Güd wrtr

(at The Sea Ranch, Sonoma coast)

On the first day of fall on the Sonoma
coast we find ourselves foggy, which
is not unusual for our state of mind.
But this fog obliterates the horizon,

though the sun does make a cameo
appearance as I roll out the yoga
mat on the deck. Even then, barely
a shadow. And later, on our walk

along the lichen-laced picket fence
row, we notice that the waves
have grown quiet, their crashing
momentarily sucked into the mist.

The small brown rabbit Dick
has seen on the trail emerges from
its same brushy spot to nibble
mid-path as we stop to watch.

These are the moments when
we’re lichen it, grateful for the
what-is, no matter the weather.
We’ll head home into a hazy

future, though the sun is
predicated to blaze bright
and hot. We cannot know
what’s coming or when.

We must keep the good thought,
pray for the highest outcome,
the greatest good, over which
we mere humans have far

too little control. We will
bring with us from
the seashore great tendrils
of kelp-like love to wrap

around those deep in
the struggle, lost in the fog.
We will call out like beacons
to pierce the mist:

We’re here for you!
This way, full steam ahead—
this way to home.

(for Pamela and Dave with
thanks for a happy afternoon
in Pt. Arena, California)

•••

Finally, the blue
after days of gray,
but the coast leans
that way at times,

gulls and buoys
together bobbing
in lacy fog, or stuck
in the thick blanket

of it. But we made
our way to the historic
lighthouse in the gray,
went inside the museum

to listen to a lecture
by a longtime counter
of seals and birds on
that coastline,

and, walking outside
afterward, there it blazed—
the deep blue of sky
under which some

of the gulls we’d just
learned about wheeled
overhead. The blue
belayed the fog as we

four made our way
to the pier surrounded
by soaring white cliffs,
a small flotilla of red

buoys arrayed like
large lozenges on
the deck, as a happy
fisherman showed off

an enormous ling cod
that took the bait. The
same kind of fish we
ate at the Pier Place

with good chowder,
as we four chatted—
while outside the fog
again swallowed the sun

on the last day of summer
and the blue with it.
But we’d seen it,
basked in it, like

the tall candlestick
of a freshly whitewashed
lighthouse that once
upon a time shined

its multi-faceted
brilliance through a
giant beehive of a lens,
across the night,

far out to sea.

Even in my looming absence
I am here, in your reaching.
I am horizon;
you will never hold me.
I will always hold you.

—Steve Garnaas-Holmes, from “Out of Reach”

•••

I hear you, looming absence,
not yet here but nearby,

so close I can feel your bear hug,
which is what makes absence

bearable. It embraces. It holds
those of us caught in longing,

as we call out, spinning
for the ones who have gone.

And, you remind me, I have
only to look to your indistinct

line, the apparent boundary
between sky and sea to

see that that there is no division,
one blending into another,

as those we consider absent
turn out to linger

on the shoulders of horizon,
every sunrise, every sunset,

even the ones we can’t see.

While I’m away,
Mary and Louise have come to stay
with Poki and Diego.

Louise, the new furry family
member, bounced into Mary’s
life as she traveled in Mexico,

which meant that Louise,
like many immigrants, understood
more Spanish than English.

Lulu, ven aqui! Mary called
in my back yard the day she
introduced us. And curly-

haired Louise did, indeed,
come trotting over, such
a calm, obedient girl.

When they arrived for
a fortnight of house and
cat care last month,

I was a bit nervous about
how Diego and Poki, unused
to dogs, might feel about

Louise. But Mary sent
photos of them all in
the kitchen, Louise with

rear legs splayed to cool
her tummy, Poki nearby
looking more tolerant

than she often is of Diego.
And today Mary texted
photos of Louise and Poki —

“unsuspecting besties 💜” —
a dogleg poised next to
an elderly kitty leg, and

sitting on the driveway,
contemplating something
amid the greenery,

proving again that you are
never too old or too young
to make a new best friend,

one who might help you
learn a new language, or
simply to sit with you

in contented,
companionable
silence.

This is where they birthed their pups.
This is where they swam with them
in the shallows, getting their babies
used to being the half-land, half-ocean
creatures they are.

This is where they spent hours atop
the detritus of long-gone sealife,
lolling around on shell bits
and wave-tossed rocks, sunning
and sleeping as the young seals
grew fat, and their mamas prepared
them for life in the wild.

We could not wander here then.
But now, in almost autumn,
the four-flippered, finished with
child rearing, have gone to sea,
hauling out on nearshore rocks
for daily naps.

And we, the two-footed,
are once again welcome on
this lovely beach, allowed to roam
where our hearts take us.
Where the surf laps gently and
the full moon will soon rise overhead,
and the peace of all that we are
rests here, where land meets ocean
and silhouetted cormorants fly low
over the wave tops,

and the sun, blesséd son,
warms me as I sit on a friendly rock,
and the poem arrives.

(The Sea Ranch, Sonoma coast)

Mid-September, and the purple iris
are long gone, as is the spring green,
so showy when we were last here,
but what’s flaunting its flowing
manes like so many show ponies
along the coast highway is
the Pampas grass—

not to be outdone by the profusion
of naked ladies on their slender
stalks, their soft pink heads
bowed groundward, though
whether by weight or reverence,
it’s hard to tell.

One is invasive, tossing its shaggy head;
the other is a late-summer dancer
bobbing on her slender, leafless stem.

And, if beguiled by the sight of
the amaryllis belladonna against
a weather-worn picket fence,
you pull off to the side of the road
to photograph the naked ladies,
be sure to lean in and inhale deeply,
then step away, a bit dizzy,

as is appropriate when you
find yourself dazzled by
such bashful beauty.

“Anything I’d have to say has been said,”
she told me over lunch. “What’s the point?
Who cares?”

I feel the tiny writer sigh deep inside
my spleen, the one who grips the pen,
try to keep the are-you-kidding-me

disbelief from splashing across my face,
as she adds, “It’s not like anyone’s
going to read it.”

And, given that opening, I say,
“I’ll read it. I’ll tell you what I like
about it, what will stay with me.

I will tell you about the parts
that stopped my breath or made me
teary or laughy.”

“And,” I say, as if I have this deeply
embedded in my cells, as if I don’t
have to remind my own bad self

now and then, “it’s not about who
reads it or likes it. You can’t know
if anyone will, and it doesn’t matter—

though some people will like it,
though never tell you that your words
rang for them or helped them

see something they hadn’t
recognized or remembered.
We write for us, dear one,

always for us, just as painters
paint because their hand reaches
for the brush, or the guitarist

tunes before playing what’s
in his heart, or any of us can
burst into song—without

judgment, just because, as
creative souls moved to
put something into the world

that didn’t previously exist
in our one-of-a-kind voices,
we can.”

Right in front of the birdbath
in the front yard of my mother’s house,
the old concrete bowl still firmly

attached to its pedestal with a
now-detached little bird that rests
on its side. I refill the birdbath,

as my father did, as my mother did,
as my sister and brother-in-law have,
when I hand water the geraniums

under the kitchen window, when I turn
to squirt the towering azaleas that my
mother planted nearly sixty years ago.

Peter—the next door neighbor who
transitioned not long ago into what
we hope is his next incarnation—

told my mother that deer bedded
down at night in the thicket at the
bottom of their adjoining back yards.

And more than once, hose in hand,
I’ve stopped watering as a pair of does
has crossed the wide expanse

of lawn, in transit to the next place,
wherever that might be.
My sister and brother-in-law saw

the buck yesterday, stately and
watchful, in the front yard. They
stopped the car before pulling

into the driveway, took photos
as he stared at them. Is he
a neighbor? A spirit guide?

The gift of a wild life to remind
us of our own wild lives? Here’s
to the temporary ones that we

cherish all the more for their
here-and-gone-ness, which offer
us such opportunities for wonder,

moments of unexpected beauty,
before disappearing into
the who knows where.

(for Terri Wolf in Port Ludlow, Washington)

In the midst of our online chat,
Terri abruptly said, “A bird just
slammed into the glass”—the large
picture window over her desk
out of which she beholds stately
pines marching downhill to
the deep blue of the Hood Canal.

We sat at our respective machines
almost 800 miles apart editing
together a piece of her memoir
about working in the chemo suite
early in her nursing career, both
of us left a bit teary by stories
of patients out of options,
near death, when… bam!

Had a life ended in that moment,
literally before her eyes? Terri
got up to look. “It’s lying there,
face up,” she said, both of us
thinking, oh, dear. “Maybe I
should go turn it over.”

And, grabbing a tissue, the nurse
opened the sliding glass door
door to see what she might do
for a small brown patient. “A finch?”
I guessed, having sat on that deck
in the hot tub watching a small
flotilla flock to the feeders.

Terri gently flipped the finch and
returned, both of us turning back
to the task at hand, pausing a couple
more times as she checked on the birdie.
After several minutes she reported,
“It’s sitting up!” and I cheered.

Hours later, when she texted,
“No bird on the deck this evening.
Hopefully, it flew away… ,” I thought,
not for the first time, that hope,
that thing with feathers, was what
she tried to bring to every patient,
scared and sick in her care, even on
her busiest days.

So often all we can do is offer
a gentle hand to those knocked down
by what they couldn’t see coming,
perhaps help them turn over,
then be delighted when they sit up
on their own, stunned, but still
somehow amazingly, blessedly
alive.

In the nail salon, she’s
manicuring for the big day
tomorrow, getting married
in a friend’s lovely yard,
the young woman whose
hands are currently being held
by a blue-gloved woman
filing newly applied
French tips.

I overhear the story—
about 30 guests, plenty
of parking in the neighborhood,
neighbors making space
for the celebrants, catered
by a pizza guy in a food truck.

Honeymoon? asks the manicurist.
Maybe next year, says the bride.
It’s been a big year, buying a house,
getting married.

And that’s when you drop in,
your big hand landing on
my shoulder (like us!),
your smile caressing my lips.

Four decades melt away
like the knots in my calves
after Eric has massaged them
into jelly, the pedicurist now
dabbing rosy polka dots
at the ends of my toes.

You had good hands, too,
my dear, when you had hands
and a body to carry them.
You’d have liked a pizza truck,
too, as I imagine her groom will.

And the bride, silent now,
looking into the distance,
must be reviewing all the
still-must-be-dones on her
to-do list before she rises
to wash her hands and
head into—

“oh, please let it be,”
you and I whisper together—

the rest of her joy-filled,
married life.