Güd wrtr

You are a guest. Leave this earth a little more beautiful,
a little more human, a little more lovable, a little more fragrant,
for those unknown guests who will be following you.

—Osho

•••

Strip the bed before you leave.
Sweep. Turn out the lights.

Generally tidy your surroundings
so that those who come after

will be grateful for your kindness,
not realizing that the little flowers

poking their tiny heads out of
earth where you planted them

are gifts from someone they will
never know. You will not hear

their thanks, but they, too, will
be passing through as you did—

as the bees do—whether for
minutes or hours or years.

Be a good guest.

Offer your gratitude for this spot
on the planet that hosted you,

that other hands tidied for you,
that someone left for you,

as you will do, leaving an
unwritten note that breathes

in this sacred space, whispering,
Welcome.

As I pause to make the turn
on the labyrinth, I look up
at the grand oak that watches
over this space with its brethren,

spellbound, as I often am,
by the graceful curves of its limbs,
by its rooted dancer’s body.

I want to call it her,
but, like all divine beings,
it exists without gender or specifics,
other than the roughness of old bark,
a kind of skin like that
aging on my own frame,

the particular formation of leaves
so high that I cannot make them out
individually, but shelter gratefully
under their embracing shade.

The oak, I see, has retained some
dying parts, brittle leaves attached
to weak limbs still hanging on,
not seeming to bother the rest
of the healthy tree.

If we are lucky, we, too,
ebb bit by bit over a long period,
might not notice the fading
or prefer to ignore it.

But, even impaired, we manage
to remain as upright as possible,
reaching for sky, faces toward light,
healing old wounds even as parts
of us ache and decline. And, when
it is time to drop our leaves, we
try to do so with some grace,
not fussing as they fall, hoping
others might sprout anew.

And, if they don’t,
we spread our limbs wide
anyway, offer sanctuary,
radiate love.

•••

(for Christie Braziel, with gratitude)

Or maybe more of a why not?
Not allowing excuses, worries,
baseless what ifs? to leap like
tiny toads into the mind,

instead admiring the wee
amphibians and their webbed
feet, seeing their slick-spotted,
leafy green selves as delights,
kind-spirited visitors, not as
intruders to be shooed away.

Similarly, I choose to hear
the tenacious buzz of the fly
dive-bombing my right ear
on a hot summer night

as a note I can mimic,
evolving into a hum
that tickles the earlobe.
one that calls for a melody,
then some harmony.

Let me listen for the songs
of living things as they
drift by.

Let me lift my voice,
and join in, saying
yes, why not?

Yesyesyes!

(for Mom, Dorothy/Darlene Haag, on her 93rd birthday)

No matter how tired I find myself on a Momday,
I follow her into Curves, take up a position
on an apparatus designed to exercise

a specific body part. She’s already ahead of me,
settling her small frame into the big chair,
grasping the handles as though she’s

about to steer the thing through deep space,
which she’d dearly love to do. And who says
she can’t, this 93-year-old once glued

to every “Star Trek” episode? She’s spent
decades exploring strange, new worlds,
seeking out new lifeforms and civilizations,

and she continues to boldly go where …
well, wherever she wants to go.
May she live long and prosper.

(for the artist known as Ememem of Lyon, France)

He heals asphalt fractures—
potholes, cracks in sidewalk
and asphalt—

the anonymous French
street artist who calls himself
the pavement surgeon,

using all manner of tile to
mosaic everything from delicate
fissures to deep crevices,

stealthily ornamenting
crater-sized gashes that most
pedestrians otherwise ignore.

This sidewalk poet employs
bits of thrown-away ceramics,
scraps to most, weaving

custom bandages that erase
the ugly with high-fashion
restoration. He turns scruffy

streets into sidewalk jewelry,
He polishes the unsightly
into ingenious attractions

that stop the feet of passers-by,
riveting them to the most
ordinary spots for just

a moment to marvel over
over wounds so randomly
inflicted, so prettily healed.

•••

You can see more of Ememem’s work here.

A lousy thing to have every
fourth of July, this silly sensitivity
to loud, unexpected noise,

especially fireworks/crackers/
ridiculously booming boom-booms
or the simple sound of a popping

balloon, and yes, earplugs can
help a bit, but they don’t stop
the heartleap and the startled

jump. Like the dogs, I prefer
to shelter inside as folks
celebrate independence,

though I will venture out
the morning of the fourth
being with us to take up

the long hose with power
nozzle to wet down the wilted.
And even if a piccolo pete

screams in the too-early
part of the day, I will remind
myself to breathe, tell my

galloping heart that it’s safe,
it can slow down, everything’s
gonna be OK, and Ooo! Cool

water on the flip-flopped feet!
Roses and gardenias basking
happily in the turned-up oven

of this valley summer, like me,
a July baby relishing the fact
that, after a long winter,

my toes are truly warm,
wiggling under hose-shower,
and oh, look! winking pink toes,

which make the old heart
smile, ease up a tad and
issue a teeny yahoo!

for our red, white and blue.

Now it’s truly summer,
12 days after the solstice
as the dome descends

like a cone of silence
quieting the neighborhood,
driving most everyone

indoors but the cats,
more lizard than feline
this time of year—

especially my big dumb
boy cat who prefers
outside despite the scary

orange swaths on the
weather map predicting
111 today, over the century

mark for the next week.
Which makes it as perfect
water weather as it was

for long-ago little girls in
1960s one-pieces and zoris
flip-flopping down the path

to the lake across the un-
sidewalked rural road at
our new house for our

first swims in cobalt water,
nothing like the Southern
California swimming pools

we’d known. Nothing like
the heat either, with Mother
grateful for any kind of relief,

even though we were as dry
as we started walking back
up the hot path, turning us

into lizards luxuriating under
blazing sun, our noses pinkening,
blonde hair then as white

as mine is now. As I take
my old self to the pool for
a tepid nighttime swim,

as, yes, the thermometer
climbs ever higher in
this new century,

Ah, but give it time.
It will fall again.
It will fall.

(for the mothers)

•••

On the dusty back window
of a car looking as if it has
undertaken a long journey,
someone has fingered the words
Wander Woman.

Following it down the road
to my mother’s house,
I creep closer, realizing that
it says Wonder Woman—
perhaps a tribute to one
at the wheel.

I want to get close enough
to extend an index finger
and amend the sentiment,
change a letter, add a comma—

Wander, Woman—

because we women tread
in our mothers’ footsteps,
make our way through
the dusty, dirty world,
tidying it here and there,
picking up a little of this
and that along the way,

coming into our wonderfulness
as we wander hither, yon
and ever forward—

on the way to self,
on the way to the place
we call home.

Sure, it’s just a quick ride
through a car wash,

but dang, if the process isn’t
a metaphor for every passage

through the dark, your vision
obscured by soapsuds,

black strips flaying your
exterior as you are somehow

pulley’d through a wet tunnel.
You admire the cobalt light that

turns purple toward the end,
the gush of waterfall drenching

every trace of dirt or sin or lie,
bestowing a chance to start

over, coming into the light
with relief and gratitude,

as if you’ve never seen
the world quite like this,

which, in a way,
you haven’t.

Two minutes, lying down,
index fingers pressing the corners
of each eye after you maneuver
a single drop in.

You add the lying down part
to the prescription, along with
the timer on the iPad and its
serene bell, the same one that
once reverberated around your
late poet friend’s living room,
she a slight and graceful presence
with a bunch of poets reviewing
their drafty drafts, 10 minutes
apiece, the gentle sound signaling
time to move on!

And each time you hear it now,
the twice-a-day tintinnabulation,
lying on your bed, finger pressure
preventing the drops from sliding
down your nasal passages, you
wonder if she heard such a chime
near her end, nudging her on.

Today, though it is noon,
you hear the hooooo, hoo-hoo
of mourning dove (which for years
you spelled morning) outside your
window, and you smile, eyes
closed, stinging a bit as they do,

and when the chime bongs its
soft bong, you lie there for a bit,
listening to it diminish, knowing
that it will not sound again
until it’s completely drifted
away.

So you wait for it,
like the dove, like her smile,
to circle round again,
not wanting in the least
to move on.

•••

(in memory of Marie Reynolds)