Güd wrtr

We lose the people we love we become poets. We fight battles
no one knows about, we use the blood to write poetry.

—“Loss,” Xara Hlupekile, Malawian poet

•••

You see these hands, the ones attached
to the ends of your wrists?

Here are mine. And over there, hers.
And a ways away, his. Oh, and look—

there’s theirs, too. Each pair as unique
as a wave curl before it collapses,

salty, spent and foamy, at our feet. We lose
what we love. We lose those we love.

We lose. But turn these palms up to face
our faces, and look—your creases contain

the universe; they are made from starstuff.
Our lifelines hold radiant energy, the very

electromagnetic waves that have traveled
through space. That’s light embodied

in our palms, transmitted through fingers,
appearing as letters that each of us

can turn into words, into lines, into poems.
We are all poets/dancers/painters/lovers

studded with consciousness, embedded with
kindness. We hold mystic chords of memory,

as Lincoln said, the better angels of our nature.
And as we fight battles only we can see,

let our very blood bubbling with words
write poems that only we can scribe

onto our little patch of earth where each
of us walks or wheels or stumbles or

is carried. Truly, we are all carried.
As the river is carried, as birds are, aloft.

Look—I see the whole Earth cradled
in your palm. You hold the planet

as the Earth holds the One,
which is EveryOne.

Which is you, every you.
Which is me, every me.

(Poipu Beach, Kauai)

Late afternoons they lumber
out of the sea, their powerful
front legs leaving tire tracks

in the soft sand, to heave
themselves up and out of their
world into ours for a time.

Fifty, seventy, eighty green
sea turtles will arrive one
by one, these solitary

marine reptiles sleeping in
silence, a landed flotilla basking
in companionable proximity—

the 50th state the only place
in the world where honu
do this. No one knows why.

That mystery is what draws
people like us to the beach
before the sun makes its

descent. Hundreds of humans
standing a respectful distance
from boulder-sized beings

terribly hampered by gravity
and weight on land, so graceful
in the sea—the very picture

of peace, as are we gathered
in a giant arc around them,
gentled by the sight of such

compatibility, not a shred
of conflict among the throng,
only wonderment, as we

gaze at them with the fondness
of parents looking at sleeping
babies, as we wait for the day’s

last light to slowly disappear,
so that we, too, can eventually
make our way to our rest.

Know this curve of bay well.
Walked it, swam it, dug my feet

into its sandy slope so many times
it feels like one of the elements

of this island that have seeped
into me. Surely, my blood must

be half seawater by now. And,
just arrived again, he and I

sit under the sheltering arms
of a welcoming tree whose

name I once knew. Now I
do not. There are so many

things I do not know, I realize,
after collecting a lifetime’s

knowledge. Like how some
of us choose the more hateful

path, and some of us lean
into love with a heartiness

that, well, heartens my heart.
Him there, he heartens my

heart, the one with whom
I look out on ocean that

calls me, soothes me,
reminds me that, as Rick

told Ilsa, my fears don’t
amount to a hill of beans

in this crazy world. But
if you’ve got someone

to sit with and do nothing
but look at ocean waves

gentle themselves into
shore, you’ve got a winner

there, someone with whom
you can ride out the crazy,

who will remind you of
your infinitesimal place

in the world, and of the
greater-than-great space

that you happily occupy
in his equally huge heart.

Though I can’t—I know that—
you all tucked up into a grief-ful,
rage-ful ball. Or maybe you’re on
your feet, pacing or overflowing.

I get that. But I’m a tinkerer of sorts.
I want to pull out my little toolbox
with special devices that might
make it more better,
as my sister and I used to say.

Look—this doohickey fits into
that jagged spot in you, the one where,
yes, the light gets in, but you’re not
wanting that squinty brightness—
the jarring, painful, oh-shit realization
that this is a moment after which things
will never be the same.

And I’m right there with you.

But here, I’ve got this whatsit in
the toolbox that, if you hold the handle
just so, may help walk you to a spot where—
though you may not believe this—
if you open your half-shut eyes
and draw in a deep breath,

you’ll take in the tang of trees turning,
their greening done, preparing for
the let-go. Look. Imbibe their sturdiness,
their whatever-comes-their way-ness,
in this falling time. Isn’t that something?

Let me stand with you as you take all this in.

Honestly, I don’t have much in my toolbox
except these funny devices and two stubby
pencils and a small box of watercolors
with a wee brush. And oh, here are some
scraps of paper I made from pulp and slurry.
Perhaps you might adorn them with color
or words or both—maybe some fallen leaves—
whatever lands on the page.

I know that it’s far from substantial,
and none of this may help. But here’s
one more flimsy thing:

my own trembling hand, which I’m
offering to one of yours, perhaps
the best tool ever, especially when
two of them come together
palm to palm,

even—no, especially—
at a time like this.

The little tube of a pillow
that props up my arm
disappeared before

I made it to bed deep
into the morning after,
and, in the dark,

groping for its familiar
shape, I could not
find it. Gave up.

Finally fell asleep
and awoke a few hours
later, sore-shouldered,

bewildered. When I
finally rose into the day,
opening the blinds,

looking into the illuminated
back yard where two
birds in the sycamore

rested, eyes closed,
I saw the little lozenge of
a pillow, nested behind

the large propping-up
wedge. How it got there
I have no idea.

But I grabbed it, hugged
its squishy shape and
tucked it back where

I’ll find it tonight.
Comfort exists. Love
has not disappeared,

even if it might seem
to hide. You are still
out there. I am still

in here. There is
more us
than we may think.

Two days after we fall back,
my little atomic clock by the bed has not,
stubbornly clinging to the saving
time that yields more light.

I have to set it on the windowsill
as it waits—like E.T.—scanning the skies
for the right craft to wander overhead
and connect. Then it will change.

If I try to force it back an hour,
it revolts, shifts back to the time
it’s known for six months,
reluctant to shove into the darkening,
these two months leading to
the winter solstice—

after which, we, like the sky,
begin to brighten a bit
more each day.

Well, Lord a’mighty/Great Spirit/
The Is/Universal What’s-it/

whatever/whoever you are—
I sure hope so.

The when is what makes mortals like me
itchy with impatience—

when will it all be revealed? If it’s at
the very end, in our final moments

between slipping from here to there—
wherever there is—what good does

that do us in these flimsy human
lifetimes? Wouldn’t a great ta-da!,

the pulling open of the curtain be more
helpful in the—oh, I don’t know—now?

Any information not covered in the
instruction book (which went AWOL

a long time ago, by the way) could perhaps
answer the big questions like,

How does the stoplight know to turn red
just as you approach? And what kind

of miracle keeps hummingbirds’ wings
beating 70 times a second?

That purpose of life stuff? Easy:
We’re here to live and grow in love.

(That, and flush, which might turn out
to be the best advice ever.)

What I want to know is how to
comprehend the incomprehensible—

how to, say, describe the color of a particular
sunset, given that each one is unique?

Like pebbles. Or grains of sand. Or,
for that matter, you and you and you,

who are not unlike, say, me, no matter
how some insist that we’re so far apart.

How to define the surprise of kindness
that washes over us like soft rain,

or the blessing of love bestowed or
the devastation of it withdrawn?

Or a moment in time after which
nothing may ever be the same?

Or quantify the joy that leaps at us just
before a child does, delighted by our presence?

How are we granted these eyeblink
lifetimes with a banquet of possibilities—

the good, the bad, the beyond-belief ugly—
spread out before us, and not remember

to close our eyes and say,
thankyouthankyouthankyou,

a hundred times every day we’re granted
on this incredible gift of a planet?

…punctured by a holiness that exists inside everything.
—Mark Nepo, from “Adrift”

Just now. That moment. The one where you
stepped away from the has to to give in

to the want to, when you got up from your
chair and went to the kitchen, and, instead

of refilling your cup, you put your hand
on the cool knob of the back door and turned.

Like Dorothy, you stepped into a technicolor
world, and that—that moment—was when

you were wholly whole. The moment now
when you’ve realized it—that’s holy.

Dear God, you think, let me hold onto that.
And you do, for an instant, before it—

like a hummingbird who has whirred
close to you, like every other holy moment—

that flits away
as it’s supposed to.

Leaves turn slowly in my neck of the woods,
which are not woods at all, but the streets
of the Capital City I call home,

which makes walking these days so colorful.
In parts more northerly and easterly
their autumn display has already peacocked

its way through the trees, but here it’s just
beginning. Every year, I find myself looking down
at my feet scuffing through leaf litter

that feels like treasure. Though we are far from
New England fall, geographically speaking,
our miniature version nonetheless provides

so much joy. Now I’m daydreaming
folks out with rakes, assembling leaf piles,
whether for the great claw to come along

and scoop up or to leave in a grassy place,
a decomposing pyramid of detritus-to-be,
just waiting for someone—

perhaps a small someone—to stand
back a ways, take a good running leap,
and jump in.