Güd wrtr

I wish I understood the beauty
in leaves falling. To whom
are we beautiful
as we go?

—David Ignatow, from “Three in Translation”

This leaving is not pretty.
We see it every fall—the browning,
the brittling, the green sucked
from what only months ago
was supple and vibrant.

Some showoffs glisten crimson;
the ginkgo fans go gold, but to us
they are beautiful.

To whom are we beautiful as we go?

Not remotely who we once were,
we desiccate before the eyes
of loved ones, who would rather
look away, who hate watching
the suffering that comes with
the ending of a life.

We cannot blame them, but
still, we look for the one who
long ago found us beautiful,
who adored us, the one who
late at night whispered,

“Come to bed now,”
the one who held the sheet
open, a waiting angel,
eager to envelop us in
those voluminous wings.

And we went. We went
and went again—
so happy to be loved
like that.

•••

(With thanks to poet Marie Howe for her inspiration.)

Before you go,
what would you
like to hear?

Certainly some
good barbershop
harmony sung

by strong voices
like yours used
to be, and his.

Maybe a bit of
John Denver,
whose songs

you played again
and again on the
eight-track tapes

in the car—taking
you home down
country roads—

in your own
traveling jukebox
on wheels.

And I would play
you blackbird
singing in the dead

of night, your
late-in-life affection
for the Beatles

coinciding with
mine. Take these
broken wings…

You’re closer now,
You who are only
waiting for this

moment to arise.
It’s closer now.
We both feel it

as a new day
gentles the sky,
as birds we

can’t see sing
outside the
windows

in trees baring
themselves
for winter.

She’s a 74-year-old gal who’s
just laid an egg—literally—

on an island called Midway
in the middle of the sea where

her kind fly in to do just that—
have babies. Wisdom seems

to have outlived three mates,
this albatross whom humans

wait to see each year,
the oldest known wild bird,

who has birthed more than
30 chicks since 1956.

And if that’s not a testament to
the wisdom of a long, productive life,

to the I’m-not-done-yet spirit
of the 93-year-old mother I know

who’s not giving up, who’s
hunkering down in the nest

where she raised her young, where
she watched us fledge and fly,

before she fluffs her feathers
and takes off for parts unknown,

I don’t know what is.

(after William Carlos Williams’ “The Dance”)

(for Donna Gail)

Brightly colored gumballs fill glass-globed
dispensers that bring me to stand again
with my little sister before a row of primary
color temptations. Which one should receive our
precious pennies? What if we get a color we don’t like?
(Definitely not black!) Here we learn that,
even when not given a choice, sweetness
will appear with the simple turn of a knob,
the lift of a magical chrome door, allowing
a surprise to roll into our cupped palms.

Juicy crescent
hangs low in the inky
western sky

tempting to pop
in the mouth as hungry
winter chases

autumn’s last leaves
still hanging onto
a bit of sweetness

before the fall

(for Dickie, for whom I am most gratitudinous,
on this 35th anniversary)

Grateful are the rich in spirit,
we who remember that our cups overflow,
that our lungs breathe without instruction
or command, that our way has been paid,
our paths paved by some we know
and many we do not. The great miracle
is that we are not from nothing—
we are part of something and ever shall be.

We are held.

We say thank you in a thousand ways
—some of them audible—
your generous heart overflowing
into mine until blood and corpuscle meld,
the rhythmic ebb and flow, the synthesis
of give and take indistinguishable
from just a you or just a me.

We, grateful witnesses to this process
of living and breathing, loving and dying,
embody this fusion of humanity,
this circle of beloveds.

We abide in this amalgam of us.

noun:
1. The quality of being true;
2. Something that is true: a universally accepted truth.

•••

A universally accepted truth,
much as amen means truly

or so be it. Which is the tricky
thing about faith—

not being able to prove truth
but having the quality of being

true. More truth-full, perhaps,
as in thou art with me,

you whom I cannot see
but who, when you lived

and walked and breathed,
were true to me, you loyal

and constant one. As you are yet,
a verity in my life—

you and you and you who have
vanished into mystery with

the gods and goddesses, the
angels and enlightened beings.

Can that be? Ah, yes. All of
you the forever faithful,

I still the beloved.
Truly. Amen.

Waiting for the hospice nurse to call back.

Waiting to see if Mom can sleep more than 40 minutes.
Waiting to see if the cramps ease up, the ones that feel
like labor pains, she says, though she hasn’t labored
for 64 years. Waiting to see if she vomits again.
Waiting as she empties, as she fills, as she empties,
as she unwinds this lifetime, as she comes apart.

Waiting for the hospice nurse to call back
in the house where our RN mom raised us.
I don’t remember the last dawn I saw here,
perhaps during college when I rose early
to make the commute to the big school
45 minutes away?

This second December dawn comes cold—
45 degrees on the thermometer outside
the kitchen window, where I stand at the sink
and watch the first car of the day curve up the hill
into the state park across the road,

where she and he used to drive the old Chevy
with boat trundling behind, two girls in tow,
bound for the lake that drew them here,
each taking turns steering us all across liquid
cobalt, our quartet skiing one at a time
into a summer’s evening.

I see us through the hazy almond veil of long ago,
a breezeless stillness, sandhill cranes chortling
to each other overhead, in the chill of waiting
for the hospice nurse to call. To make
a home visit. To bring something, please,
anything to help, to make it stop.

Nothing gold can stay.
—Robert Frost

How timely that you have
goldened in fall—

late fall at that—your
timing excellent

as leaf subsides to leaf,
each brightening day

a gift you dearly want
to unwrap. You are not

wanting winter. Neither
do we ever want the cold,

the waiting for warmth’s
return. But here we are,

you goldened, us with
you, holding Frost’s hardest

hue—as we are all held
with so much grace.

•••

(for Mom)

•••

Lines from “Nothing Gold Can Stay” by Robert Frost, published in his 1923 collection,
New Hampshire: A Poem with Notes and Grace Notes.

(for Mom)

Let her become salt water
rushing over sand, pulling, pushing,
energetic earth shaper, sculptor,

and let her heart take one great
last leap as the big ah-ha! seizes her,
the I-get-it moment, she who

dipped our baby feet in the sea,
who held us as we learned to trust
and float, who said Swim! and we did.

Let it come quick, like the brown
fox, the one that reliably jumped over
the lazy dog again and again

in typing class. Then let her climb onto
her big-tire’d blue bike with a good
book in the basket, and shove off

into the breeze of mystery,
pedaling hard, grinning as she
heads into what comes next.