Güd wrtr

I take myself to see Dr. Janis,
my co-conspirator in eye care,
whose mother had the insightful idea
to spell her daughter’s name
as my mother spelled mine,
which is to say unusually
for a Janice.

How could I not find instant rapport
with a blonde, bespectacled Janis?
And even as my vision declines,
as her thoughtful eyes scan mine
through the big, bug-eyed machine,
I feel well seen.

Someday, should she have to deliver
the news—as another eyecare professional
had to tell my mother—that it is time
to stop driving, I will not be happy,
but I will understand.

I will not rage as my mother did,
unloading on her calm ophthalmologist,
as my mother sputtered, “But I can see!”

Never mind that, weeks earlier,
momentarily blinded by sun streaking
through the windshield, she’d driven
across the road and ended up
on the shoulder, stunned but not hurt.

I have a good idea what’s coming down
this bumpy road of macular degeneration
strewn with glaucoma. Every time I get
behind the driver’s wheel of my mother’s
former car,

I remind myself to not only look carefully
as I ease out of my driveway, or when I gently
pull out of parking spaces, but I also
offer prayers to the eye gods that I not
outlive my vision as my mother did.

Because there’s a world to see,
and I want to drink in every bit of it
with all the vision left in me.

It occurs to you that all those times
you got dumped by someone you adored
may have been the work of the unseen ones
protecting you from future heartache.

From the handsome one who liked to follow
every new flower that came across his path
to the ones who drank and/or smoked themselves stupid
to the inconstant or merely clueless,

you thank them all
for loving you, for teaching you
what you didn’t realize you needed to learn.

And you send great gobs of gratitude
to the guardian angels working overtime
on your behalf, as your late best friend often said—
she, who you suspect is now among them—

who keep you from stumbling over
even greater bumps in the road
and for the little ones you have
weathered along the way.

My third grade teacher said it so often
that her roomful of 1960s peace-and-love
8-year-olds automatically chimed in
as the first words fell from her lips:

There’s no need to be mean.

All these decades later I like to think
that my former classmates and I have not
given up on peace and love, that we believe in
you-can-always-do-something-for-someone
good will—

a small kindness, a simple act of generosity—
reminding us that compassion exists
even as people perpetrate acts of violence,
of oppression, of meanness,
all of it needless.

And on a day when the world learns of
even more brutalities committed
by the nation I think of as mine,

I take myself into the sunshine of a summer
morning, the sky blue-ing, as it does,
through the deep green of live oak leaves
holding unanswerable questions, and say
to nothing and everything:

Let me do a small, kind thing
for someone in this moment, which
is all we ever have, all we can ever do,
giving rather than giving up.

Let the cracks in my heart
break me open, and let love
waterfall its way downstream
to those who need it most.

Then let me do it again
tomorrow and the tomorrow
after that, for all the tomorrows
I may be granted.

There you go again,
flagging me down,
forcing me to slow my roll

because, as usual, I am going too fast,
missing something placed in my path,
trying to get my attention.

I do not know why I was born with
two speeds — go and sleep — but,
and you know this well,

I have over these almost 67 years
managed to reduce my speed a wee bit,
though some might disagree.

Nowadays, on every walk, I literally
stop, bend and sniff all the roses I can,
especially the white and yellow ones,

which a friend recently told me
are the most fragrant. These days,
with every pause,

I find myself giving thanks
for every blooming thing,
for all the beauty I cannot yet see.

(June 20, 2025, at 7:42 p.m., Pacific Time)

Suddenly, there’s so much outside
to do, now that the last of fall
leaves that didn’t come down

till January have been blown
or yanked from under the lantana
profuse with orangey-red

pom-poms like miniature citrus.
And because we live in the land
of little rain, even the tongues

of the most drought-tolerant
pant for water. So we take
to the yard morning or

evening—sometimes both—
to spray, sprinkle, shower
and mist the thirsty,

delighted to see them
on this day of seemingly
endless sunshine, unlike

the depths of winter when
we cannot imagine the sky
lightening before 6, not

darkening till 9. We will tire
of all the watering by September,
wish for cooler days and

elusive precipitation. But now,
like the plants, we thrive in all
this blesséd light,

all this wing and buzz and hum.
We point the hose at our
flip-flopped feet, grinning

as the water cools our hot toes,
the sun still well above the horizon,
twilight a distant illusion

on this lovely, longest day.

•••

(With thanks to poet Tess Taylor for her inspiration.)

But here we are
together in this space

I used to think of as mine,
but now I think of as ours

because you’re here
and she is not.

It’s as if someone said,
Do not wish for any other life.

This is the one you’ve been walking toward
with every step, every breath,

though you could not have foreseen that.
You weren’t to know until it was time.

And when we landed here together,
you unsure of your place in my life

and I in yours, as you’ve gotten
closer to me, I wrap myself in

thankfulness when you come to me
with a small cry. I’m learning what

you want—you over there,
me over here teasing you with

the feather boa on a stick, rising
on your haunches to snatch

the pretend birdie out of the air.
And, when you’re played out,

you flop on your side, looking
as though you might be pleased

that we’ve ended up sharing
this time, this space,

these precious lives,
for as long as we have them.

(For Sue Reynolds who walks through the world
with these words inked on her wrists, and in memory
of our mentor and friend Pat Schneider.)

•••

Spacious as in plenty of space,
as in having great capacity
like your great heart,

which seems to embrace the world
like your great arms that wrap around—
oh, say, me—in an enormous hug.

So much in that heart, that hug.
It says, You are enough.
I am enough.

Separately, we can do anything we wish.
Together, we can love a tiny bit of the world
with our two octopus hearts,

our four embracing arms,
which we have done in the past week.
As she—

who insisted that we had to meet,
who suspected that, even a continent apart,
we would become friends—

liked to say,
You did good.
You did well.

And we so have.

It’s the old-fashioned hand signal for “stop”
or “slow down” that gets me, fingers hanging loosely,

elbow turned up, lower arm browned from
frequent out-the-window airings. And I—

piloting my mother’s car that I used to
drive her on Momdays—think, “Father.”

On a June day like this one, on my way to
the car wash, which he would heartily approve,

I see him in a stranger’s arm in the left turn lane,
Then he appears beside me, riding shotgun, grinning

his delighted, atta-girl grin as Mother hovers, too,
just for a moment, a quick drop-in to remind me

of their constant, nothing-but-love presence,
more than enough to last me the rest of my days.

Unlock the curlicues
deep in the brain
where stories hide,

where lines of poetry
lurk, waiting for
the just-right key—

a voice, a touch,
the trill of bird or
the warmth

of a sunny summer
day—to release words
that gush through

the gates of synapses,
rush down the river
of arm to flow into

the eddies of hand
where pen-grasping
fingers release syllables

onto mute paper,
which sparks what
the imagination has

been storing, what
this skeleton of a key
has at last unlocked.

•••

(For the six newly trained Amherst Writers & Artists affiliates of 916 Ink in Sacramento, California. With thanks to Reyna Atilano for the key prompt and the good write!)

(for Sue Reynolds)

Neither of us could name it—
but one of us from eastern Canada
was not likely to know it, since

this herbaceous perennial thrives
in warmer climates like mine, though,
like me, is not hardy enough

for northeastern winters. But,
walking by the haystack of a bush
on our way to lunch in my town,

so happy for this long-awaited visit,
we found ourselves riveted by
flowers the color of fresh lava

beaming at us. We had to admire
their determination to overtake
the sidewalk, reluctant to tear

our eyes away from the blaring
blossoms as bright and alluring
as the sun.