,
a job so very well done.

•••

(With love and gratitude to Sue Lester for sharing her mom with the girls next door.)

certainly flits about in pink,
wearing an apron, hovering
by a heavenly stove where
something smells, well,
heavenly.

Many of us sat at her table
happy to eat anything
she put on a plate, and
that has not changed, even
as the angel hung up

her last apron—perhaps
the Canadian one that said,
eh! Or a pink one with
cupcakes, or something
never seen in her earthly
existence,

a nifty little number in a color
unseeable by mere humans,
one that sets off her shimmering,
translucent—just look at them—
gorgeous wings.

•••

(in memory of Margery Thompson, Aug. 13, 1946–Aug. 27, 2025)