Güd wrtr

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.

How do we live so exposed,
like a roll of film that, once opened,
can no longer render an image?

The bare scaffolding of a tree, its
spidery legs no longer encased
in earth—how does it survive?

As we must—by sending a single
sturdy taproot deep into whatever
soil we can find, leaving some tender

parts vulnerable to what will come.
We must bear up under the onslaught
of too much—rain, sun, wind, betrayal—

leaving our outer limbs sore and blistered.
But look at this view—what’s flowing
or flying by, what comes to rest on us,

a stage for the living, what perches or preens,
rests or stands sentinel, keeping watch as
so much swirls around us,

peeled open as we are. Unveiled. Resilient.

I understand the need for some bucking up
in the dark times, the impulse to light candles
halfway between the winter solstice and
spring equinox—

the tradition of renewal in Candlemas
or Imbolc, as the seeds of spring begin
to stir in the belly of Mother Earth. Not
to mention that groundhog peeping out,
whether or not he sees his shadow.

Even in a place of mostly sunny winter days,
so come the dark ones, when the world turns
cold, and ice sheets our paths, ready to trip
us up. A time when tyrants rant, and tribes
become more tribal, when generosity of spirit
seems, like the leaves, to have vanished.

Then I look for moments of lightening,
ever-present signs that kindness has not
gone dormant. I light candles, inhale
the compassion shown to me by so many,
seen and unseen, living and not.

I try to find the halfway point between
here and gone, to do something for someone
else this day, a bit of benevolence
to let someone know that they—
like me, like you—
are not alone.

•••

Feb. 2 is, indeed, the halfway point between the winter solstice and the spring equinox. Not only is it Groundhog Day (if the groundhog sees its shadow, so the theory goes, then there are six more weeks of winter; if not, spring is on its way), but it’s also the time of the Japanese Lantern Festival and the Chinese Spring Festival.

The second of February also prompts the celebration of Imbolc, a pre-Christian festival that blessed the spring planting for the coming year while celebrating the return of the light. Candlemas, with its Christian roots, was once a time when priests would bless candles to be used in homes the rest of the year.

Most important, Feb. 2 signals that the light is steadily returning, winter is on its way out, and spring will soon return.

•••

Nightly we travel back and forth
on a gentle ancestral river,
swimming together in warm

water—no rapids or rocks in sight—
those who’ve come and gone
lending me their insight.

They do not speak, but they
smile, hum, wink, as if we share
secrets, which, I suppose, we do.

And though I want to ask questions—
so many questions—I float with
them, faces up, humming,

each of us moon-kissed,
soaking up blessing after
blesséd blessing

shining down on us.

(for Deb)

As the first daffodil
pops up its brave yellow head
on the second-to-last day of January,

the sign in her yard that she planted
the first time still proclaims:

• Black lives matter
• Women’s rights are human rights
• No human is illegal
• Science is real
• Love is love
• Kindness is everything

And I remember my similar sign,
wonder where’s it’s got to—
did I tuck it away or let it go,
thinking it was no longer needed?

Imagining—silly me—that somehow
we’d solved all those thorny issues,
knowing better, of course,
but not wanting to admit

how we still have such a long way
to go, how now, again, more than ever,
we need those signs, not just
stuck in our yards, but plastered
in our hearts and minds,

lovingkindness the order of every day,
each of us looking out for us all
because, truly, there is no them.