How different it looks,
day to night, night to day,
as I see it for myself
for the first time, the tall
spire arrowing into the sky,
a iron-and-steel tribute
to what was that awful
year when you disappeared
in a whoosh six months
before the planes took
their tragic dives here
and in two other places
burned forever into our
collective memory—
as you are in mine,
standing tall, gleaming
in sun, glowing with
an unearthly light
at night, reminders of
how it used to be
when we used to be
us.
Is not octopi.
It’s octopuses.
Because you can’t stick a Latin ending
on a Greek word,
and octopus is as Greek as Achilles,
oktṓpous, the singular creature, and
oktṓpodes amounting to more than one
of the cephalopods,
whose very name translates to “eight legs,”
though the creature possesses a beak like a parrot,
injects venom like a snake and spouts ink
like an old-fashioned pen. A single octopus
can weigh as much as a man, stretch as long as a car
and somehow squeeze its baggy, boneless body
through an orange-sized opening. And while
elusive in the wild, master hiders that they are,
I stand transfixed before the glass where
I watch a young female octopus in temporary
residence in a small aquarium. She tucks
herself away here, too, and I cannot blame her.
She did not apply for this position. But she,
who can taste with her skin, whose mouths
ride in her armpits, who is as smart as any
dolphin or whale, captivates me with two
long, floating arms, the translucent suckers
like so much body art adorning her. I squeak
when one of her eyes opens, imagine that
she sees me fangirling her, the saltwater star,
wondering if she’s as curious about me
as I am about her—pearly smooth in her
creamy outfit, soft bodied and relaxed
before she is returned to her native
waters just outside these walls, for
which I am glad. No one should have to
live away from home for too long.
I wish her well, hope that she’s as happy
as a clam (bet she’s heard that one before),
watching her bubbles waft upward toward
the light, imagine her at home in the sea,
a sly hunter waiting—the picture of patience—
to make her long-armed move.
•••
With thanks to the astonishing writer Sy Montgomery for her classic book,
“The Soul of an Octopus,” which has taught millions like me about
these remarkable animals.
(for Curtis… and my mother)
It goes back to the college boyfriend
with the vision impairment who taught
me to always cap the toothpaste,
never to leave a clear glass in the sink,
and always tuck sharp knives into
the mini butcher block on the countertop
where they were less likely to do either
of us injury.
We used to joke that the mostly blind guy
could chop vegetables better and faster
than the nearsighted girl, whose fingers
bore telltale evidence of accidental
self-stabbings. No wonder the Girl
Scout leader gently removed that girl’s
whittling knife from her blood-spotted
hands—and didn’t give it back for years.
But the blind boyfriend had a sixth sense
for where things lay in space—the guy who
whipped down the bike trail on two fast
wheels—possessing a kind of radar that I
don’t and I so wish my mother did as
her sight dims.
He and I in those heady, early days of love
walked the fridge and cupboards after
trips to the store, making sure that he could
find things—which he did, often more easily
than I.
Now, almost a half century later, Mom
stands before her open fridge, blinded
by the light as she tries to discern honey
mustard from shapely bottles of electrolytes.
I walk the fridge with her, the two of us standing
there letting the cold out (which could get
you yelled at as a kid), as I point out three
containers of egg salad and one of tuna along
with the new salami and cheese packages
atop the cheese sticks of Colby jack.
Mom runs her hands over the just-brought-home
lunch leftovers in their traveling container,
as well as the circumference of the receptable
that shelters her special fruit—blueberries,
strawberries, bananas—that her favorite
restaurant assembles for her. She traces
outlines of small water bottles that sidle
up to Moscato chilling in thick glass.
And, when she’s committed to memory
the locations of the to-be-consumed,
she edges away from the chill and says,
That’s good. I’ve got it.
And I marvel again at the ability of these
beloveds who channel shapes into
visual memory, those who can’t see
the details of my face but who swear
they’d know me anywhere.
And I believe them.
Before you go,
let me do so again:
I love youI love youI love youI love you
I love youI love youI love youIloveyou.
(Je t’aime. Te quiero. Ti amo.
Aloha nui loa—all my love)
Thankyouthankyouthankyouthankyou
Thankyouthankyouthankyouthankyou.
(Muchas gracias. Arigato. Danke.
Mahalo nui loa—thank you very much)
You did good. You did great. You made me me.
You, dear teacherfriendsmentorparenthuman,
I can’t imagine this life without you.
I apologize for all that stuff I did/said/forgot to do/
promised to do/thought I had done/thoughtlessly did
or said. So sorry. Really.
I’m beyond grateful for all that you did in kindness,
and anything other than that has dissipated like
the kettle’s steam as it readies itself for tea.
Of course, I’ll miss you, whether for an hour or a lifetime.
Of course, I want to hear from you. Send me a postcard,
drop me a text, show up as a whisper in my head on
my next walk or in a dream, one in which I’ll
likely not remember what you said, just that
we were together, and we were happy to be
in each other’s company, which we are
all the time anyway, carrying you
in my heart as I do, sewn
into the very fabric
of me.
(for Catherine O’Brien)
On a hot Sacramento evening
you invited us to your backyard
for martinis and conversation—
something that even those of us
who don’t drink did not want to miss—
and thank goodness we didn’t,
for what a delight to sit with women
who gather weekly as Shelley works
us out, chatting and sampling goodies
under the big umbrella, mister misting,
when the accordion was mentioned.
And though you hadn’t played in
four or more years—in the before
times when some of our loved ones
were still themselves, before
illness and infirmity crept upon
them—you fetched your glossy
black and white instrument
and slid the old straps over your
shoulders. Your fingers found their
way to buttons and keys that hadn’t
known your touch in ages, sending
tunes bouncing through the air
like magic from one of the most
challenging of instruments.
My late aunt, an accordionist from
childhood, said it was like playing
a tiny piano with bagpipes
inside—with too many places to
put your fingers. And though
you stumbled and stopped and
swore, you kept playing at our
urging, we, your friends,
delighted by the sounds,
singing along—You are my
sunshine, my only sunshine.
We who have grown close
thanks to ones who can no
longer join us, we who’ve
spent so many mornings
exercising together—You make
me happy when skies are gray.
It’s true—you’ll never know,
dear ones, how much we’ve
come to love each other.
Please don’t take
my sunshine
away.
It’s easier than ever before,
what with our mini communicators
in our pockets, to fire off
an electronic love note or,
for the young ones, as a last resort,
to make a phone call,
which, now that I have reached
old fart-dom myself, I wish to
nudge the young ones
into doing, because, I have learned
with each passage of a dearest
one, that their voices are what
we miss most after they no longer
exist in life. Like my father’s voice,
garbled on my mother’s answering
machine, nearly impossible to
understand after 20 years gone,
touches me every time I hear it.
No matter how much electronic
evidence they leave behind, those
precious voices saying your name
in the way that was just so them,
you’ll hold only in your memory—
a different kind of cloud, and,
you come to realize, just as
unreachable as those delicate
filaments of cirrus drifting so
high overhead right now.
Even the rising temperature
of this day that’s predicted to
overtop the century mark again
when we so much wish it
wouldn’t. It might not, after all.
We can’t perfectly predict
the thorniness of what’s coming.
But we can pause, open the door
and walk into the warming yard
to look for what persists, even
now, nearing the end of summer
when so much has finished.
The purples springing
from the green bits in the
heart-shaped pot on the deck.
The wide-open crimson roses,
velvety courtesans flaunting
their delicate centers
before the ripening sun,
beckoning: Here we are.
Lean in. Inhale deeply.
Let us fall into your
open hands.
halfway between heaven and earth,
for that is the space you occupy
in this mystery of human life,
allowing the mind to rest, just
for a moment, in stillness,
in openness.
You and I and all beings
everywhere want the same
things: to be happy,
to be well, to feel at ease,
to be free of suffering
and the causes of suffering.
I breathe this in for you;
you breathe this out for me,
linking us breath by breath,
happiness arising lightly,
joy skipping like a puppy
delighted to see you.
Scoop that joy into your
arms; let it wriggle into you,
drawing a smile across
your face, alighting in
your tender heart. I will
join you there in that
flowering instant,
blooming with kindness,
awash in love.
•••
(for Mary Sand and her puppy Louise, with love and thanks)
I have so little French
in my vocabulary—
a soupçon, one might say—
which has nothing to do
with soup—a word wearing
such a graceful accent mark,
the cedilla that softens that
“c” almost into an “s.” But
when that little bit of a
word alights before me,
I imagine diving into
a sea of diacritical marks
of languages I don’t speak
simply because I like the look
of the diminutive accents:
the graceful swoosh of the tilde, ˜
the definitive paired overdots ¨
of the umlaut,
and oh, the tittle, that teeny dot
over a small i. There are many
more of their brethren who
bear lovely names: circumflex,
acute and grave accents, the breve,
the over-ring over an A used
by Norwegians, Danes and
Swedes. They summon images
of places I may never see,
or ones I have—especially
the ʻokina in Hawaiʻi
and macron in kahakō.
And there I am, happily
swimming in punctuation,
appreciating this vast
word ocean that, like fish,
we may not be aware of,
but one that eons of ancestors
have given us—we, the peoples
of the world, whose languages
swirl sweet music into my
thirsty ears.
The kettle does not agonize over
how long water takes to reach
the just-right temperature for tea.
It heats at its own steady pace,
doesn’t mind waiting, relishes
the quiet unfolding. All things
ripen as they will; everything
takes the time it needs. Life tucks
into winter-bare branches,
germination afoot that human
eyes can’t see. All things become:
The kettle steams; the tea steeps.
There is much to be gained by
sitting quietly—closing the eyes,
breathing, not hand-wringing,
not hovering, not clock-watching,
slowing toward patience.
We trust that leaves will emerge,
that tall trees grow taller,
reaching for sun over lifetimes
far longer than ours.
The imagined world—the one
we think we see—marinates under
sun and moon, as eons of waves
wear away rock, crumble it into
sand—reminding us to stand
in the light, faces into the wind,
to live with gentle calmness
and constancy and
not a little bit of faith.
Güd wrtr 