Güd wrtr

Ages ago, a big orange cat
used to hoist himself up

behind my father’s head
resting in his recliner,

crowning the man we loved,
the only one who could

apply eye medicine to
Big Red’s baby greens,

the trusting kitty who’d go
boneless in my father’s

strong arms. And now,
my mother’s kitty

hops up behind my
tower of bed pillows,

curls himself behind
my curls, laying a paw

on my shoulder,
his crowning glory

anointing mine, as
royal felines do,

blessing the mere
mortals who serve

their furry majesties.

The one in my backyard, the moon’s
pregnant face inching each night
into her roundest form,

preparing to spit out baby stars,
before shrinking back to her
slender self, then disappearing

before starting her cycle again.
Here in my city yard I see few stars,
must content myself with a

downward gaze at the
moonshadowed sycamore’s
leaves dancing on the grass,

yellowing daily as the days
grow hotter, but now feels lush
and damp under my bare feet.

I have padded out here looking
for a black cat in the night
who is happily hiding,

in no mood to come in,
though we are approaching
a new day. I whisper his name,

get only a slight swish of leaves
in answer. But here, on this summer
night, this instant that will not

be like the next, much less
the next hour, the next night,
something compels me to stand

in the quiet and allow mystery
to soak in, momentarily
giving up the questions

without answers, no matter
how much I want them,
breathing into what is given.

A swish of cat tail against
my calf startles me back
into my body, and I bend

to pat what I cannot truly see,
then straighten and blink
at the brightness piercing

the dense canopy overhead.
Then I head back into the place
that I think of as my life,

where I will continue to practice
trust, having faith that, no matter
where I go, love in all its forms

is never far behind.

•••

(for beloveds afar—
Michael and Alison and Rose)

I thought that’s what the subject line said
as I skimmed my list of incoming email.

Yoga for chickens? Is there downward bird?
And kundalini yoga at that, which is said to

“provide deep healing by releasing any trauma
from the energetic body.” Which makes me

think of Katie’s chickens, undoubtedly
traumatized by regular visits from their

neighborhood fox who has stolen three
of their sisters, grabbed and dispatched

in the dark. Or Edie and Jon’s girls long ago,
some of whom met untimely ends at the paws

of marauders. Foxes need to eat, too, but
it’s hard to approve the taking of the innocent.

Would yoga for chickens have calmed them?
Helped them, as the course description says,

“achieve wholeness, eliminate limiting beliefs,
improve self-confidence and resilience”?

Perhaps the feathered ones do their own form
of yoga each day, scratching, bending, pecking.

Certainly there’s exercise in generating an egg,
pushing it into the world. Talk about opening chakras,

balancing energy centers. Perhaps they already carry
a sense of greater strength and inner peace,

the girls, who, as long as they awaken each day,
feel plenty centered, whole and alive.

Eager eater that you are,
you just pop them in your mouth,
greedy for the flood of sweet
on your tongue.

But when a guest in someone’s
home and given baskets of Bings
to cut and combine in a bowl,
you are handed the pitter,

vaguely looking like an
instrument used in a pelvic
exam. You pause, figuring out
the placement of the dark

purple-black fruit, which you
have destemmed, before plunging
the pointy part into a cherry
center. The pit bursts out

in a graceful, goopy arc, smack
into the bowl where other
fruits, already sliced, wait.
You search for the bloody thing,

which your host, leaning
over your shoulder, finds.
Lesson learned: Don’t pit
over the fruit bowl.

Be sure the pit emerges whole,
transferred to a small bowl where it
joins other maroon-stained seeds.
If not, pry it out with a small

paring knife, then slice the former
orb in half to add to the big bowl,
taking care not to add your own
blood to the mix. For every

third cherry properly pitted,
pop half into your mouth,
smiling at the sweet-tart juice
darkening under your nails,

stains that you’ll happily carry for days.

Because you asked me to post
this photo of the two of us
all mortarboard-ed up like so many
of the students we nurtured
to graduations,

many of whom didn’t think
they’d make it—some of whom
we didn’t think would make it—

I’m reminded of your 19-year-old
grin, one of my first community
college journalism students who
set the standard for so many
to come.

Eager and talented,
great-hearted, hard working
and funny, you were someone
whose progress I wanted to follow,
and who, for reasons I’ve never
quite understood but so
appreciate,

has wanted to hang out
with me all these years—
watching you flourish
as a teacher, loving that same
grin as you talk with such
joy about your students,
past and present,

as I still talk about mine.

•••

(for Neil Reilly, with love and thanks for nearly 40 years of friendship)

(for Dad’s birthday… and Mom, too)

Having no idea if you’re even you anymore,
gone these 21 years, it occurs to me that
if there is still something of you, the him,

there might still be something of she, the her.
And perhaps, upon her more recent
departure from her former form,

she drifted into your neck of the… well,
maybe not woods, but it could be the lake,
since you came together best on

the turquoise boat on cobalt blue water,
both daughters life-jacketed, ready for you
to tow each of them on a single ski,

before each of you took a turn. And as
those daughters remember you on what
would have been your 95th earthly birthday,

we hold out hopeful hearts that you two brilliant
points of light might be orbiting each other like
electrons circling atoms—in this case, us.

We imagine you two having a strong affinity
for one another in your present state, bygones
you carried while in your earth suits begone,

you, the him,
she, the her,
bound by the electrostatic force

better known as love.

I wanted to know,
whoever I was, I was
alive
for a little while.

—Mary Oliver
excerpt from “Dogfish,” from Dream Work © 1986, Penguin

•••

One way to know you’re alive
is to use the body you were given—

though you had no say over its original
shape or hair color or internal affairs—

to keep it mobile in the world
for as long as possible. You know

that while the body is a garage
for the soul, these days it also

houses a vintage car, and it’s good
to take her out for a spin,

open ’er up, see what she’s still
got under the hood.

A tune-up’s not a bad idea,
but mostly you want to move

that chassis, feel the engine
thrumming, though, sure, she’s not

as peppy as she used to be.
But listen, there’s still a lot of life

in the old girl—she’s not done yet.
Keep ’er going, honey,

for a little while, or maybe longer.

For a week now, I have risen
as the sky begins to pinken,
to gently pull aside the windowshade
and see the collective of thirteen

soaring pines downslope
standing at attention over
the Hood Canal. I look at
the half-finished upper deck

that Al is building beneath
the Council of Trees, just above
his Sub Deck, where I love to sit
and look at the trees and water

and sky, along with the occasional
submarine silently subbing its way
up the canal—ocean-bound, tower
exposed, accompanied by smaller

boats wielding wicked firepower
for protection, if necessary. Later,
sitting on the Sub Deck, I look up
and count the council members—

yes, thirteen, an excellent number.
In the event of a tie vote, one of
the council could break it, until I
remember that trees, even ones

of different species, are forever
linked underground, their rooty
fingers holding tight to each other
in a perennial pinky swear.

Which means, I suppose, that
there are no ties. That everything
between them is unanimous,
that they come to agreement

without weapons or argument
as a single body—without words,
angry or otherwise—which seems
something of a miracle,

an excellent way to operate between
conscious, caring souls, everyone
looking out for—imagine it—
everyone else.

•••

(for Al and Terri Wolf with love and thanks
for their week of hospitality in Port Ludlow, Washington)

Which seems like a lot—
the most I’ve ever had
in this lifetime—

but not nearly as many
as the longtime lodgers
perched on this hillside,

long-trunked and densely
branched evergreens that
have logged perhaps

two or three times my
number of years. No way
to know until these

great pines fall or someone
fells them, which I hope
no one does. That they,

like me, are allowed
to stand until we can’t,
that we can bask

in the view before us,
delight in it, grateful
for this time in the sun,

inhaling and exhaling
elemental molecules,
ones that we will return

to earth and air someday
when we are done
with these bodies.

But not yet,
the trees and I say.
Not yet.

When you’re a guest in someone’s
home, and they retire before you do,

and you, downstairs in the guest
room, realize that it’s dark

upstairs, and it’s midnight
and you’ve got a yen for a snack,

you decide that you’re fine—
you don’t want to wake them.

But the next day you go to
the fruit bowl in the kitchen

and fetch an especially
friendly looking peach

and bring it downstairs
with a couple of paper towels,

thinking that you’ll eat it some
late night over the bathroom sink,

letting the juice dribble down
your chin without a care

for the stickiness. Don’t wait
too long, a voice nudges

in your head. Eat that peach
while the eatin’ is good.

Don’t forego pleasure for
potential hunger later.

Take a big bite. And another.
Let that sweetness fuel your smile.