Güd wrtr

You are a part of me I do not yet know.
—Valerie Kaur

•••

Hope begins with understanding—
or, at least, the willingness to listen,

understanding that understanding
may come later—or not—

but in listening, truly listening,
setting aside our uniquely human

tendency to immediately render
a judgment, at least in our heads,

if not our hearts, we might find
the merest bit of connection,

the possibility of common ground,
even with those who seem or think

or appear to be utterly unlike us.
Hope—yes, the thing with feathers

that never stops singing the tunes
without the words—

is the bird trilling its generous
music behind all the noise.

If we quiet ourselves, listen with
patience, understanding may

fly in, too, which may be the most
hopeful gift of all.

They’re the same age,
my fella and this prez,

rocking a similar snowy
fringe and kind blue eyes—

not to mention the classic
public-service-is cool aviators.

My fella (an old newsdog who
photographed a prez or eight

in his long career) says he can’t
imagine how this prez keeps

the always-on-the-move schedule
that he does, seeing as how my

(long retired) fella really cherishes
his senior afternoon nap time.

But after 36 years in the Senate,
the veep gig and now as

the big cheese, as this prez
makes way for the next

generation of a younger,
possibly female prez,

my fella applauds this prez’s
decades of public service

that have led to this big
time-to-go-Joe moment.

And, saying that he hopes
this prez will get to tuck

into some quality snooze
time in the near future,

my fella heads for a little
sofa lie-down, a guy who

truly understands the
wisdom of a power nap.

It turns out that
wildebeests are gnus, and
gnus are wildebeests,

great, hairy African antelopes
resembling muscular cows with
curved horns, but wearing bushy
beards and manes accenting their
charcoal-striped outfits that
collectively makes a wildebeest
a gnu. And vice versa.

That improbable combination
of body parts prompted a
wordsmithing actor* to coin
a new collective noun,
making news of a group of gnus—

an implausibility of gnus.

Before that, they traveled simply
as herds, but now the largest of all
antelopes carries a clever appellation
for these wandering vegetarians
of the Serengeti.

More than a million of them join
hundreds of thousands of other
ungulates in the planet’s largest
migration from plains to savannah.

Look at them go: the zebras,
the gazelles, the wildebeests.
And look at what stalks them:
hyenas, lions, crocodiles.

Not all of them will make it.

So much wildlife on the move
that the great columns of gnus
can be seen from space, a stream
of migrants compelled to make
their way over the sea of desert
on a well-traveled route from
one territory to, with luck,
a place where the convoy
can land—

in a stomping ground that
feels something like home.

•••

* The wordsmithing actor/television writer/author who coined the collective noun “an implausibility of gnus” was James Lipton in his delightful book, “An Exaltation of Larks.” It contains more than a thousand collective nouns, some of which Lipton invented. Lipton was perhaps best known as the dean emeritus of the Actors Studio Drama School at Pace University in New York, and the creator and host of the television series, “Inside the Actors Studio.” He died in 2020 at age 93.

(for Deborah Meltvedt—happy birthday!)

•••

They keep coming back,
the ones we thought vanished—

the persistent tiny violas,
the Johnny Jump-Ups,

the hollyhocks—which,
after the flowers wilt to

folded umbrellas, much
as they started—we cut

within an inch of the earth
from which they rose.

Where does such loveliness
store its perennial know-how?

How might we absorb that
acceptance of a season of

growth and flourishing,
then withering and dying?

Perhaps they return each year
to teach us spacious stillness,

to remain undisturbed by
others’ comings and goings,

to rest when it is time to rest,
to grow when it is time to grow,

to let go when it is time to go,
that inner knowing a deep

assurance that there is more
to come. So much more.

Michael Collins kept the bus idling
while the two other astronauts got
to walk on the moon,

and though Collins said he didn’t mind,
as much as the world focused on
Armstrong and Aldrin stamping

the moon forever with their
Earthling footprints, I, about to
turn 11 in ten days, couldn’t stop

thinking about the man who wasn’t
on the surface, but who, piloting
the command module, drifted

behind the dark side of the moon
for 48 minutes of each orbit, waiting
for his colleagues to return,

unafraid, feeling “almost exultation.”
Collins carried them all, Aldrin later said,
“deftly to new heights and to the future.”

Now, 55 years later, driving home
with the full moon over my shoulder,
I remember them all, whisper their names,

bless the bootprints of every human
who walked there and the ones who drove
the buses, returning them, as all good

bus drivers do, safely back to the only
home any of us will ever know,
this precious blue marble.

Once a dozen oaks lived on this third
of an acre. Only four survive, the others
watered to death in favor of grass
for little girls to play on.

My parents had no idea that they
were killing the great valley oaks
—quercus lobata—including my favorite,
a trunk that angled out of the ground
at a perfect tree-climbing angle.

But one by one they collapsed,
a limb here or there, till their
massive structures gave way,
collapsing in a gargantuan whoosh,
much as whales fall to the ocean
floor when it’s their time.

I cried for each one.

Still, four quercus wislizeni,
craggy and stubby interior live oaks,
rise in places the sprinklers never reached—
the trees’ barbed leaves near the bottom
to discourage deer and other nibblers
morphing into smoother versions
near the top. They live, these stubborn
ones, a bit defiantly, hearty survivors
found only in our native state.

Watering a parched lilac nearby, I stand
shaded beneath one venerable elder,
admiring the live oak’s thick leaves
that help it retain moisture, so elusive
and precious in this overheated
summer.

If you walk with me around the place
that my family has tended for nearly
six decades, I can show you where
every one of their brethren stood,
the long roots still sunk dozens
of feet into the granite-y earth,
anchoring us all to this very spot.

She steps carefully
into the pool, dons her
mask and snorkel,

makes her way to her lane,
puts her head down and does
not lift it for 30 minutes,

as I, in the next lane, breast
stroke and scull headfirst,
then feetfirst, overarm it

into a crawl, then flip over for
some elementary backstroke—
strokes I once taught more

than 40 years ago in a pool
not unlike this one. If this
pool was a foot deeper,

I’d eggbeater half a lap
down the lane until
my old gal legs gave out,

then breast stroke the rest
of the lap. I still hold an
image of my younger self

doing a synchro team
workout—breath-holding,
eggbeatering, sculling—

before practicing stunts
that had us upside down,
noseclipped, legs in the air

as the sun disappeared behind
the fence that separated us
from the dry world.

Nowadays I’m happy
that I can propel myself
for 20 leisurely laps

as my friend slowly
frog-kicks and breathes
like a gently exhaling

sea creature in the lane
next door—both of us
far more buoyant

than we were in our
youth, water babies still
pulling and kicking,

if more gently, with
a different purpose,
which, come to think

of it, is why we kids
headed for the pool
with sun-bleached hair

and reddened noses: for
the joy of playing in water,
of swimming just to swim.

•••

for Mary Mackey

Well, 😈🔥!
How did we survive before
we could communicate with
teeny illustrations, before
the word “emoticon” entered
our vocabularies,

along with
💜😵‍💫💋👩‍🦱🐱🦆✏️🎯🍅☀️?

Back in our day, kids,
we old folks had to make do
with only the symbols on a typewriter
(for which, sadly, there is no emoji)
keyboard to express ourselves:

@#$%&*(), and my favorite: !!!!!

Of course, we do this nowadays,
not from big computer ⌨️💻 keyboards,
descendants of the Smith Corona
and the more modern IBM Selectric,

but from small devices 📱 we carry
in our pockets that allow us to
send messages through the ether
to anyone who has a similar device—

and, in a pinch, make a ☎️ call,
too.

Hail 👏 the mighty emoji 😃, friends!
We’d be 💩👅👎 without ’em!

Little soft animal of your body
resting after the flight from danger,
dented and dinged in unseen ways,

I pick up your trembling form
from the hiding place you found
in the neighbor’s sheltering greenery,

cuddle you, whisper, You’re safe,
I’m here, I’m so sorry this happened
to you—breathing love into your

damp fur, take you to people
who fuss and tend you, then hand
you back to me not many hours later,

already looking more like your old self.
You who prefer outside to in—
look at you now, safe in your home

sanctuary, sleeping atop the kitchen
counter, now and then stepping
your front feet into the sink

for a drink from the tall cup
I keep there for you—resting,
eating, letting the little soft

animal of your body heal,
you content to be inside for now,
who holds no apparent grudge

against your attackers,
so, breathing and letting go,
neither do I.

If one can request such things,
in my next incarnation as a human
(if I may be so presumptuous),
please make me a morning person.

This world is geared to mornings,
for better or worse, and for those of us
who aren’t really conscious till almost
midday, the requirement to rise with some

degree of cheer and false liveliness—
with or without stimulants—presents
a problem from early school days
to the world of adult work that

begins, shockingly for us, at 8 a.m.
That newspaper job that required me
to be at my desk by 7:30 pecking out a
story for the paper that ran through

the presses by noon damn near killed me.
It’s not because I want to stay up late
writing or reading or working. It’s what
this body has done of its own accord

in this lifetime. I don’t mind the late/
early hours of a new day, sitting in
the mostly dark with a single light
over the computer, a cat curled up

on a soft blanket next to me (not
much of a night owl in her dotage).
I get a lot of work done. But oh,
the rising to be part of a world

charged with sunlight, ready to
forge into a day. I do it to be with
people I love who delight in
morning walks or exercise

or for required appointments,
secretly hoping for an afternoon
nap, which sometimes happens.
But, dear gods of circadian rhythms,

if you’d do your magical best to
make my next body morning-ready,
I’d be most grateful. Oh, and perhaps
give me an affection for coffee, too.

That might help.