Güd wrtr

It feels as if you’re being given an extra life to live.
—Dara Barrois/Dixon*

Or maybe it’s the third or fourth or hundredth chance—
you’ve lost track, as you should. Doesn’t matter.

It feels as if you’ve been given an extra life to live,
granted a reprieve or been excused from duty.

Perhaps you were pulled back from the precipice.
Or, shoved over the edge, you have clawed

your way back up because (and you know this now)
someone up there was waiting for you,

calling down encouragement, or offering a hand
to help pull you back among the living.

Because you thought you were dead,
or about to be. You thought you’d never survive.

Maybe you didn’t want to. But you did.
And hey, it’s not that you owe the world anything,

that you “learned your lesson” or now you’ll
do things differently. But you can, if you want.

Your one wild and precious life has been extended,
and you don’t have to know how you’ll live it.

All you have to do right now, just this minute,
is to walk or roll or crawl to an open door

and, like the dogs, sniff the air and get yourself
outside. If there’s sun, close your eyes

and look up. Smile. You don’t have to say it—
the thank yous will ooze through your pores,

or raindrops will tap dance on your sweet face.
It doesn’t matter—it really doesn’t—how many

days or months or years you have left.
You have them, lucky you. Lucky us,

we who get to love you a little longer.

•••

* Dara Barrois/Dixon—the wife of the late poet James Tate—said this about compiling her husband’s poems into a posthumous collection, “Hell, I Love Everybody: The Essential James Tate.”

And with gratitude to the patron saint of poetic wisdom, the late Mary Oliver, for her oft-quoted phrase, “your one wild and precious life” from her poem, “The Summer Day.”

With a headline like that, how could I not click on it?
I mean, I could start my own list:

The I’m-growing-hair-where? places—
The top of my right hand, on my big toes.

The it-aches-why? spots, and don’t get me
started on all I forget… though, to be fair,

that’s been my lifelong poet brain,
which a friend gently suggested might be

ADHD, which would explain a few things.
No, the article listed the “shift and drift”

of our teeth, especially our bottom teeth,
which a dentist pointed out to me decades ago.

“Everything moves to center,” he said,
and he wasn’t kidding.

Also our voices change—men’s get higher,
women’s lower (that pesky testosterone,

sure, but also flabby vocal cords—who knew?).
And, of course, we know that we shrink—

men lose about an inch, women two.
Why does that not apply to middles?

Not just spine compression but falling
arches, apparently. But here’s the good news:

Migraines can diminish after menopause,
which is a huge blessing, since peri-menopause

brought them with such fierceness that
I thought my brain was rebelling against

every unkind thought I’d harbored,
every lie (white or otherwise) I’d told,

every act of betrayal, which spurred me
to take stock of all those little boats

moored in the anchorage of my mind,
and, one by one, make amends.

I’m still making them, probably for
the rest of my life, but the headaches,

when they come, are no longer
giant tempests raging, just smaller swells,

which remind me to send lovingkindness
sailing into the world, even when it’s hard,

because (good old me has learned) that’s
when all of us need it the most.

•••

You can read The New York Times article that inspired this poem here.

Serenity Hills, 1981

In my dreams I’m there,
scuffing my way over blackened earth
still smelling of scorch,
of the fire days earlier that cleared
every foot of open space of rolling landscape
where I was about to live.

Somehow the neighbors got their horses to safety,
the firefighters saved the houses,
even the little studio attached to the garage
that three days later I would call home.

That summer night I was 40 miles away,
tumbled into bed with a volunteer firefighter,
who, had he known, would’ve also taken up
hose and ax in those burning hills
in his grimy turnout gear and ashy boots.

Instead, the spark between us flared
into a kind of heat new to us both,
having no idea what we were igniting,
no concept of what we would be together.

And, on the cusp of everything to come,
walking through aftermath the color of crows,
carrying a bit of his shame that he had failed
his fellows, along with my own what ifs,

I knew that neither of us would have
done it differently,
even if we had known.

The neighborhood weighs in,
the online chat buzzing
like old-fashioned phone wires:

Good morning! Does anyone know what
happened to Imogene, the homeless woman
who lived in the park?

The responses zing with speculation,
and what they lack in precise spelling
reveals a level of concern that I share:

My boyfriend just told me the other day
she was down by the school but I’m not
to sure about that as I drive often

around there and haven’t seen her.
Hopefully she got serveses
and off the street.

How many of us have stories about
this neighbor who lives rough,
as they say in England?

This woman whose name and face
are known to so many—how many of us
have offered her a meal? A bed? An ear?

She was in the park on a bench close
to the street during the day and at night
on the bench on the sidewalk.

Thanks for checking in on her.
She’s been there a long time. She’s
quite nice and loves my dog.

Somebody probably complained
and made her move, so sad.

We live across the street from
the park. And she has been there
for at least 13 yrs.

I am close by and have been wondering
the same, any update? Was she moved
by someone or by an agency?

We all have more questions,
no answers. Concern, but not enough.
And how awful we will feel

if we learn that Imogene has died—
perhaps in that park, beneath
a bush where she often slept.

Even the neighborly dog she loved
may fret as the thread lengthens,
as comment after comment says,

How sad. What a shame.
I, too, drive by the park with bottles
of water and a sandwich, just in case.

On foot, I look around, on benches,
under bushes. But no Imogene
to be found, which leaves me,

like other well-intentioned
neighbors, feeling helpless,
a bit guilty, imagining

what we could have done,
how, with just a little more effort,
we might have made a difference

for one of us.

Though I thought I did so years ago,
I am walking away from that house
once bound in anger and argument,
where the two in charge

stayed embroiled, even on the day
the first of them died, where
the one who remained tried
to argue with anyone who would

take the bait. I swam away
as the worm dangled before me,
refused to nibble most of the time,
though it was so tempting to bite.

I began to make a home inside myself
the moment I left the place that shaped
the lumpen clay of me into the me
who walked into the world,

who resolved to not to return,
not to be like them, to be kind, not
sit in judgment or fling harsh words
at those I was supposed to love.

I have not always succeeded.
I did return. I tried to listen with
an open heart even as flaming arrows
came my way.

I did not try to dodge the projectiles,
worked to welcome them,
allow them to morph into kisses
of forgiveness—

murmuring a rosary of thank yous
for that house, for those who made me,
for all of it, a prayer for the rest
of this lifetime of grace.

They nestle inside like a hundred
tiny puppies waiting to be born,

snuggled so tight they can hardly
be separated. But my visiting friend

from Canada studied the dried
pods dotting the gangly husks

of formerly green stalks. She,
who understands the nature

of flowers and other growing
things, took home some of

the nickel-sized bundles to
her garden. I imagine her

peeling open the husks to
free the bounding seeds,

letting them burrow their
way into rich northern soil

and set about becoming
hollyhocks. If I let my pods

remain, they will burst as if
on a timer, programmed

to literally spread their seed
like overeager males everywhere.

I have never planted a hollyhock
pod, not one eensy seed,

but they have somehow found
their way to my little plot of soil,

surprising me each spring when
fresh stalks begin to rise like

green pencils. Yesterday I cut
some of the dried stalks

still ornamented with pods and
tossed them into the green bin.

Others I’m leaving so I can
witness the reliable cycle

of growth and aging into
death and resurrection,

a needed a bit of reassurance
that we’re not done yet,

that there’s new life still
to come.

•••

For Sue Reynolds and her marvelous Canadian garden.

…it is a serious thing
just to be alive
on this fresh morning
in the broken world.

—Mary Oliver

Awakening earlier than you’d like,
somber, sober, shielding your eyes

from the insistent dawn, you
dampen your face and sigh.

Look at this fresh morning
breaking out like a happy rash

into this—yes, unfortunately—
broken world. You have no way

to fix any of it, but you are here,
alive in this moment, and it is

morning again. You woke into it,
a thing both serious and miraculous,

really, when you think about it.
Despite it all, a tiny piece of you

dares to love this broken world,
wants to linger in the great gift of it,

to say thank you, out loud,
to the sun, which has risen again.

Look into the new day,
squinting, if you must, smiling,

if you can. This brilliantly fresh
morning is reaching for you,

and you, lucky human, get to
step out into it.

•••

Mary Oliver excerpt from “Invitation”
in her collection, Red Bird © 2009, Beacon Press

Every year on his birthday
Ringo invites his fans
to send peace & love

to the universe,
a concept that’s never
left him,

one that should never
leave us—not out
of optimistic idealism

but because love
really is all there is.
All you need is love,

love me do,
give me love,
give me peace on Earth,

as the Fab 4 sang
right into our
ever-loving hearts.

•••

Happy 85th birthday, Ringo, from fans like me everywhere!

I don’t know her name,
but I can’t miss the woman’s voice
in the row behind me

belting out the old spiritual
with the projection of one
who has sung on stages:

I’ve got peace like a river,
I’ve got peace like a river,
I’ve got peace like a river in my soul.

And by the second verse she’s
singing harmony as the congregation
embraces the melody:

I’ve got love like an ocean,
I’ve got love like an ocean,
I’ve got love like an ocean in my soul.

And that does it—having led
a pre-church labyrinth walk for
seven souls an hour earlier

on what would have been your
94th birthday, you who harmonized
at the drop of a sequined hat,

you’re making an appearance.
The thought flickers behind my damp eyes,
That lady’d make a good baritone,

which, of course, was the part you
sang in Sweet Adelines for 60 years.
I don’t know if you’re telegraphing

this thought, or if it’s because of this
lifetime as your daughter, but when I
sneak a peek at the happily singing

woman, she’s got icecap white hair
and wearing your favorite shade of light
turquoise, an earthly echo of you.

Tears trickling, I’m thinking, All right,
already, the visitations are very sweet,
but couldja squelch the tears in public?

I’ve got joy like a fountain,
I’ve got joy like a fountain,
I’ve got joy like a fountain in my soul.

At the end of the service, I turn and
introduce myself to—it turns out—Mary Ann,
saying how much I’ve enjoyed her singing.

She smiles, says, “I know you. You’re the labyrinth
lady. I’ve walked with you.” And I nod moistly
as we grin at each other in that moment of shared

recognition, of peace and love, and, yes, joy.

•••

You can listen to “Peace Like a River” (performed by Elizabeth Mitchell
on Smithsonian Folkways) here.

Three days before what would
have been your 94th birthday,
as I’m driving home with newly
pedi’d toes, relaxed and happy,

I pull up behind a waiting-to-turn,
arrest-me-red Corvette with
a shiny Texas license plate
that stops me.

N-R-G, it says, as I look through
the windshield of your former
NRG FLO Elantra. “Hi, Ma!”
I holler, as though you

might hear me, having to
stop myself before I wave.
Not your style—red or
the ‘vette—but I’ve

so rarely seen other NRG
plates that it feels like a
visitation. Who knows?
Perhaps in your new

incarnation, your energy flow
runs to red. Here in mine,
gratitude revs through me
once again, driving

your sweet ride in
which I drove you,
which you left to me,
to carry you through

the rest of my days.

•••

Happy (woulda been) 94th birthday to my mother, Dorothy Haag,
whose NRG, as she’d predicted, is still with us.