(for Lindsey and Chuck, bound for England)
Clouds stacked up for miles ahead
like planes waiting to land—
or flat-bottomed sailboats scudding
across endless blue—
I wanted to follow where they were
headed, but the road turned southward,
and the flotilla continued east,
and as so often happens, I was left
longing for the direction I could
not travel, over thataway—
no idea why it beckoned me,
just knowing that it had—
and how much I yearned to go.
(with apologies to Miss Dickinson)
Hope is the thing with flowers
that germinate in the soil
and push their way toward the light—
and somehow spring into their
short-lived lives with such joy
that we smile every time we see them—
and, like the butterflies and bees,
bless their presence in our lives,
in this world that needs their
persistent, glorious promise.
Today of all days—
the day after another unspeakable act
that is spoken of over and over,
joining the chorus of tragedies
humans visit upon each other,
the killings and starvings,
the bombings and beatings—
we think of those in the towers
when they fell,
of those we love afloat
across the veil, our hands reaching
to penetrate the thin places
to connect with them. You
hold someone in your heart
right now, as do I,
perhaps many someones,
as your tender core pulses,
as you wish theirs still did.
We so easily divide into us
and them, we the living.
I hope that the dead do not,
that every soul, every pinpoint
of light, is an us, that we,
blasted open by grief,
allow ourselves to rest in
the thin places, at the sacred
sites, the unhurried moment
this morning as I folded
the laundry in the bedroom
he and I once shared,
just the current kitty and me,
as he arrived in a whoosh,
lingering in the corner
as he does more often than
I notice. As he so blessedly
does.
(Sept. 11, two dozen years later…)
So this honey bee lands smack dab
in the center of a Mexican sunflower
and sets about doing its business—
which is, of course, pollinating—
when it is joined by another bee-like
insect called the hover fly.
One fly, one bee feeding on the same
nectar. Impossible for us overthinking
humans to know whether the two
flying objects meet each other with
curiosity or confrontation. But look
at them, each seemingly earnest
about its work, not pestering
the other. Yes, the bee could
claim the flower as its territory,
defend it against the newcomer.
The fly could launch an all-out
attack, attempt a hostile takeover.
But neither does, which zings
me with hope for the peaceful
co-existence of different species,
praying as I do for simple
tolerance and cooperation
among my own.
•••
With thanks to photographer Kathy Keatley Garvey whose image inspired this poem.
Mellifluous isn’t on one list, though it is on others.
Because it rolls over the tongue so smoothly,
it should be highly caloric. But tremulous is,
which makes me quiver saying it, and
luminous shining its bright self, as well as
diaphanous. All these -ous suffixes,
I realize, sweeten the mouth—even
nefarious, a less-pretty word, meaning-wise.
But so many of the prettiest words
on the list that found its way to me
depict something lovely—gossamer
or tranquility, incandescent and murmuring.
Oh, the epiphany of petrichor, that pleasant,
earthy smell after rain, so ephemeral
in its gossamer radiance reminding me
that some of the briefest moments,
like a new day’s aurora, filling me
with ebullience, watching the gleam
of a halcyon moment—one, the dictionary
reminds me, characterized by happiness,
so calm, so peaceful. One we’re all
looking for, which might find its way
to us when we stop searching, when we stop,
take a breath and, instead of being,
just be.
As we assemble our star in the heavens
with every good deed, the smallest
bits of kindness deposited like seeds
along the paths of others, I find
myself considering how I might
furnish that star before I get there,
what color I’d like it to be,
where the sofa might go. I look
into the night sky, guessing
in which neighborhood my star
might live (I love the idea of
Alpha Centauri—closest to
our Milky Way) and toss questions
out to the twinkle twinkle:
how I wonder what you are
and how my essence,
lacking a body, will get there.
Should I plan on redecorating,
or will it matter if my star
resembles the sun I’ve grown up
under—a blazing ball of light
and energy that will not require
paint or wallpaper? I’m guessing
it won’t have rooms or a garden.
But I hope to start the conversation
with my star brightening its
corner of a galaxy:
How did you come to be born
and become your fiery self? Are
you expecting whatever’s left
of me? Will there be a welcome
party? Balloons? Might this be
where my companion spirits
have taken up residence?
Or perhaps you’ll pull me
into your embrace, tuck me
into your orbit as a little
exoplanet where I’ll reflect
your brilliance and shine
it over kabillions of miles
through the darkest space,
back to this little blue marble
where I and so many others
that we think of as humans—
everyone we’ve ever known
and loved—have called home.
As a kid, I used to feel my hopeful heart
lift when I’d see the red flap hanging,
the one Dad installed below our mailbox
on its sturdy post across the street.
That meant the mail lady had come,
as we called our carrier who drove around
in a right-handed-drive Jeep, delivering
through our rural neighborhood. What might
be in the box today? A note from Grandma
all the way from Southern California
pounded out on her cursive typewriter?
Mom’s longed-for Publishers Clearinghouse
letter announcing that she’d finally won?
Any number of magazines—Time and Life
for the parents, Seventeen for me,
American Girl for my younger sister?
A half century later, living in my
century-old house in the city,
my heart still rises when I hear
on my porch the telltale metallic
clunk of the red mailbox lid,
the mail person’s hand having
deposited the day’s offerings.
Though many of the magazines
now arrive in my electronic in-box
along with the bills, there’s still
the hope of an old-fashioned
postcard or letter, perhaps even
written by hand and introduced
to an envelope with a stamp affixed
in the upper right corner. A note
of thanks or an invitation,
a birthday card, a bit of reaching
out in this digital age that says,
I remember you. Thinking of you.
Wish you were here,
sending love through the mail,
which is almost as good,
we tell ourselves, as a
live, in-person hug.
(Lake Tahoe, west shore)
Red hammock
under tall Jeffrey pines
set against bluest blue,
I eye a soaring specimen
that divides in two
forty feet up.
Like us, one trunk,
two offshoots,
still reaching
for sky—even
as we add more
rings to our core,
around our
increasing middles,
surprisingly
strong and
sturdy, so very
well rooted.
•••
(for Dickie—mahalo nui loa for the great Tahoe getaway)
As I type with my eyes closed, as I often do, I think of my favorite high school teacher who made me type and retype student reporters’ stories onto clean, half sheets of newsprint. In the mid-1970s I was the editor of the high school newspaper, and the bonus of doing all that typing was that I got to do it on the first IBM Selectric I ever touched, the first typewriter I fell in love with, which lived in Mrs. C’s small office.
“If you can type clean copy with your eyes closed, you’re a pretty good typist,” said Mrs. C.
Over the years I worked hard to become that pretty good typist, my fingers growing stronger as they took me to other typewriters—from my mother’s small Smith-Corona portable to the gray elephants of Underwoods in their hard plastic skeletons at the college newspaper to the keyboard of my first Macintosh computer and many that followed.
But I never lost my affection for the Selectric, which, even without a correcting ribbon, was the smoothest typewriter ever made. (I still occasionally type on a 1960s red Selectric that lives with me.) I was never as fast on it as Mrs. C., though, or, I imagine, nearly as accurate.
After she was handed the responsibility for the yearbook and newspaper at a new high school in 1966, Mrs. C. sought guidance from editors at the local newspaper in our town. She’d been an English major and told me years later that she had known next to nothing about newspapers. But over the years she turned herself into a truly gifted journalism adviser who gave me and so many others some of our best lessons in reporting.
A couple of months ago, prompted by another one of her former students, I started looking for Mrs. C. a couple of months ago, wondering why, despite sending emails over the years, I had not heard from her.
She and her longtime partner had moved, so that was part of it. But when I recently reached her partner by phone, he told me that Mrs. C. was struggling—as had her mother and a sister—with dementia, though she is still in good health.
He said that Mrs. C. had opened my email and sat before the computer as if she intended to respond. “But she just couldn’t,” he explained. “I think she’s forgotten how to use a computer.”
He offered his help, and she refused it.
That’s when my eyes filled, and the crack in my heart widened a little for all those we lose in one way or another.
I wonder if, somewhere deep inside, her fingers still know their way around a keyboard, even if plaque in her brain is blocking the signals to make them perform.
When I knew her, Mrs. C. seemed at the height of her powers—not only a very clean typist but also a champion writing teacher, editor and encourager. She also advised the yearbook, and my dear friend Lisa, the yearbook editor, and I, editor of the newspaper, came to both cherish and fear Mrs. C’s left-leaning handwriting on copy she returned to us. She tapped my sister (also a leftie) to edit the yearbook two years later, and Donna got similar notes of correction and praise.
Though a serious taskmaster who did not tolerate sloppy writing or laziness, Mrs. C. had a delightful laugh and (years later she told me) loved “most of” her students. Even more important, she served as a springboard for many young people, including me, who bounced into college and later into careers as writers and journalists in print and broadcasting, teachers and professional communicators and much more.
She was not my only excellent writing teacher/adviser/coach, but she was one of the very best who installed important skills at a crucial point in my development as a writer—not least insisting on good typing habits.
My eyes are closed as I type this, remembering that petite, strawberry blonde-haired woman bustling around the small room in a high school in a small Northern California town where so many newspapers and yearbooks were born. I feel her still, leaning over my shoulder, noting a typo or praising a phrase.
My mother, who died in December, and Mrs. C. were two of my first, best editors, both gone now in different ways, both embedded in my writerly editor’s heart that—dear god, please—will carry on their lessons as long as I have breath and brain to do so.
(Lake Tahoe, west shore,
in memory of Margery Thompson)
Five days after you die,
we head to the Big Blue,
the high mountain lake
where all manner of
spirits live, and now,
we imagine, you have
joined them.
The Wa-She-Shu,
the ancestral people,
migrated here each
summer from the hot
Carson Valley to fish
and hunt and gather
berries at da-ow-a-ga,
“edge of the lake.”
Surely they continue
in spirit form, their
Washoe descendants
honoring them to this
day,
as we remember you,
talking story about
“the time when…,”
carrying your love
with us to the ends
of our days.
With luck, one day
we might join you
and the spirits whose
lights we see dancing
under dark clouds
to the east,
from our spot here
at the end of your
final summer season,
in a little room called
Evergreen Heaven
at the edge of the lake.
Güd wrtr 