Güd wrtr

I’m not a resolutions kinda gal.
I like to be surprised by what’s coming

since predictions seem silly.
Life is nothing but unpredictable,

as is survival—for us, for the planet.
And while we do all we can to assure

the going on—for us, for the planet—
the evidence of my life on Earth might be

a breathful of some good enough words
that I toss into the ether each day.

Ephemeral, sure, soon to wash away like
impressions of our souls in damp sand.

Not meant to be literature embedded
in the hearts and minds of most people—

except maybe you, reading this, where
it may land like a bit of sunlight creeping

along a shining floor, then vanish
in the wink of a moment—no less

meaningful for its brevity.

•••

With thanks to the inspirers:
• poet Esther Cohen for her phrase, “some good enough words”
• my multi-talented friend, poet and musician Antsy McClain for
his memorable album, “Our Evidence of Life on Earth”
• the wonderful late-great poet William Stafford for his poem,
“You Reading This, Be Ready”

My sister’s note is still
taped to the pole lamp in
the living room on our mother’s
well-trod route through
the house.

I cannot bear to remove
it just yet, though Mom’s
innumerable trips pushing
the red walker ended
21 days ago, and she
faded into the hereafter
14 days ago.

I stand in this room where
another lamp glows—
the mystery light, she called
it, the touch lamp that turns
on unbidden.

We have tried to make it
come on by stomping near it
or bumping the table where
it sits, but it remains
stubbornly dark—until a
hand ignites it.

As she walker’d her way into
that room, Mom would often call,
“Light’s on!” though no one had
touched it. She loved that, she
who strongly believed in unseen
energy illuminating her path.

Two days ago, when I brought
her home in a heavy plastic box,
the lamp was on.

I lingered there in the room
of the living, looking at my
sister’s handwriting taped to
the dark pole lamp, then at
the mystery light glowing,
and spoke the words I’ve been
saying for two weeks to
no one and everyone:

Thankyouthankyouthankyou.

Moonset in the southwestern sky,
Venus and Saturn suspended above
a tiny fingernail of waxing crescent,
as I pull into the driveway in
her car with her in the front seat.

Never mind that she’s been gone
for 12 days, that she lifted off from
the family room on the winter solstice
with “The Music Man” on TV,
shortly after Marian the librarian
was sweetly serenaded by a
pitch-perfect barbershop quartet.

If hearing is, indeed, the last of
the senses to go, then let her be
surrounded, my sister and I figured,
by some ringing chords on her way
to the great chorus in the sky.

And if she’s still within shoutin’
distance now, before I get out of
the car, I put my hand on the small
box that contains what remains of her
and say, “We’re home, Ma.”

This is how I know she’s gone:
the singing silence. Something
she was not known for.

I bring her inside—“Here you go,
Ma,” I say—setting her gently on
the dining room table with her
official papers in her tasteful bag
from the mortuary.

I walk into the hall and open
the closet door where, for
two decades, Dad’s been tucked
away in his matching box.

“She’s back,” I tell him,
hoping that, for all their tussles
in life, they’ve met up again
as points of light zinging
around the universe,

attracted to each other like
protons and electrons
orbiting a nucleus that might
just be the two daughters
they made together,

the giantness in our smallness
of this little atom we call family.

•••

(With thanks and love to Kathleen Lynch.)

I walk under high fog
because something has propelled me
to get outside and see the neighborhood anew
on this quiet afternoon as the world
heads into who knows what.

Already, across this country,
two major acts of public violence
have rocked us. But because I thought
to tuck a few bills into my pocket before
I left home, when I passed the man
in front of the church sitting with
his knees up and his head down,
possibly praying, possibly trying to
keep warm,

I realized I had something to give.
I turned around and walked back
with my small offering to say,
Excuse me. Might this help?

His head popped up and his smile
brightened the day before his thanks.
But that’s not why I did it. It’s because
this has become my prayer:

For every horror humanity visits upon itself,
let this year also be one of unnecessary
acts of kindness, mostly small ones,
that we can offer one another—

like the pink cosmos in my neighbor’s
yard on the corner that, with no prompting,
continues to produce the flushed,
happy faces of bobbing blooms,
even in the depths of winter.

On the last day of the year,
sunshiny and chilly, I make
my way back to Amy’s deck

where Shelley and the gals have
been exercising their hearts out
Tuesday mornings while

I’ve been otherwise occupied.
Coming back into my world,
delighted to be part of the circle,

I begin to move to Shelley’s
old-time country music—
Patsy Montana yodeling,

I wanna be a cowboy’s sweetheart,
I wanna learn to rope and ride…
and then the tumbleweeds tumbling

with the Sons of the Pioneers—
both songs written in 1934,
and there I am thinking of her,

born three years earlier, my mother
who loved horses, riding the docile
mares stabled across the street,

delighted to sit on horseflesh
and amble down the path
to the lake.

She’d have wanted to be
the cowboy, I think, not
merely the sweetheart—

or maybe both, the woman
who brought up two girls
to believe they could do

anything they wanted.
And on this cusp of a new year,
we have, by golly.

We have.

Just stop. Put away the phone.
Look into the eyes of someone nearby—
maybe in the grocery store line
behind you—and offer:

Would you like to go ahead of me?
I’m not in a hurry.

Or to the harried checker scanning
thousands of items on a shift that’s
lasting longer than she’d like:
You’re so speedy. Love the way
you pack those bags.

Return the cart to the little corral,
or better, hand it off to the young man
rounding up the stray critters
with a sincere thank you.

To the woman at the bank: Great scarf.
To the child carrying a fresh drawing:
How pretty is that? Tell me about it.
To the teenager down the block,
raking, as you stroll by:
How’s your day going?

Then listen. Truly listen.

Hold the door open for the man
walking in as you’re walking out,
and smile. Toss smiles like confetti stars.
Grin when someone lobs one back at you.
Doesn’t matter where they come from
or if they voted or how. Doesn’t matter
that they dress differently or appear
to be strangers or speak a language
that is not yours.

We’re all in this together, we humans.
All we’ve got is each other on this
blue marble of a planet, which,
remember, from space reveals
no borders, no walls, no divisions.

So more of this: kindness,
tender smiles, a helping hand
or two. Compassion. Hugs.

Let’s start with you:

Thank you, dear person,
for everything you do.
You’re amazing.

Great joy arm wrestles with
great struggle, with
great sorrow looking on, too,

as the heart cracks, at
the same time a chuckle
escapes.

And in the divine pockets
between the fissures
of caught breath,

as we watched her labor
to leave the body that
had long garaged her soul,

her spirit as strong as ever,
all we could do was watch,
surrender to the mystery

unfolding before us—this
journey that was not about
us but one that we were

compelled to witness,
to attend, to pay attention,
as she struggled, then,

seemingly without effort
lifted up and away—poof!—
her mouth a joyful

O of surprise, all of us
a bit stunned, relieved,
full of wonder.

•••

For Donna, in memory of our mother, Dorothy (Darlene) Haag,
who lifted off into mystery Dec. 21, 2025.

When someone says in hindsight,
you know there’s going to come
a list of woulda coulda shouldas,

as if looking back over a
metaphorical shoulder means
a critical review of a play

that was still in previews,
when the actors hadn’t found
their feet yet, could barely

remember their lines, and
already people are ready
with judgments, layering

them like fondant on
a three-tier cake. What if,
instead, we consider

the tiniest winks of light
caught out of the corner
of an eye? The moments

of grace when a spill was
avoided, or better yet, when
we were caught and held.

When the bad thing didn’t
happen, or when we extended
kindness to a stranger

without thinking of potential
consequences. If we connect
the dots of those brilliant

specks, they add up to, say,
a year of undeserved gifts
mixed with disappointments,

tiny antidotes to despair,
our sacred story. Then,
ignoring the critics,

let us leap to our feet,
applaud wildly, pat ourselves
on the backs with a hearty

bravo! and keep moving
forward—the only way,
truly, we can go.

(adj.) exhausted
from Middle English “forswinke” (to overwork) and “forswink” (to exhaust)

Dying is hard work,
as anyone watching knows,

but so’s the watching,
the tending, the waiting,

the all-encompassing
all of it

when you both wish
the ending date was

marked on some cosmic
calendar while

dreading the ending
because, well, it’s the end.

What you forget is
that it leaves you

forswunk, that aftermath
is exhausting work, too,

that you need to make
yourself a nice cuppa

and tuck yourself in
with a good book

and a warm binkit
and there, there

yourself… as you did for
the one you companioned

to the end. And if
that feels too hard,

I’m here with tea
and book and binkit,

ready to tuck you in
and stroke your head.

There, there, dear one.
There, there.

Have pity on my lonely state,
I am an orphan boy!

How sad, an orphan boy!

—Pirate King in “Pirates of Penzance,” Gilbert and Sullivan

•••

He is an orphan boy now,
Maxi cat, and, two days
after Mom’s departure,

I drive him to my house
in his carrier, poor carsick kitty,
and set him gently into

the back bedroom that has
sheltered many a guest—
some of them for longer stays

than others. He strolls into
his new life, which neither of us
can possibly envision,

with a little kittenish mew!
and begins, like Pooh, to
have a little explore,

while outside the door, old
Poki cat sits with narrowed eyes.
She is not the most generous hostess,

but I emerge into her space and tell her,
He needs us, sweetie.
He’s an orphan.

It takes me a few minutes
to realize, So am I.
And does this make Maxi

my brother? He’s certainly family,
and as he turns to look at me,
I sink down onto the floor,

reach out a hand to his big
furry face, and say,
Welcome home, big guy.

So glad you’re here.