Güd wrtr

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.

Every leaf fall is a letting go,
the death of the once-verdant,
wishing that it might hang on
forever to the branch from
which it sprang.

As the autumnal equinox creeps
up on us, the dying has begun.
Dog days have consumed spring’s
green gift and summer’s ripening.

The tiny blossoms on the fuchsia
by the driveway have shriveled;
their delicate green stems morphing
into brittle webs, even as the heat
nudges the last roses into explosive
blooms, and the bees, clearly not done
with their work, keep coming.

Here’s the thing:

There is no end, though we resist
the falling away. As if we have
anything to say about it. As if
we can stay forever. As if we can
keep anyone or anything with us
as long as we want them to be.

But just wait, the dog days whisper.
The inventions of a new season
will emerge, just as the just-right
people will appear—possibly with
friendly dogs ready to offer
love in the form of a doglick—

without our ever having to ask.

Like plucking fat blackberries off
a still-loaded bush in September,
putting most into a dented colander
to take inside to someone you love,
who could use some sweetness
on the tongue,

mindful to pop one into your own
eager mouth, too, here and there,
greedily licking your stained fingers,
knowing this short season is
passing quickly,

that it won’t come again like this,
that you’ll never pick blackberries
on another summer afternoon
without thinking of this—

wondering if she’ll awaken when
you bring her a berry, if she’ll
be able to let it melt in her swollen
mouth, swallow a flavor she once
loved, remembering cobblers she
cobbled together with her capable
hands,

baked to bubbling perfection
and served to people like you,
beloveds all, tending her
in the now of this sweet
moment.