Güd wrtr

(for Donna and Lauren and Rosie)

We love the boys, too,
but these three generations
of Just girls have my heart,

my sister who made me an aunt
on my 29th birthday, then my niece
who made me a great aunt

(You’ve always been a great aunt,
Aunt Jan, she loyally told me)
with Henry, about to be 2,

and now with Rosie, who at 2
months makes eye contact and
laughs and holds up her head

with surprising strength for
one so fresh out of the egg.
As the family matriarch

floated off into mystery
on the winter solstice, our
newest girl was still baking

inside her mama. Sitting
now with Just these three,
I cannot help but be amazed

by the going on-ness of it all.
“Every generation improves
the breed,” our long-gone

grandpa used to say,
and these three are living
proof of that. I hope that he

and the other ancestors—
them’s what made us—
drop in now and then

for visits, that they are
delighted by what they
started and how it so

blessedly continues.

Creativity is a way of moving through the world, every minute, every day … Noticing what you find interesting, what makes you lean forward. And knowing all of this is available to use next time you sit down to work, where the raw data gets put into form.

—Rick Rubin, “The Creative Act: A Way of Being”

•••

Holding hands with creativity
turns out to be a way of being in a world
it’s sometimes hard to be in,

a form of faith that says,
There’s something in here
that needs to get out—

through a pen to a page,
through a brush dipped in paint,
through a horn blown alone

or with others to make a joyful
or sorrowful noise. So many ways
to let creativity take us

by the hand and say, Here,
sweetheart. Sit here and just
for a little, let this leak out of you.

Maybe others will see it or hear it.
Maybe it will touch someone else.
Maybe it won’t. But really,

it’s for you. Always, only, for you,
this way of being—no other way to be—
which takes not so much belief

but trust that your voice
is worthy of the page, or
the canvas, or the place where

you put the horn to your mouth,
and notes appear to hang in the air
for the briefest of moments,

then disappear, until you make
more of them, and more,
and more.

•••

(For the painters like my brother-in-law Eric and the trombone players
like my nephew Kevin, and the actors and composers and sculptors,
for the photographers like my dear Dick Schmidt, for the writers
who write with me and the ones I admire from afar, living and dead,
thank you for your gifts of creativity.)

It seems like forever since I last opened
my mother’s sewing box, a motley collection
of notions she rarely used but kept on hand
just in case.

The strawberry pincushion with its elegant,
pearl-topped stabbers rests there with any
number of threaded needles, their unwieldy tails
proof that they are ready for action. See also
the seam rippers, a measuring tape or two,
safety pins, stray elastic, scissors used only
to cut fabric.

Hooks, eyes, snaps, elastic, interfacing, bias tape.
And my favorite—the palette of thread with colors
so vibrant I wanted to lick them like ice cream
atop a cone when I was a kid.

Why, of all her things, did I bring this sagging,
soiled thing home? Because, like too much else,
I could not bear to throw it away. Though she
rarely sewed and had limited skills with a bobbin,
she taught us how to tack on buttons and whip stitch
a hem. My clumsy fingers did not easily accept
the challenge, but my sister took to the machine
and set it humming,

Look at that bold purple thread, the seagoing
dark turquoise, the strawberry pink, the pistachio
green. How could I not want to preserve that
yummy spectrum of possibility?

How could I ignore the notion that so much
can be made from bits and bobs, that these colors,
aged but so vibrant, still live, waiting for
someone to finish what was long ago begun?

This is a flower, a gift from the earth from which it grows. May you know that the earth provides all you need. May you know beauty, and may all you do be a blessing to the world. You are the earth.

—from the Welcoming New Life ceremony for the children of the Unitarian Universalist Society of Sacramento, June 1, 2025

•••

There is no spiritual blemish
to be washed away, says the pastor
looking at the children, many of them
in their parents’ arms, assembled
before the congregation,

which cannot help smiling at
such a mass of squirmy-ness
and sweetness, as these little ones
from tiny to taller are welcomed
into this community of kindness.

They are gladly received—
nothing asked of them,
no atoning necessary—
embraced by strangers,
many of whom will come
to feel like family,

thankful for all the blessings
all of us have been given,
with an unwavering faith
that there will be better days,
that these children will
become a force for healing
in the world, for justice
and wholeness.

After watching child after child
receive a flower and a blessing
of water, air, fire and earth,
let us each accept the gift
of a flower chosen for us,
as we then select a flower
and offer it to another—

a holy nudge in floral form
so that we assembled souls
might also live as blessings
to the world.

•••

Thanks to the Unitarian Universalist Society of Sacramento—
especially the Revs. Lucy Bunch and Roger Jones—for their
embracing community, which extends so much kindness
and welcome to all.

An experiment in driveway poetry (on my driveway). It’s the ending of an older poem, “This season”:

But dear one,
listen. Breathe
deeply, exhale slowly and
with your whole,
far-from shaky self,
take one trusting step
into the unknown,
and begin again.

You can read the whole poem here, if you like.

I drive by the big billboard that says
in four-foot-tall Times New Roman:

Who adopted who?
and the old English professor in me

blurts in the car, before I can stop myself,
Whom! Who adopted whom!

I knew I needed to retire when, one
sparkling morning in a writing class,

I explained this picky grammar distinction
for the approximately 12,745th time—

the subject who does the action;
the object whom receives it.

You wouldn’t say, She adopted she,
would you? No? She adopted her, yes?

Well, her and him and them and whom
are all objects. All receive action done

unto them… When about this time that
student in the back row piped up with,

Who said it has to be whom?
Why can’t it just always be who?

And for the first time I heretically thought,
Yeah, why not? Why sometimes

farther and other times further?
Why sometimes less, sometimes fewer?

I mean, seriously, said the student.
Does it really matter in this crazy world?

And I thought, nope, you know, it really
doesn’t in the great scheme of things.

We have fussed far too long over stuff
we don’t need to, and usage morphs

over time anyway. Someday, I told them,
whom will fossilize like a dinosaur,

and you will happily go who-ing
through the rest of your long lives.

And it will not matter, not one whit.
So if you happen to think of your

old fart grammar professor whom-ing
you in the distant past, know that

I will be smiling upon you from my
spot in the grammar-verse, you,

who* I greatly admire, you little
linguistic rabble-rouser, you.

•••

*Yeah, that last “who” should really be “whom.”
Can’t help myself.

I’m pretty sure they gather in my back yard,
the dead loved ones and the ancestors,
chatting quietly in the night,

their voices rustling like the susurrations
under the whispering sycamore leaves
big as bread plates every summer.

I lie awake sometimes, listening to
their murmurs, imagining that they’re
talking about me.

They must have so much to talk about—
like band members assembling for practice
before the director takes the podium.

Auntie Lo has taken up her accordion again,
her favorite childhood instrument,
which, while not often found in a band,

works here just fine. My father, her brother,
weighs in on clarinet, though he also
reportedly played a wicked xylophone

in the basement of the house their
father built in Illinois, the storehouse
of so many horns and drums.

I wonder what my mother will play,
she the most recent family member
to join them. Perhaps she will sit

next to her father, the concert pianist
and organist, their four hands
stretching long over the keys,

playing duets, laughing. The grandmas
and grandpas, uncles and aunts sit nearby
applauding, as they used to when

my little sister and I performed
“A Spoonful of Sugar” accompanied
by Auntie Lo’s piano flourishes.

And more audience: my grinning best friend
and my lanky late husband and—
oh, look!—assorted dogs and cats

scampering under the big sycamore
tree once again. These beloveds whisper
and bark and purr through my dreams,

sing in my veins. Sometimes I rise,
go to the window, part the blinds
and look into the darkened backyard,

nicely spotlighted by a waxing moon,
imagining that if I soften my gaze,
I can see these dear ones engaging

in ghostly gossip as they tune up,
then turning to reach for me,
as I reach for them.

I see you from time to time,
jogging down J street as I drive by,

and I want to stop, leap out
of the car, and holler, “Baby!”

As though you came from me,
as if, ages ago, I had not had you

removed like a wart barnacling my
insides, before you could grow lungs,

draw breath. All these years later
you run by so casually alive,

a vibrant 30-something, long
hair swinging, sometimes caught

up in a ponytail, as you jog
past a woman who might have

brushed your hair, taught you
to walk and swim, driven you

places, had I kept you safe.
I cannot undo that decision,

one I did not regret for years
and mostly still don’t. But

when I see you now and again,
my woulda-coulda-shoulda

daughter, what is left of my
old uterus shrivels a bit more.

I blow you a kiss and send you love,
imagine you turning toward me,

smiling, hearing you call me
Mom.

You thought it was what they pay you for,
but it turns out that the heart work

is the true stuff of a life. That we’re
here to live and grow in love—

that’s the real work that cannot be
measured in hours or years or time.

It’s the little-by-little, inch-by-inch,
unseen progress, the sneak-up-on-you

taps on the shoulder leading to ah ha!
moments that you didn’t see coming.

You’re not meant to, my friend, as you
bring light to those around you,

leaving it in their trembling hands.
You, helping to heal humanity, learning

that others’ lessons are yours, too,
that you’re in the same boat,

sailing the same sea, that we are
all one. There is no them, it turns out—

only us—a dawning that may take
a lifetime to pull out of your soul

and breathe into the world. But there
it goes, like dandelion spores

dispersed on a breeze, love drifting
into the day, shining like you.

(or One More Reason I Shop at Trader Joe’s)

Because, after years of seeing grocery store
signs say, “15 items or less,” these guys
get the usage right—not once,

but twice, at the same checkout stand.
And while they could be accused
of redundancy, it makes my old

grammar teacher’s heart melt like
chocolate peanut butter cups left
in the car too long

to know that someone cares
so much about accuracy that, before
I get in that line, I count the items

in my little red basket to make sure
I meet the criterion. Then I study those
artistic signs, beaming with pride

at the smarts of some other English
teacher’s star pupil who got it
so right.

•••

Quick usage tip: If you can count individual items, use “fewer”
(cookies, centipedes, peanut butter cups). If you can’t count
the items, but you can measure or quantify them, use “less”
(time, money, milk).