Güd wrtr

It is not an easy assignment, being alive.
—Maria Popova

So we arrive, then, with an assignment,
but it takes us most, if not all, of a lifetime
to figure out what that is?

Or do we discern it bit by bit, awareness
dawning like—well, dawn—though we
mostly blink dumbly into the light?

Would it be so much skin off God’s
nose to send us with an instruction
manual—and while she’s at it,

one for the parents, too? From what
to do when the first goldfish dies
to how to ride a bicycle to the

mystery of algebra to how to handle
the heartbreak of a love that
blossoms and flourishes and dies.

This gift of a lifetime in these floppy
human bodies often doesn’t feel like
such a gift, and some of us opt out

early, shredding the hearts of ones
who love us. And some of us are just
plain mean or violent or bent on

tearing apart the foundations of
who we are. And who we are—
the assignment, if you will—is

simply this: to live and grow in love.
If someone whispered that in our
tiny ears from our first breaths,

if many someones showered us
with lovingkindness just because,
if we grew up with the notion that

we are here for each other—that there
is actually no “other,” that we are they
and they are us, that you are me

and I am you—would that not heal
a few billion broken hearts? Even
better, what might keep you/me/us

from breaking in the first place is if we
could see the assignment neatly printed
on the great cosmic chalkboard:

Find someone, anyone, to sit with.
Offer your hand, palm up, then
squeeze the hand that so tenderly,

with great hope, finds its way
to yours. Smile. Repeat as
often as you can.

Amen.

A loose ribbon of birds arrows over the shoreline,
though we hear them before we see them,
the gaggle perfectly synchronized,
heading north.

On our last coastal afternoon for now,
we stop walking, look up to take in
the call and response of geese on the move,
an ordinary sight we see in our part
of the world, too.

Here it borders on the mystical when
combined with wind glancing off waves,
blue all the way to the ruler-straight horizon,
the sun playing hide and seek with
fast-moving clouds.

We watch the bird ribbons curl and uncurl,
configure and refigure, streaming behind
the leader as if from a girl‘s hair as she runs,
arms extended, into this perfect day,

the cares of a crumbling world so far away
they cannot be real—though we know
better. But the peace of here and now
brushes our faces as we head north
on the blufftop trail,

watching the disappearing flock
turn into dashes and dots,
winged Morse code for go,
for fly,
for this way,

and other signals that we,
the earth-bound,
the flightless two-leggeds,
will never comprehend.

The Sea Ranch, Sonoma coast, California

We set off for our just-before-sunset
walk with coats and hats and cameras,
the kind that live now on our phones,

but it is not until we are almost
at the trail that I remember
I have forgotten my glasses.

I do not go back for them.
There is enough light in this
soft focus world, and I am here

to listen more than see
the waves rolling in below
as we walk the blufftop trail.

The one who sees far better than I
searches for vintage points to
record in pixels the day’s last light,

though fog hanging on the horizon
has swallowed the sun. No colorful
sky show this evening. The marine

layer will likely overtake us in
a few hours. It is often the way
on this coast, but we don’t mind.

Whatever comes, we are happy
where we hear only bird sounds
and waves, the relentless sea

shushing at times and crashing
at others—unlike the city noises
that punctuate most of our lives.

This place puts us back together.
Each time we return home, we
find ourselves jarred by traffic

and too-close neighbors, by
barking and screeching not from
seals or birds of prey gliding

so close we can see the color
and curve of their lethal beaks.
We hate to leave the ocean for

our inland lives, though we know
this place waits for us, though
buzzards and hawks still circle,

swoop and dive, that sandpipers
play tag with waves at the waterline,
that the constant waves keep

coming and crashing, the tides
pulling in and out, in concert with
the moon. Our focus is always

soft here, gentled in a way it
cannot be in our everyday lives.
This place sets us back into

our bodies like those newly
arrived, eyes wide, blinking at
the greening wonder of it all.

Please pay no attention to
that nutty man behind the curtain
in the land south of yours
on this continent we share.

If I could, I would send up an
old-fashioned red biplane
towing a huge, ribbony sign,
saying,

Canada, We Love You!

You have been nothing but
lovely to us, the most generous
of neighbors and hosts when
we cross our mutual border,
though, at the moment,
we don’t collectively deserve
your hospitality.

But that’s not in your nature,
to turn away those you see as
friends. And, it seems to me,
that you see all of us—even
the most disagreeable of us—
as friends.

And so many of us, your
southern neighbors, feel
genuine affection for you
for your benevolent spirit.

O Canada, know that millions
of us down here see you as
the calmer, saner neighbors
we wish for among our own
folks. They’re here among
us, too, just not in charge
right now

—so sorry about that—

but we want you to
know that we extend our
arms in friendship as
you have long done for us.

We pray that this, too, will
pass sooner than later,
but for now, know how
grateful we are
to and for you, eh?

We so, so are.

(at The Sea Ranch—
for Lauren Just Giel
and other mamas-to-be)

Standing on the bluff
looking down at the beach,
we sigh with recognition,

admiration and a little envy
at the fourteen snoozing
harbor seals sprawled

like sausages on the sand.
We are out for a walk,
checking out a nearby

beach that requires
a hike down steep stairs
and a small rappel on

a thick black rope,
then doing it all in
reverse to return

to the trail. A nap
seems like a fine idea
about now, but we

take some time to
appreciate these calm
creatures—mostly

females, some of whom
are likely pregnant,
due to deliver soon,

like a young mama
in our family. And we
send all kinds of love

to those carrying
the weight of
the next generation,

hoping the expecting
ones can snag a nap
here or there,

now and then, as their
offspring incubate,
kick and stretch,

getting ready to
experience this great
world waiting

to welcome them.

(for Clifford Ernest Polland
May 21, 1952–March 18-19, 2001)

I stand atop a rock at Shell Beach,
looking out to a sea far calmer
than yesterday’s stormy one
but still alive with vigorous
waves exploding onto seastacks,
sending spray forty feet above
the surge.

No longer do I think on these days,
the anniversary of your departure,
the day you were found:
You should see this, you gone
two dozen years now.

Instead, I think:
You are this—every wave,
every drop of saltwater, every
flower springing into this season
of flowering when you left.
You never left, merely
transformed into, well,
everything.

Years ago the physics of it
struck me: If no new energy
is created in the universe, then
nothing comes to be or perishes,
our atoms simply rearranged
into, well, everything.

You still with me—in sunlight
warming my face—as I stand
at the edge of the earth,
in cooling seaspray
dotting my cheeks,

a kind of holy water
that I never want
to wipe away.

When the tide swirled in,
I found my wellies overtopped
by the chill of saltwater,
as hundreds of tiny becalmed
sails swirled around my calves.

I did not leap toward shore,
but stood and watched them
caught in a vortex not of their
making, these small doomed
creatures that could not make
their way back out to sea,
that would die near the tideline,

their once-cobalt bodies fading
to ghostly white before sunset,
their delicate skeletons
ribboning the sand.

I thought of all those stranded
through no fault of their own,
those aching and lonely,
those suffering and in pain,

and, with my wet feet squelching
in my rubber boots, sent every
droplet of lovingkindness coursing
through me into the waves,

hoping against hope that
the merest trickle of it might
reach those who need it most.

Leo horoscope for Sunday:
Introspective feelings could drive you to probe
the inner recesses of your mind today.

🌖 🌖 🌖

I ask Dr. Google: How many people in the world
are born under the sign of Leo? (Like me.)

Dr. Google’s AI cousin replies: While it’s impossible to
know the exact number of people born under the Leo sign,

approximately 6.4% of the world’s population, or roughly
5.4 billion people, are Leos, born between July 23 and Aug. 22.

And, of those, how many of us bipeds find ourselves waning
under this gibbous moon that was just a few days ago wolfy

plump for its star turn at a lunar eclipse? (Again, 6.4%.)
And, of those, how many are probing the inner recesses

of their minds as I am, captivated by rain on glass,
through windshield, as he and I drove four hours

to the coast? (Impossible to know.) And, now that
we’ve arrived, we watch thousands of dripping drops

crawl down the picture window where outside rain
scours this patch of earth clean, within view of the ocean,

or would be, if the gray veil would rise, like velvet curtains
used to at the theater, revealing the big screen. And yes,

we’d sit with strangers in the dark, before the gray
of the film began to flicker and blossom. I know that if

I sit here long enough, this, too, shall pass under a waning
gibbous moon that I’ll likely not see tonight, but hey.

You never know when the curtain will lift, the sun
will take a bow and deliver a Leo-style, show-offy

sunset that could bring all of us across the zodiac
to our feet, applauding the brilliant performance.

Bravo! we’d cry, as if we were, indeed, one people,
we humans being. Encore! More! More!

“You can’t save everything,”
my sister said as we went room by room
through the house of our mother,
who pretty much did.

Though hers was more of a case of
not-getting-rid-of, of stuffing more stuff
into an already full drawer or cupboard,
which turned the sorting of them after
her death into an archaeological
excavation of our family.

I hear her now:
I did get rid of rubber bands,
you know. I didn’t save all of them
like Grandma did.

Which was true, especially since my sister,
the minimalist, periodically went through
the junk drawer, quietly tossing brittle bands
that snapped and dead pens whose veins
had long since dried up—not to mention
appointment cards from the long-gone barber
on the corner who cut our father’s hair
for decades.

But after—oh, the after—the lightning fast
cleaning out quickened my pulse, spun
my archivist’s heart with its urgency.
I didn’t object—it made sense to clear
out the house so it could be remade anew
for the next generation in the family
now making it their own.

But what to save? What to let go?
Life’s perennial dilemma for those of us
who hang onto too much. Which of my
mother’s many books do I box and
trundle home? (Too many.) How many
of her notebooks filled in class after class
in the lifetime of this forever student?
(Dozens.)

Now surrounded by towers of boxes in
my living room, I remove each lid, pick up
her objects, study her handwriting as if
it holds secrets, which it might.
I cannot toss the folders en masse,
searching for insight, the rare bit
of self-reflection.

I find haiku and aspirations,
and oh, the treasure of photographs—
a formal portrait in an off-the-shoulder
black formal, snapshots on the dock
at a summer camp in Wisconsin, or
pulling an arrow from the bullseye
surrounded by other young archers.

“Look at you,” I say, peering closely at her
face on the deckled-edged glossy paper,
the girl who had no idea what was to come,
whom she would love, the children she
would make, the life she would live.

“Look at you,” I whisper to that
dark-haired girl staring into her future.
“Look at me.”

After missing the eclipse the night before,
I drive home in the blazing incandescence

of a full moon on high beam, power lighting
the sky so that when I step out of the car

to try to capture its radiance, I land in
moonshadow and began humming the song,

remembering that even when I cannot see
the orangey-red penumbra momentarily swallow

our nearest celestial neighbor, the miracle
happens nonetheless. Of course, it does,

this form of grace so freely bestowed
upon us earthlings who have done nothing

to earn such a sweet gift as that
temporary tangerine beaming

glimmers of love into the night sky.