Güd wrtr

(for Mom and Ashley, with love)

The same Monday afternoon I cruise
plants in a nursery, I walk by a large
heart sculpture on an outside wall,
and think, Nice, about to walk on.

But something stops me, and I
backstep to peer closely, discover
that the heart is composed of dozens
of small, open-winged butterflies,
delicately rendered in rusty metal.

And it comes to me:
Here you are.

Of course, it would be in butterflies,
your favorite, like the one on every
incarnation of your business card,
on brightly colored stakes in
the potted plants on your patio,
the one that’s no longer yours
but now belongs in the good care
of your grandson and his wife.

I often see images of butterflies,
but this one says Mom in a way
that others have not.

I have to buy it, of course, knowing
the spot on my backyard fence
where I will hang this sweet swarm.

As I place it in my car, I feel
my phone vibrate, and what I see
makes me vibrate, too.

Your grandson’s wife has texted
three photos of the purple lilac
blooming its fool head off
in your/her backyard. And
on that bush that I hand watered
through the three too-hot summers
rests a large butterfly, its wings
open to reveal a shade of blue that
you would love—an aqua teal.

I think she saw me taking
pictures of her flowers and
had to check on them, too,
texts your grandson’s wife.
Purple lilac with a blue butterfly.
That’s her in a nutshell.

It so is, I type back blurrily
through damp lashes.

Which is when the voice
of a long-gone beloved friend
of yours and mine rattles through
my head, as she often does:
Honey, there are no accidents.

And I say aloud to no one
and everyone who might
be listening,

I know. I know.
Thankyouthankyouthankyou.

I am terrible at games,
even word games, which you’d think,
wordy as I am, I’d cruise through

like a Sunday spin over smooth road.
Not so much, which makes no difference
to me until I take up a challenge

to convene quartets of sixteen seemingly
random units of language. They have
relationships, the game tells me,

and I puzzle over how to balance
some of them, over what to do with
the rest. I try to find some harmony

among the difference, the diamond
among the remainder pebbles. And,
when to my surprise, I succeed—

not only in making four sets of four,
but also in figuring out how to play
ball in this field of dreams—I’m aflush

and smiling as if I’d whacked one
out of the park, a whole stadium
of word fans cheering my prowess.

•••

(Thanks to Ellen Rowland for the prompt that sent me
to The New York Times word game called Connections.
Below are the words that I attempted to connect in some way…
then I used all but five of them in a poem. You might want to
give this a try, too!)

We whisper to the one setting off,
one foot, then the other,

whether into the labyrinth
that will take them to the center

or into the greater world.
We infuse them with a bit

of the holy that we all carry,
on this walk that at times

offers a spot to rest, a turn
to pause, to remember

or reflect on the greater
journey. We cannot see

very far down the path,
often cannot intuit when

the sharp twists and turns
will come. We can only

nod at those we pass,
aware that we are both

accompanying and
accompanied by those

seen and unseen—like
the trees leafing out

above us, and above them,
the sun-bright sky,

disguised as it is in its
daytime wear. While

underneath all that blue,
this very ground on which

we walk circles slowly
under a forest of stars,

a pink moon rising,
part of a whole universe

we will never see, but
we trust is out there,

blessing our every step.

•••

(With thanks to Rev. Lucy Bunch of the Unitarian Universalist Society
of Sacramento (UUSS) for her mentorship in the world of labyrinths
and her good words that title this poem.)

(for Maxi)

I’m sorry, dude, that I tried to pick you up
and put you in the bathroom so a tall woman
with clippers could come give you a pedicure.

And you cleverly squished out the door
that I tried to close and zoomed off into
the who-knows-where spots where

you like to hide. You’ve vanished
for hours now, and, though I’m apologizing
for woman-handling you,

yes, I will try again because you need
the nail trim. For tonight, I will leave you be,
but I miss your furry presence

lying on the floor in my office as I type.
I have grown used to your big guy self
in the three months since I brought you

here after Mother made her journey
into the who-knows-where. And it’s only
been a couple of weeks since Poki

went there, too, and I so want to fix
this, though I know I can’t. So I lie down
for a while, asking Mother and Poki,

along with the other companion spirits,
Please tell Maxi I’m not a big meanie,
and he can come out now.

After nightfall I go to the typing place,
illuminated only by the screen, put my
fingers to the keys to see what shows up,

as I do. And, after a while, I look down
at the floor next to me to see two snowy
paws brightening the dark.

You’ve come to lie on the big forest green
towel, the one I brought home from
Mother’s bed where you slept for years.

You look up with forgiving eyes as mine fill,
reminded again that help-me prayers
are always answered,

that I am never alone in the dark,
that love may seem to be hiding, but
it’s always closer than I think.

The old one lies dead nearby,
a 50-foot limp gray snake,
all the air having left its body
after years in the back yard.

I have not been able to remove it.
What do you do with a hose
pierced dozens of times by the teeth
of thirsty raccoons? Throwing it
in the garbage can seems so
disrespectful for something
that gave such good service,
was such a faithful companion.

A week ago the kind veterinarian
cradled Poki’s limp body in a towel
after the final shot, her plaintive cry
stilled, on the way to becoming
ash and earth.

Now I screw the old nozzle
onto the new hose, mindful
to get it straight, to not strip
the delicate gold spirals
circling its shiny end.

I turn on the faucet, and, rather
than having to wait for the water
to inflate the old hose, the new one
shoots into the morning air
a fine spray through its squirter,
which I train on three small pots
atop the deck, their residents
undoubtedly in need of a drink.

Later, I will gather up the old hose,
thank it for its service, and take up
the new one. Other thirsty neighbors
are waiting—hollyhocks, irises,
African daises—those early bloomers
already risen from last season’s
leavings without prompting,
without any help from me.

You may have to break
your heart, but it isn’t nothing
to know even one moment alive.

from “Any Common Desolation,” Ellen Bass

•••

Looking at the baby on her 11th day in the world,
you think, as everyone does, looking at such
pink perfection: Perfect.

Because she is. You don’t want to let your wayward
mind rampage into the what ifs or the inevitable
sorrows that come with having a heart,

so you land on one word: Alive. What a thing to be
made of egg and sperm, to be carried inside another
human for nine months, to emerge, to live a life.

Maybe because you’ve recently watched your own
mother dwindle to her end, listened to her final
breaths, that you now study the tiny nose

on this new one and wonder, not for the first time
about an infant, how does she breathe out of that
tiny thing? You keep adjusting the blanket

she burrows into like a newborn koala, hoping
this bald jellybean is getting enough oxygen, when,
a dozen days ago she wasn’t breathing air at all.

Her little heart will break one day, and you
so want that never to happen, but you know that
it is what these lifetimes hold, whether

we break our own or someone does it for us,
often unintentionally. Your own mother surely
did not mean to break your heart. But still.

You think, again, not for the first time: It is so
something to be born into a body, into aliveness.
It is so not nothing.

Even with the heartbreak, just being here
might be the biggest something
of all.

Spring mornings I like to step outside,
look up at the trellis over the driveway,
admire the lavender clusters of wisteria
hanging like ornaments of spring,
fleeting as they are.

The delicate petals have fallen
on the windshield of my late mother’s car,
the tiny cups gleaming like bleached
shell fragments on dark sand.

I attempt to capture the image on the device
in my pocket, catching myself in the reflection,
along with leaves above that can no longer
restrain themselves, enthusiastically
joining blossoms that, within days,
will become memory.

As does spring every year.
As do the reflections of those
no longer embodied
shining up at me.

And as I close my eyes, inhaling deeply,
their echoes resonate into this breath,
and the next, and the next.

Instead of hoisting a sign with millions of others,
we drove into the foothills to hang paintings
that had belonged to a dearly departed beloved
for her daughter, to spend time
in remembrance.

We waved at those holding signs on corners
in the small towns along the way, cheered on
those standing shoulder to shoulder
atop overpasses.

Instead of gathering with thousands
outside our state’s Capitol, that day
we also delivered homemade custard
to another beloved in the hospital,
a tiny thing for sure.

But we can do no great things,
as Mother Teresa said.
We can only do small things
with great love.

So we did. And so we do.

Dear Mrs. Lester,

You will be happy to know, I think,
in these months of greening that we
mortals think of as spring, that your dear
daughter—the child you produced primarily,
or so I imagined, to become my best friend,
the girl next door—sent me home with five
of your houseplants that she has been
tending since you passed into mystery.

That daughter has had, as you surely see
from your vantage point, much to do
in the wake of your departure, and besides,
she has a kitty who likes to eat houseplants,
and, as you also know, having raised
a veterinarian and worked for some, too,
much of the greenery we love is not good
for kitties.

So I—the girl next-door, one of your troop
of Girl Scouts, a kid who found refuge at your house,
to whom you fed tuna and noodles, the greatest
food discovery of my young life—volunteered
to provide a home for these orphans.

You were, after all, the person who taught
your daughter, who then taught me, to identify
the first sprigs of wild radish on the hills
by the lake that bordered our neighborhood
and our lives.

From you, we learned about yellow poofs
of wild mustard, the tall, stately purple lupine
and, best of all, the brodiaea more commonly
known as blue dicks rising high on their
slender wands, topped with clusters of tiny
lavender flowers—often the first to bloom,
the first to disappear.

Every spring when I see these familiar friends
beaming in unexpected places—near poppies
and vetch and so many other growing things
whose names I have yet to learn—I think of you.

As I will when I find the just-right places
around my house for your plants.
I promise—Girl Scout’s honor—to faithfully
water them and look up their names,
though I will always consider them yours.

With gratitude and love,

Jan

It’s not about Sunday
or any day, really,
it seems to me, one

spectacularly unqualified
to postulate on such
divine matters.

Nowadays I find the sacred
in the everydayness
of every day,

in simple acts of
contemplation as we
move through our days,

looking at the world
with wisdom and
wonder,

as in the archaic sacre,
to consecrate, to make
something an object

of honor. Like the Sunday
I noticed the miniature
crimson daisies

beaming under spring
sun at the old cat, who,
nearing her end,

sat quietly, gazing
into them, as if they
had much to say to her,

and her to them,
which, of course,
they did.

Even now that
she’s gone,
they still do.