An experiment in driveway poetry (on my driveway). It’s the ending of an older poem, “This season”:
But dear one,
listen. Breathe
deeply, exhale slowly and
with your whole,
far-from shaky self,
take one trusting step
into the unknown,
and begin again.
You can read the whole poem here, if you like.
I drive by the big billboard that says
in four-foot-tall Times New Roman:
Who adopted who?
and the old English professor in me
blurts in the car, before I can stop myself,
Whom! Who adopted whom!
I knew I needed to retire when, one
sparkling morning in a writing class,
I explained this picky grammar distinction
for the approximately 12,745th time—
the subject who does the action;
the object whom receives it.
You wouldn’t say, She adopted she,
would you? No? She adopted her, yes?
Well, her and him and them and whom
are all objects. All receive action done
unto them… When about this time that
student in the back row piped up with,
Who said it has to be whom?
Why can’t it just always be who?
And for the first time I heretically thought,
Yeah, why not? Why sometimes
farther and other times further?
Why sometimes less, sometimes fewer?
I mean, seriously, said the student.
Does it really matter in this crazy world?
And I thought, nope, you know, it really
doesn’t in the great scheme of things.
We have fussed far too long over stuff
we don’t need to, and usage morphs
over time anyway. Someday, I told them,
whom will fossilize like a dinosaur,
and you will happily go who-ing
through the rest of your long lives.
And it will not matter, not one whit.
So if you happen to think of your
old fart grammar professor whom-ing
you in the distant past, know that
I will be smiling upon you from my
spot in the grammar-verse, you,
who* I greatly admire, you little
linguistic rabble-rouser, you.
•••
*Yeah, that last “who” should really be “whom.”
Can’t help myself.
I’m pretty sure they gather in my back yard,
the dead loved ones and the ancestors,
chatting quietly in the night,
their voices rustling like the susurrations
under the whispering sycamore leaves
big as bread plates every summer.
I lie awake sometimes, listening to
their murmurs, imagining that they’re
talking about me.
They must have so much to talk about—
like band members assembling for practice
before the director takes the podium.
Auntie Lo has taken up her accordion again,
her favorite childhood instrument,
which, while not often found in a band,
works here just fine. My father, her brother,
weighs in on clarinet, though he also
reportedly played a wicked xylophone
in the basement of the house their
father built in Illinois, the storehouse
of so many horns and drums.
I wonder what my mother will play,
she the most recent family member
to join them. Perhaps she will sit
next to her father, the concert pianist
and organist, their four hands
stretching long over the keys,
playing duets, laughing. The grandmas
and grandpas, uncles and aunts sit nearby
applauding, as they used to when
my little sister and I performed
“A Spoonful of Sugar” accompanied
by Auntie Lo’s piano flourishes.
And more audience: my grinning best friend
and my lanky late husband and—
oh, look!—assorted dogs and cats
scampering under the big sycamore
tree once again. These beloveds whisper
and bark and purr through my dreams,
sing in my veins. Sometimes I rise,
go to the window, part the blinds
and look into the darkened backyard,
nicely spotlighted by a waxing moon,
imagining that if I soften my gaze,
I can see these dear ones engaging
in ghostly gossip as they tune up,
then turning to reach for me,
as I reach for them.
I see you from time to time,
jogging down J street as I drive by,
and I want to stop, leap out
of the car, and holler, “Baby!”
As though you came from me,
as if, ages ago, I had not had you
removed like a wart barnacling my
insides, before you could grow lungs,
draw breath. All these years later
you run by so casually alive,
a vibrant 30-something, long
hair swinging, sometimes caught
up in a ponytail, as you jog
past a woman who might have
brushed your hair, taught you
to walk and swim, driven you
places, had I kept you safe.
I cannot undo that decision,
one I did not regret for years
and mostly still don’t. But
when I see you now and again,
my woulda-coulda-shoulda
daughter, what is left of my
old uterus shrivels a bit more.
I blow you a kiss and send you love,
imagine you turning toward me,
smiling, hearing you call me
Mom.
You thought it was what they pay you for,
but it turns out that the heart work
is the true stuff of a life. That we’re
here to live and grow in love—
that’s the real work that cannot be
measured in hours or years or time.
It’s the little-by-little, inch-by-inch,
unseen progress, the sneak-up-on-you
taps on the shoulder leading to ah ha!
moments that you didn’t see coming.
You’re not meant to, my friend, as you
bring light to those around you,
leaving it in their trembling hands.
You, helping to heal humanity, learning
that others’ lessons are yours, too,
that you’re in the same boat,
sailing the same sea, that we are
all one. There is no them, it turns out—
only us—a dawning that may take
a lifetime to pull out of your soul
and breathe into the world. But there
it goes, like dandelion spores
dispersed on a breeze, love drifting
into the day, shining like you.
(or One More Reason I Shop at Trader Joe’s)
Because, after years of seeing grocery store
signs say, “15 items or less,” these guys
get the usage right—not once,
but twice, at the same checkout stand.
And while they could be accused
of redundancy, it makes my old
grammar teacher’s heart melt like
chocolate peanut butter cups left
in the car too long
to know that someone cares
so much about accuracy that, before
I get in that line, I count the items
in my little red basket to make sure
I meet the criterion. Then I study those
artistic signs, beaming with pride
at the smarts of some other English
teacher’s star pupil who got it
so right.
•••
Quick usage tip: If you can count individual items, use “fewer”
(cookies, centipedes, peanut butter cups). If you can’t count
the items, but you can measure or quantify them, use “less”
(time, money, milk).
Sometimes, emerging from the shower,
a line flits across my mind like a gnat,
and if I don’t snatch it and set it down
where I can see it, it’s gone.
So, toweled and dripping, I let my damp
footprints pad into the nearest room
where pen and paper reside—maybe even
grab the laptop from my office—to record
what’s showing up before it darts away.
This morning, I dripped into the bedroom
with a better opening line for the poem
that began to emerge yesterday.
I knew it wasn’t quite right, but, having
no idea how to fix it, left it alone
to marinate a bit. And today, there it was,
trickling off me as if I’d been caught
in an unexpected cloudburst.
How could I ignore the gift?
How could I not stop and hold out
my cupped hands to catch even a few
precious drops before they dissolved
into the thirsty ground?
I am too old for this, I think,
open mouthed, as the technician
affixes tiny pearls to my teeth
where nearly invisible trays will attach,
adjusting my bite a half century after
my parents paid the orthodontist
$1,000 to straighten my youthful
chompers.
Now I am paying five times that amount
not for lovely teeth, but to stave off
the consequences of old teeth, of
unintentional realignment over time
that makes them prone to chipping.
I try not to think of this as torture
as the saliva slips down my throat,
reassured that this process will be
nothing like it used to be, that
my teeth will not ache for days.
I would sit in algebra class—
my throbbing jaw soothed only
by the after-school promise
of a cold scoop of ice cream—
perpetually mystified by
the variables of x and y,
learning instead that a spoonful
of creamy sweetness multiplied
two or three or four times
can make suffering just a tiny bit
more bearable.
(In memory of Nell Lester)
The snippet of creeping plant
in the pint glass on my kitchen windowsill
has grown wispy roots that wave
like the dangling tentacles of jellyfish
or the white-blonde hair of a girl
floating on her back.
I was that girl when Mrs. Lester
next door gave me a snippet of the plant
and showed me how to let it root
in water before installing it in dirt.
It’s one of the easiest plants to grow,
I hear her say from her spot
in the afterlife, which I hope has
a nice garden for her. And cats.
Though I could now remove
this offshoot from its liquid nursery
and stick it in the little pot
next to its cousin, I have not.
It’s ready to migrate from one
environment to another, but
every time I stand at the sink
and look at the half-full glass,
at what is growing under
the surface,
I am captivated by the delicate
waving tendrils, reminded of all
I do not see, of what continues
to thrive, to set down roots,
even when I mistakenly imagine
that it cannot.
I look at them dubiously in their cellophane
jacket in the produce section, their zipper
tantalizingly open to tempt passersby
like me with that tumble of dark rubies,
practically daring the shopper
to reach in and try one.
I never do, assuming that would be stealing,
but I am, indeed, tempted. So I heft a bag
onto the waiting scale to see how much
these first cherries might cost me,
having no idea if they’re still tart
or if hidden sweetness lies inside
each jewel.
I like to think that they’re always sweet,
that they’ve grown in a far-off, warm spot
and made it to the grocery store in perfect
condition, unlike the poor pale tomatoes,
which rarely look or taste like a garden-grown
version, the kind you have been known
to pluck right off the vine and bite into
like an apple.
It’s early for cherries—they really come
into their own in June here, later in the
Pacific Northwest and British Columbia—
one good reason of many to head
to Canada in summer. But, ever
hopeful, I decide to squander the $13
for these early morsels of bliss
for the tongue.
And, after paying, trundling them
and the other groceries to the car,
I reach in, risking the unwashed, to
destem a single ruby orb and pop
it into my mouth, smiling at the first
blessing of luscious, glistening
summer.
Güd wrtr 