Güd wrtr

My sister said to me in the driveway,
her truck and my car, which not long ago
was Mom’s car, full with the final loads

from the house our parents called home
since 1966. Weighted with so much stuff
bound for my own over-full house—

so much I have still to comb through
of hers, of his, of mine—and needing
to get moving to deliver some

of the stuff to young people into
vintage stuff, we did not linger. And
therefore, the tears that might have

sprung from my eyes waited until
after we’d delivered and dropped off,
after we had dinner at a place in

my neighborhood we’ve loved for
more than three decades. Not until
I carried her wedding dress over

my threshold, along with his impossibly
small Army jacket, and set them on
my bed did my sister’s words land:

We did it. We’re done.

The house is cleared out, ready for
its next act with the next generation,
for renovations that will erase so much

of what was, that will make room
for what will be. And I sat on my bed
to open the 70-year-old box that

migrated with her from her nursing
school dorm in Chicago to California,
marveling at the gossamer veil

as delicate and as strong as a
newly spun spiderweb, holding it
next to the dress she wore

when they married, when
everything began for them,
for all of us.

I hadn’t realized when
I gave them to her one Christmas
that they didn’t match.

“Jan,” said my mother in her
what-have-you-done-now? voice,
“These socks are mismatched.”

“What?” I said. She hadn’t yet
removed them from their cardstock
sleeve. “They have butterflies
on them. You love butterflies.”

She shook her head. “Look.
They’re different colors.”

I did. And, as usual, she was right
(because she couldn’t not be)—
one sock a bright robin’s egg blue,
the other a subdued navy,

though they did, indeed, have the same
butterflies and dragonflies flitting merrily
across their sock-y selves.

“Why would they do that?” she grumbled.
“Intentionally mismatch socks,”
glaring as I had manufactured them
that way.

“Whimsy?” I guessed.

She pulled her brow into its familiar furrow.
“That’s just dumb,” she declared, and
though I offered to exchange them,
she took them home, where, after her
death, I found them with a dozen other
brand new, unused things I’d given her—

from the turquoise (her favorite color)
butterfly’d jewelry pouches
to yes, other socks that scored
high on the whimsical scale.

Today I found the mismatched
pair that I forgot I’d tucked in
my sock drawer and unhinged
them from their protective cover.
I put them on and said aloud,
“Whimsy, Ma,”

which was when I felt her smile
along with the fanciful butterflies
fluttering with my every step.

Shimmering before my eyes most days now,
a vision that makes me both worried and hopeful,

I wonder: Is that the glaucoma? Oh, wait,
is that you, Helper? Nice of you to drop in.

I used to think of them as angels, but nowadays
you never know if that’s an acceptable term.

Even “heavenly being” might put them off, and
I’d hate to do that, showing up unexpectedly

as they do—in fat drops of rain plopping onto
the windshield, pearly and translucent, hanging

there for a weighty second before trailing down
the glass. Or in the pirouettes of leaf-twirl still

dancing groundward as I walk the neighborhood.
Or the unexpected cosmos, bright fuchsia, bouncing

tall on their long stems at the corner of my street.
How does that young woman gardener in her

floppy hat and knee-high wellies coax such color
out of winter? She’s angel-ing, for sure.

I’m pretty sure I don’t ask for divine assistance—
the angelics just show up. I’ve decided that

they always have, that my bones and eyes and
skin have at last become more porous, softened

so that I might detect the eternal glimmer and
see it for what it is: a constancy of care from

those seen and unseen, raining beams of love
down on us all, which we simply have to learn

to bear, if not embrace, as the great gifts they are.

If I must die
let it bring hope
let it be a story

—Refaat Alareer from “If I must die”

•••

I feel hope leaking like
a bag of fresh sunlight after
your slow passage into

the what comes next.
In the array of pale pink
camellias showing off their

double spiral perfection
outside a window you looked
through every day. In the grins

of your grandson and his
wife tugging hard at roots
you literally set down

nearly six decades ago,
unruly and overgrown,
clearing space for the new

while gently trimming
vintage vines that will
tendril their way

toward the front door.
In the four deer
across the road

nibbling at the
green bits emerging,
two does with smaller

fawns, some of your
wild neighbors, along with
the turkeys who’d

cruise the backyard
like teenage toughs
on a Saturday night.

“They’re just hungry,”
you used to say, leaving
bird seed for them

outside in the old dog dish.
“They’re not such foul fowl.”
This makes me smile as

I relay this anecdote to
people who will never
know you except through

the stories I tell,
the poems I write
about you and other

companion spirits,
bringing hope, that
thing with feathers,

and a little bit of love,
as all the best stories
do.

Every day the grandpa erects a castle
for his grandson who spends weekdays
with his grandparents at the home

where his mama grew up, the grandpa
knowing that his grandson will behold
the intricate blocks-and-Lego structure

for perhaps all of three seconds before
he King Kongs his way into the edifice,
sending towers sprawling, a mass

of primary colors flung hither and yon,
the boy chortling as he performs his own
act of creativity, which the designer

delights in, too. And, after the boy’s mama
has retrieved him and taken him home
to his own blocks and bed, the architect

will gather up all the pieces and start
anew, building the next day’s castle from
from scratch, each one a unique invention,

anticipating a small boy’s delight as he
surveys his kingdom before knocking
it all down again.

(for Kevin and Ashley Just)

And just like that the house
of the Haags becomes
the house of the Justs,

the next generation of
Justs with the signing of
legal documents and

thumbprints affixed
and notarized. And a
Just who was once

a Haag passes the keys
to her son as the last
of the Haags snaps

a photo or four, while
the two Haags who made
that house our home

look on from their
spot in the firmament,
cheering like they did

when that once little
blond boy stepped up
to the T with the ball

resting on top and gave it
a mighty whack, sending
it flying into his future,

the one that we think of
as the here, the one
we call the now.

Breathe, darling,
This is just a chapter.
It’s not our whole story.
—S.C. Lourie

And given that it’s just a chapter,
you are free to close the book
of you for a bit,

take a break for now to,
yes, breathe. And while you’re
inhaling and exhaling,

maybe lace up your walking shoes
and take the book of you outdoors
to walk in the world,

pull the breezes into your pages,
illustrate them with the first daisies
of early spring winking like stars

in fresh grass. Sprinkle a bit
of birdsong in there, too. But know
that the book of you is still a draft—

and a good draft it is—though
there’s so much more to be written.
This chapter may well be thick

with gray, heavy with sorrow,
but that doesn’t make it the end.
By no means is this the end.

•••

(for Lisa Morgan… happy birthday!)

As we take apart their house,
we wish for the single object that
encapsulates their lives to carry with us
into ours, one that sums up the story,
settles the score, calls it a day.

We have candidates—Dad’s ski boat
that pulled his three girls around the lake—
Mom, my sister and me—jokingly
christened the Jandolene by Aunt Judy,
using syllables from each of our names.

The mystery light that insists on turning
itself on without timer or a hand nearby,
to which we say when we enter the house
and see its bright greeting, “Hi, Mom and Dad!”

And while we will keep these things in the family—
along with the 1950s upright piano and all
the music stuffed into its bench and nearby
bookcase, as well as Mom’s pale pink wedding
dress draped by the bathrobe she wore while
nursing two babies—they aren’t what we’re
looking for.

I am alone in the nearly empty house
that once cocooned us all when my
cerebral cortex lights up like the vintage
Christmas lights that Dad used to string
under the eaves, the message crawling
across the movie screen in my head:

Honey, you’re done. Both of you. You did good.

It’s the news flash of our lifetimes that
comes not in words but in fading, flickering
photos from a celestial album:

Two parents, two daughters—we enacted
the story of our family quartet to its conclusion,
sang and played our respective parts as scripted,
though we never saw the pages. We could not
have done it differently or better. We could not
have changed it—what happened to us,
between us, among us—was meant to be.

And now the curtain has closed; we mere
players have made our entrances and,
for two of us, our exits.

And that’s when his voice resonates,
the bass in our quartet, accompanied by
his great bear paw on a daughter’s shoulder
after a band concert or a synchronized swimming
meet, the sweet grip as he hauled a single ski
out of the water and gave us a hand up
into the boat, dripping and grinning:

Atta girl. Good job. Bee-yoooo-ti-ful.

(for Sandra)

I felt all the love of the universe
envelop me, the beloved,
by the beloved,

all the beloveds here and gone
surrounding us in that embrace
of one who blesses others

with generosity of spirit,
with lovingkindness, and, in sharing
that with me, replenishing what

I imagined had been lost,
but, of course, has always held
me, will always hold me,

till our souls float away
when our bodies no longer
need them.

Amen.

Gene [Hackman] told me he only needed four instructions
from directors. Louder. Softer. Faster. Slower.
—Dan Ackroyd, Feb. 27, 2025

•••

When you think about it, they’re among the best
directions anyone can give—and sure,

now you’re thinking about sex, and sure,
they work for that, too—but imagine for

a moment a nothing-special interaction
between two people, whether in life

or on film, and think tempo, think volume,
think how softer/slower lands on the ear

compared to louder/slower or certainly
faster/louder. Couldn’t we all lower

the decibels in our overheated dialogue,
drop the threatening tone, deliver

kinder words clearly and at just the right
pitch? Might your icy shell melt a little

if someone you’ve classified as antagonist
murmured a soft and slow “I hear you”

at just the right moment and then
proceeded to truly listen? Might you

return the favor and begin to watch
the gulf between you and your

former foe imperceptibly, impossibly,
start to shrink?