Güd wrtr

I get the garage cleaned out and keep it that way,
not load it up with boxes that delivered stuff
important in the moment to my door? If I
get the back bedroom tidy of its full boxes
and bags of gifts and books and whatnot
so someone could actually walk on

Grandma’s pink oriental rug that, years ago,
I de-fringed, much of the fringe having
pulled out decades earlier? If I remember
how I came to acquire the pink rug—
was it Grandma’s, or do I just imagine
that it was?

If I’m able to clear out so much
of what I’ve acquired in six-and-a-half
decades that my house looks like Sonya’s
mostly empty one across the street before
her mind drifted away from her and she
went into care? If this place I consider mine
was easily turned over to someone who’d
sell it for nine time more than he and I
paid for it in the previous century?

What if I could plan it just right so that
I’d leave the place, if not squeaky clean,
less cluttered than it is now? As spare
as a zen meditation space or the plain
church I once saw in a Hawaiian jungle
holding only a rough koa wood altar,
empty candleholders and four small
pews. If we could simplify our existences,
lighten our load just before we make
the leap to hyperspace, or whatever
form of heaven we imagine?

Me, I’m aiming for a celestial library
with soft chairs for sitting, every
book imaginable for reading,
God (or whatever her name turns
out to be) the eternal librarian,
humming over my shoulder,

Have you read this one, honey?
I think you’ll love it.

…poems hide. In the bottoms of our shoes,
they are sleeping… What we have to do
is live in a way that lets us find them.

—Naomi Shihab Nye from “A Valentine for Ernest Mann”

•••

If I take off my shoes
and tuck myself into bed,
might poems awaken,

peek their little syllabic heads
out from the insoles and decide,
now, now it’s safe to emerge?

And might different poems
sleep in different footwear?
Haiku in sandals, perhaps,

because three lines are
easy to hide even in such
an open-air environment?

Sonnets, well done ones,
might rest in more elegant
soles—nice heels—while

dirty limericks might feel more
at home in f***-me stilettos
or hang-loose flip-flops.

In any case I’m leaving
several pairs in my bedroom
tonight—the wider tennis

shoes more friendly to
bunions, the soft slippers
that cuddle older arches,

the favorite sandals with
rubber toes to guard against
stubbing. I want to see

if the poems in the bottoms
of my shoes walk in their
sleep, maybe hop up

on the bed and drape
themselves, like the old
cat, along my side,

warm and comforting,
leaving behind a trace
themselves,

in lines that might
beg to be written down
come morning.

The last time we made our way
through the airport to visit the spot
where he fell, his heart seizing in
a kind of arrest he’d never imagined,

we found it glassed-in and utterly
devoid of human life. The day he
collapsed, we stood, boarding passes
in hand, near the end of the line

at Gate C1, tired and happy after
a fortnight on an island we loved.
There was no sense of confinement,
no transparent box then—

and thank goodness. It allowed
two strangers—one a firefighter,
one a nurse—behind us to reach us
quickly, drop to their knees

and begin the work of trying to save
a life, which, we later learned, rarely
works in these cases. But, with the help
of an electrical heart-starter,

as we came to think of the magical,
life-restoring device, it did.
A few years later we couldn’t make
our pilgrimage to the precise spot

that changed our lives forever.
But we stood nearby, still in awe
of death and transfiguration,
a hard restart that utterly remade us,

stunningly giving us more time
together—a gift,
I often remind myself,
not to be taken lightly.

I could not get warm. Or comfortable
on the pullout chair that passed for a bed.
But I got to be there—they didn’t send me
away, so far from home, him in the bed,
resurrected on an airport floor after
the cardiac arrest killed him. He returned,
blinking, startled, having no idea where
he’d gone.

I got to be there, hospital-chilled,
stepping outside periodically to soak up
a smidgen of tropical warmth, walking
downstairs to the basement cafeteria
as soon as it opened to buy green tea
and Spam musubi, taking it outside
on the lanai, to bask like the geckoes
in some of the day’s first rays.

I got to be there in the middle of the night,
patrolling the halls, me and my half-numb,
flip-flopped feet, searching for the tall
rolling cabinet cradling blessedly warmed
blankets smelling like bread out of the oven,
ones I gratefully pulled to my chest
like a swaddled infant, then walked
back to his room and unfolded one,
then two over him,

open parachutes floating down
to his sleeping form, tucking them under
him, then wrapping two others around
me, lying down on the hard surface,
closing my eyes to wait for the next kind
soul to arrive and check to make sure
that one of us in Room 207
was still breathing.

•••

With thanks to Deborah Bayer of Amherst Writers & Artists for leading the online Write Around the World session that prompted me into this poem.

And our deepest mahalo nui loa always to Pamela Foster of the AED Institute, Salesi Maumau and Claudio Alvarado, to Chris Ohta and the Hawaiian Airlines staff, to the remarkable medical team at Kaiser Moanalua Hospital in Honolulu, Hawaii, and the many friends who rushed to our side during and after Dick’s hospitalization in January 2019.

•••

Not all of us are present
the last time we exercise
with Marilyn on her front
lawn—

our energetic leader away,
others otherwise engaged—
and nothing is spoken
about this moment

as Amy leads us through
leg lifts and bicep curls,
toe rises and all manner
of stretches.

But we are struck by
the poignancy of our
oldest member who
will move in a few days

to new location. We
toast each other with
fresh squeezed grapefruit
juice in mini paper cups.

We hug goodbye, tamp
down emotion clinging
like dew on the long grass
on this perfect spring

morning—couldn’t find
one better—while on
the lawn behind us
Marilyn’s Love Wins

sign still stands. Because
it does. Love Still Wins
(hers and that of so many
who’ve rallied to help),

and we good humans
are proof of that, no
matter how fast or how
far we move, no matter

where our travels take us.

I will always love you
in the shelter of my mind
on the edges of a meadow
where the sun shines all the time

—”Meadow: from The Book of Rounds,”
Emil Adler and Ryan Heller with The Austin Chamber Ensemble

•••

There you are,
on the edge of a meadow,
in the shelter of my mind,
knee deep in a gentle stream,

lanky you and the reedy fly rod
lazily laying the line gently
on the surface, the faux caddis fly
tempting, you hope, a trout.

But it does not matter if you
catch a fish; you will briefly admire it
and release it anyway.

Catching is not the point of fishing,
you taught me.

The point is to be so completely
and utterly yourself, you could
not be anything, anywhere else,

as you are forever in me.

•••

(in memory of Clifford Ernest Polland, born this day in 1952)

It’s a garret, I tell people—really just
an upstairs studio in a former auto
body shop-turned-arts-center where

people come to write with me, a space
I thankfully inherited, sweetly outfitted
with bookshelves, long tables and

red chairs, even the paisley tablecloth
on the snack table. Move-in ready,
as they say. And oh, the writers who

have sat in the red chairs and written
their art out, me offering poems
and prompts, the shelves littered with

inspiration—cubes with words for
rolling, old keys for holding, a panel of
century-old mother-of-pearl buttons

sewn on velvet for touching, for dreaming.
But this is, more than less, a dusty attic,
So, before summer heats it up too

unbearably, I hustle the Shop-Vac up
the dozen stairs and set to sucking up
the schmutz, taking up broom and mop,

rags to wipe down horizontal surfaces,
whisking tablecloth and curtains into
bundles bound for the washer at home—

along with the fleece blankets we sit on
or wrap around our laps during the cold
months. I finger through dozens of

nametags standing upright in the red box
bearing the handwriting of so many
who’ve come to write with me, some who

will never again lift a pen or poise fingers
over a keyboard. I set their nametags
on the highest shelf, along with memories

of the one whose 1899 dictionary lives on
the revolving stand by the window, as well
as the one who created the process we use

to reflect on what we like, what stays with us,
what is strong about brand new writing that’s
flowed from them around the tables.

Thanks, Heide and Carolyn, I say. Thank you,
Sherri and Dolores. And Pat, our belle
of Amherst, who pops into every session

from her spot in the firmament, I see you
in a corner crouched over your yellow legal
pad, your pen vigorously writing, me wishing

to hear you read one more brilliant time.

•••

With thanks to Katie McCleary for finding the loft where she founded 916 Ink young writers and later passing on the space on to me. Much gratitude to Pat Schneider, who created the Amherst Writers & Artists method and founded the nonprofit organization that serves writers around the world. And to our other writers no longer on the planet, may you all be gathered around a table somewhere in the mystery, writing with others. We have not forgotten you.

Every week I usually forget most of the basics:
a) you are loved. b) life is absurd. c) it’s hard to be a human.

—Kate Bowler

•••

Why is this so difficult to etch
into your consciousness? Because
you find it hard to believe that

You are loved simply because
you are? For no good reason?
Yes, indeedy, nutty as it sounds,

You are loved (always and
forever, and well worth
repeating, the love).

And given one ridiculous act
after another, well, yes,
life is absurd. It helps if you

can shake your head in
amazement and chuckle
a little, rather than mire

yourself in misery. And
sure, it’s hard to be human.
We are big, doofus-y,

two-footed creatures who
forget the basics, who think
it’s all about us, when, really,

it’s best to step outside more
than we do and notice the slant
of light coming into your

wee part of the world.
That’s your light, dear human
beloved on this earth,

yours to share and shine into
this wacky, absurd, sometimes
painful, precious life,

yours to notice and, in those
moments when you remember,
to cherish as long as breath

and so much more is yours.

•••

With thanks to Kate Bowler for the inspiration.

I thought it might be helpful for You
to have some information about me.
Written down, you know? On paper?

Of course, You know everything.
Work history, educational path,
all the skills and references—
though those don’t mean spit
anymore. Like the paper, which,
as You well know, is dinosauring
its way out of existence. Like fossil
fuels, come to think of it.

But I have to tell You, I’m
surprised by Your big question:

How well did you love?

You mean how I grew my soul
and tried to fix the broken places
in my karma?

Or maybe how I served others—
so much of that existence spent
doing unto and for others?
(Do animal rescues/placements
in good homes, some of them
mine, count?)

Listen:

I gave it my all to be a light
and do my bit to heal humanity.
I got lucky to get paid to stand
in front a lot of students and try
to teach them stuff. I was a big
rah-rah for writers, edited them,
published them. Wrote a lot, too,
interviewed folks, put their stories
into the world, mostly on flimsy
paper.

Wrote a bunch of not-so-hot poems.
Had fun doing it. (Poetry counts,
doesn’t it? Even the lousy ones
should count for major heart work.)

I think I accomplished most of the tasks
I didn’t know I set out for myself
in that lifetime, but…

How well did you love?

To quote another lady poet—
a really good one—I loved
to the depth and breadth
and height my soul could reach,
though it took some doing
with some people.

You know who I mean.

I loved heart-on-my-sleeve
imperfectly, as many, many others
loved me, some romantically,
many more friendshiply, and
I’m beyond grateful to them,
though there are more than
a few who deserve apologies,
no doubt.

Tell you what:

I’m pretty sure I lived and grew
in love, and that—I often theorized
when I drew breath—was the reason
You poofed us into existence,
gave us bodies and a lifetime
in which to use them.

Was I right?

If not, oh, what I’d give to do
it all over again, once more
with feeling and my thanks for
sending me into this experiment
in humanity.

Really, truly. Cross my heart
and hope to… Well, You know.

Best lifetime ever.
Amen.

The unfilled air space, the interval,
the gap in the vascular tissue of
a stem through which a leaf grows,
unseen to our wondering eyes—
the lacuna—

air space in the cellular tissue
of plants like the ones
presently flourishing
overhead in such
abundance.

Seemingly thousands
of leaves have sprouted
so quickly that we strain
to envision the skeletal trees
of winter,

now fluffed out like
green sheep up there,
grazing on spring air,
bouncing around
happily,

tightly bunched foliage
closing the gaps so
that only pinpricks
of space remain
unfilled,

showering us with
winking diamonds,
sun sparkles that
catch the eye of those
gazing upward,
amazed.