Güd wrtr

(for Dick Schmidt, on his birthday)

Because, the day before he turns 82,
he pulls himself out of a warm bed
sooner than he’d like to come to
your house and pick up

the lone box that remains of
your late mother’s many, many
boxes of books, and he drives it to
the friends of the library place

that only accepts donations
two mornings a week, which you
can’t manage this week because
of other obligatos, as he says.

And because it is the birthday
of the 16th president, this day that
was once upon a time a federal
holiday, he texts that, though you

are not available, he would have
liked to see you and give you a
new penny (soon to be extinct if
a new president has his way)

to honor “dude’s birthday,”
adding, “I owe you one,”
this dude of yours who
presents you with a shiny

penny each time you cut
his hair, which you save
in a special place, and which,
should the bits of copper-

plated zinc go the way
of other vanished species,
you realize takes on an
even greater meaning—

all those bright coins that
reside in your kitchen,
winking his love at you
all the livelong day.

On the church steps on a cold clear morning
three days before St. Valentine’s Day
there he was in the deep shade,
a slender young man with a days-old beard
and only a small towel around his shoulders.

Honey, whispered the little red-haired angel
who nudges me when I need nudging. This one.

We can do no great things, Mother Teresa said,
only small things with great love.

And, driving in the car, I had two small things
filling the back seat—a bulky egg-crate
piece of foam large enough to sleep on
and my late mother‘s bedspread.

I parked, got out and approached him,
the big foam pad in my arms.
Would this help? You could spread it out and sit or…
Oh, yes! he exclaimed. That would be wonderful.

And he came down the steps and took it as gently
as if I were handing an infant into his keeping.
I went back to the car for the bedspread, and,
watching him hug it to his chest, I asked his name.

Vincent, he said.
Jan, I said.

Two nights earlier I had driven around
to places where I knew the unhoused
usually sleep with the bulky bedding in
the back seat, finding no one. And in
the eerie dark I wondered, Where have
they all gone? Were they chased away?
I know they’re out here somewhere.

Honey, there are no accidents, the little
red-haired angel whispered. It’s one of her
favorite sayings.

Vincent lingered with the bedspread as
I noticed that he’d already spread the foam pad
on the church’s top step.

My mother died recently, I blurted. These
were hers. I think she’d want you to have them.

He didn’t hesitate. God rest her soul, he said,
the first time someone has said this to me
about her.

And while I’m hopeful that her soul
is at rest somewhere, St. Vincent’s blessing
touched me deeply.

And yours, too, I said watching him turn to walk
back up the church steps, wrapping himself
in a small thing, the little red-haired angel and I
sending prayers for his safekeeping, that he might
find some warmth and rest of his own.

After we leave for the night—

after we have spent hours pulling dusty
books off shelves, and finding photos tucked
into unexpected crevices, after tossing
paper, paper, and more paper, setting aside
office supplies and semi-precious stones
(so many crystals!), more books, more records,
tapes (cassette and VHS), clearing cupboards
that hold serving pieces you never used
(three chafing dishes? a sleek percolator with
a spout angled like a 1950s Cadillac tailfin?)—

we imagine that you two take over your house
once more.

It looks so different now that we are clearing
it out for a new generation of your descendants,
though we expect that you don’t notice.

That if, when we are not there, you drift like
smoke through the rooms where we imagine,
in the days that were, you fell into each other’s
arms and danced, stunned by your good fortune
to have landed in this house by the lake
where you raised us and so many puppies
and kitties, where, we believe, for a time
you were happy.

You are one big enigma to us now,
you who turn on the mystery light
before we arrive and sometimes seem
reluctant to allow us to turn it off.
Each time we come in to see it on,
our hearts leap a little, and we say,

Thank you, Mom and Dad, for the light,
for leaving us with so much light.

How is it that my little sister is a grandma,
and her husband (that cute blonde guy who
played baritone sax in the college night band)
is a grandpa?

And that they made a Lauren, and Lauren
(with Gerald) made a Henry (and now she’s
putting the finishing touches on their
soon-to-appear Rosie),

and, as my little sister and I bag and box,
discard and donate so much of our parents’
house to pass it to the next generation,
while outside, Kevin (with Ashley) prune
and rake and pull out deep-rooted ivy to remake
the front yard into a place of beauty.

In our family’s family room I watch that
little sister (now Grandma) climb into Henry’s
plastic corral to change his diaper
(Grandpa, the still-sax player, in there, too),

and it’s déjà vu all over again, as they say,
Aunt Jan remembering these two as young
parents just, oh, a blink of an eye ago,
raising a little Lauren and a little Kevin into
lovely humans with kind-hearted spouses.

I’m whooshed by that time-flying-by thing
right there in the house where we were raised,
watching the latest set of grandparents
in our family take such delight in the offspring
of their offspring, me stunned by so much life,
so heart-full at the sight of all them.

The human heart beats 100,000 times a day,
40 million times a year, and up to
3 billion times in an average lifetime.

Butterfly hearts beat hundreds of thousands
of times a day, and up to 1 billion times
in their abrupt lifetimes.

But they live only 2 to 4 weeks, except
for the ones that migrate over winter,
which might last for several months.

And while we often feel that our beloveds
don’t live long enough, butterflies likely
don’t sense the brevity of their being,

nor are they aware of their loveliness,
through all billion heartbeats. Let us stop,
place a fragile hand on our chests and

feel the engines of our existence that power
our wings, thankful for our comparatively
long runs that allow us to admire

the delicacy of butterflies resting in the sun,
their pinhead hearts ticking off the remaining
minutes of their sweet little lives.

I cannot tie my shoes,
which Mrs. Shaw tells all
the mommies that we
kindergarteners in her class
must be able to do.

But I can read “The Cat in the Hat”
all the way through
all by myself,

and I can write my
whole name:
Janis Linn Haag,

and I can make my little sister
(who can tie her shoes)
laugh and laugh.

And it turns out that Mrs. Shaw
is not upset about the shoes,
praises my wobbly handwriting,

and says on my report card,
“Janis is a very smart girl—
she will go far,”

which makes my mommy
and daddy happy, and
sets me on my way,

bouncing on my toes,
eager to see what
comes next when

I get to be 6.

Outside in the dark,
before I turn on the light
inside the garage,

I stop in the chill,
listen to them chatter overhead,
geese on the move,

a large flock, not just a honk
here or there, but the avian
call and response, a chorus

of chortles and chuckles,
whispers of wings flying low,
unseen as they travel

through the young night,
my prayers for their
safekeeping—

for all airborne beings
everywhere—
taking wing to join them.

(for the California Northstate University medical students, class of 2025)

I set containers of gummy Xs and Os
mixed with jellybean hearts
on the tables where you will curl
over new notebooks and fresh pens,
you soon-to-be doctors
writing your art out.

“It’s all about the love,” I say to them—
the gummies and jellies serving as sweet
reminders—and to myself,
“You can’t blow it if you love them,”
as a wise writing woman once told me.

And now I watch you all take to the page,
some of you writing with intensity as a flurry
of words travels from heart to arm to hand
and out through gripped fingers. Some of you
write more slowly, as others pause to consider,
breathe, look up, before applying the pen again.

“The page can take whatever you have to put on it,”
I say. “Get whatever it is out of you and on to paper.”

What I forget to say is that this love infects you
and those around you in the best possible ways, too.

I want to hug each of you and say,
“Physician, love thyself—on the page and in life.”

I want to say, “Show the world the wings
you’ve grown, lifting,
and write your way home.”

•••

(The last stanza quotes two of my favorite poets: the Persian mystic Rumi
as well as the wise writing woman in the poem, Amherst Writers & Artists
founder Pat Schneider.)

(Thanks to Dr. Martin Rubin for inviting me to share the AWA method
with these 14 medical students, just part of the class of 2025.)

When I’m told to hum in a sea
of hummers, I think first of the birds
whose wings thrum the air,
of the delight when one flies into
my airspace and hovers like an
iridescent helicopter, rotors
whirring, before it dashes off.

And now, in this space of worship
on a rainy morning with hundreds
of my fellow humans, I hum,
eyes closed, absorbing the harmonics
of people unified in this moment,
putting subtle song into the air.

And now, there they are, humming along—
the ones who taught my sister and me
to sing harmony, I often joke, before
they’d let us sing melody, to fill out
the family quartet:

Daddy sang bass, Mama sang tenor
Me and little sister would join right in there
Singing seems to help a troubled soul…

It did help, and it does now,
reminding me that we are not alone,
that generations of loved ones still
surround us. And if I listen closely,
I hear him. I hear her. I hear little sister
joining the angels among us—

One of these days and it won’t be long
I’ll rejoin them in a song…

No, the circle won’t be broken.
There’s a silver lining behind every cloud.

Together, in this great human family,
listen to us hum.

•••

“Daddy Sang Bass,” music and lyrics by Carl Perkins

Well, hot damn,
if I’m not writing the final check
to the bank to make this old house
mine for real.

And all I can think of is,
Did you ever think you’d see this?
No, you did not, leaving the party
early, as you did, which I know
was not how you wanted it.

But look, sweetie. We did it.
Took me a few more minutes
than I thought, but now,

as I walk through our house—
where some nights I still awaken
to the soft pad of your footsteps
in the hall and the jingle of Buddy’s tags
on his blue collar—

I whisper into the dark,
knowing how close you are,
how thin the veil between
my side and yours,

thank you, I love you,
yipppeeeeeee!
thankyouthankyouthankyou.