Güd wrtr

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.

and turn again
as the path winds
under high fog,

under turning oaks,
leaves so recently green,
now goldening,

some with edges
tinged brown or
or dark-splotched—

the dark is coming—
but on this first day
of advent, each step

leading to new life,
I stop, look up at
the turning,

release what wants
releasing, even if I
can’t name it,

let my feet take
me to the center,
receive what wants

receiving and look up
into the light, the tune
alive in my head:

this little light of mine,
I’m gonna let it shine,
let it shine, let it shine,

let it shine

Let’s not forget to make things: bread, books, friends.
—Maya Stein, from “paper, scissors, glue”

•••

Wha’cha makin’ over there?
Flour and yeast for bread, sure.

Words and words and more words
for poems, for stories, of course.

Smiles and hugs and “wanna come
play?” for friends in the making.

Making friends is best of all.
You with me, me with you—

perhaps from paper, torn or cut,
decorated with colorful markers,

or brushes to dip into tiny pots
of solid pigments rendered soft

with water, just to play. And in
the playing, making happens,

nourishment for the heart,
uplift for the soul.

Small creations that turn out,
with time, to be treasures

treasured long after they
were made.

•••

(for all the friends in the long ago and the now)