If you plant them, they will write—
or so you hope, tending the crop
of tiny pencils-to-be,
imagining the little sprouts
growing up to color the world
in so many shades of green,
testament to your devotion
your love for the drawings,
the words, the creativity
to come.
For years I looked at the waxy blobs
sprouting green stalks from the top,
often wearing little collars that said,
no watering necessary,
which made no sense, conditioned
as I am to watering outdoor plants
for more than half a year and indoor
ones till I drop. Or they do.
But the waxed amaryllis contains
the promise of frilly blossoms if you
just set it on a table, not in direct
sunlight, and turn their bulbous
bottoms every few days.
So I brought one home to watch
the miracle of a living thing that needs
no help from me to thrive, to grow tall,
and, when it knows that it’s time,
to burst forth in petaled profusion.
And now on the dining table stands a
ballerina with gorgeously long legs,
en pointe, of course, her frilly tutu
blossoming creamy with scarlet streaks.
Hello, I say to her as I walk by.
Aren’t you lovely?
And, shy, self-contained thing that she is,
she doesn’t say a word, just stands
a bit taller, as I admire her elegance
so unexpected, so fleeting.
We often imagine ourselves
on the upswing or down,
forgetting that point in the middle
where we are neither up nor down
but doing fine. Better than fine.
And even on the most difficult days,
let us imagine ourselves flying upward,
arms flung outward, ready to embrace
all that’s right with the world,
praising that which we can’t see,
that which supports us, even in midair,
as we keep on swinging, wearing
the brightest, biggest smile.
You think you want to tuck in for winter,
hibernate like the bears or box turtles,
as bats or snakes or bumblebees do.
But that means you’d have to secure
a safe sleep spot, store up a lot of body fat
(and no matter how much you think you
have, it’s likely not enough), lower your
metabolic rate, breathe once every few
minutes and pretty much turn off your
brain. Honestly, it’s a risky proposition
from which some creatures never awaken.
Instead, you want to be a chipmunk,
a semi-hibernator who tucks into a cozy
crevice or tunnel with your nifty stockpile
of nuts, seeds and dried fruit. You’ll sink
into a good, deep lethargy but awaken
every couple of days to perform obligatory
bodily functions and, best of all, nibble
your way through your stored stash
of snacks. Sleep, poop and eat. Repeat.
And when winter finally ends, you’ll
awaken so well rested you’ll stretch your
cute little legs and wiggle your sweet
ears and nose, look for a chipmunk
buddy or two and break into song—
chip chip, you’ll warble, bird-like,
leaping onto a seedy feeder to chow
down on a new season’s cache of nuts
and seeds, cheeks stuffed with goodies
as you dash into the blush of dawn
on a glorious spring day.
And there,
as the drops fall, I circle
the labyrinth, holding space
for a single pilgrim walking—
Blessings on your journey—
on this stormy Sunday that
couldn’t be more different than
yesterday’s blue-sky perfection,
today next to another impulsive
creek burbling its way river-ward,
when I see a flash of feathers—
a mallard pair floating gently
down the stream, tasting the
childhood tune on my lips—
merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily
life is but a dream—
because it is, this dreamy existence,
one in which no boat needs rowing,
the female mallard leading,
her partner following their own
watery pathway, as I puddle around
the circumference of this life,
watching the wayfarer on
the labyrinth take step after deliberate
step on her pilgrimage.
I make my way to her, and,
as she re-enters the world,
whisper, Welcome back,
as her misty cheeks flush,
and the ducks quack their way
so very gently down the sweet,
rain-rich stream.
I tell six women on a too-early
Saturday morning, as they tug
on gloves, wrap themselves
in scarves to head into the chill
of a winter morning to walk
a circuitous route to the center
of a labyrinth and then back out
again.
Even if you think you’re alone,
you’re not. As you step carefully
along the path, you’ll likely brush
by another going the opposite
direction.
As in life.
Everything’s a metaphor on the labyrinth,
even the sky-bursting blue before
tomorrow’s unimaginable,
predicted pourdown.
We walk.
We walk.
We breathe and smile as we circle,
as we pivot the hard turns—
the same path in, the same path out,
though it never looks the same.
And though we usually don’t know
we’re about to reach the end
until we do, when we emerge,
blinking, after our journey,
we look around at others waiting,
welcoming us, which, both
literally and metaphorically,
reminds us that we are accompanied
by those seen and unseen
as we traverse these
twisting, turning lifetimes.
•••
With thanks to Rev. Lucy Bunch for inviting me to facilitate a Labyrinth Walk & Write at Mercy Center, Auburn, California, as part of the Unitarian Universalist Society of Sacramento’s women’s retreat. And with gratitude to the Reverend Dr. Lauren Artress for her vision in bringing the labyrinth back into use in the modern world.
At the intersection of grin and smile
pointing the way to happy
whether you know it or not
you made your way here to stand
on the edge of this circle and absorb
what you think has eluded you
so soak it up, buttercup,
let all that delight fill you with
heart-full, toe-tingling
joy
Your transition stanza is much
like a bridge in a song, cleverly
changing from gray to blue,
someone writes in a comment about
one of my poems, and, admiring
her nice simile and specific color
images, I take a teacherly
moment to tell her that poets call
such a transition a “turn.”
She reacts kindly, but then, for days
I think, There’s another term for that,
a lovely, poetic word, but instead
of searching for it in a book wedged
tight between dusty others on one
of the poetry shelves in my library,
or allowing my fingers to type “turn”
into a search bar, I decide to wait,
to see if somehow the over-full hard
drive that passes for my brain might
spit it up like a hairball when I’m not
expecting it. Days bumble by,
other turns singing in my head:
Turn around, and you’re a young girl
going out of the door, and
There I go, turn the page, and
To everything turn, turn, turn…
but the word doesn’t arrive until
the hinge of a mostly-forgotten sonnet
tortoise-crawls into my mind,
leading to the last, lovely couplet:
But if the while I think on thee, dear friend,
All losses are restor’d, and sorrows end.
And the Italian word leapfrogs 400 years,
it seems to me, from the ghost of the bard,
who didn’t invent but certainly employed it:
volta. Oh, yes. Volta.
The fulcrum on which a sonnet turns,
and other poems, too, the shift into
a final change of thought, heading off
into verse-filled left field, a device
to hang on a but or a however, or,
in this case, a yet—not as in
yet how porous my aging brain—
but yet here comes the volta, marching
toward the end of the poem,
all by itself, no help from me,
my reptilian nails scratching as
I plod along, no longer trying to
keep up, but delighted that one of
my loosened marbles has rolled
back in, reminding me of just
how much I once knew.
It seizes your nostrils with a
sweet, pungent zing—a hit
of oxygen that arrives before
the rain,
an electrical charge splitting
nitrogen and oxygen molecules
with an atmospheric ax,
and though you don’t think of it
as ozone (which it is) your brain
may flash with a headline:
Rain on the way, likely
a thunderstorm,
thanks to three oxygen atoms
named for the Greek ozein
(to smell)—not unlike
the zing of recognition when
a stranger comes into view,
one destined to become
beloved, and somehow you
feel that in the air, inhaling
a whiff of possibility
just before the lightning strikes.
I stand at my kitchen counter,
two bags of them open-mouthed
before me,
ones that I took to my mother,
who has returned them to me
saying,
I can’t shell them. I can’t see
the shells from the nuts. I end
up biting shells,
which, given her fragile teeth,
is not good. So I bring them
home, spill the oval beads
onto the granite counter that
looks as if it could have been
chiseled from the rocks
that line the lake next to my
mother’s house. I crack a few
half-opened nuts,
see how hard they are to open.
They’re tough buggers, those
shells, sharpish on the edges,
but I find myself on a roll‚
thumb nails aligned in the sliver
of shell through which
the nut peeks, reluctant to be
exposed. But expose them I do,
one after another, after another
and another—split, crack, plop—
plunking the greenish nuts she
craves into the tall
plastic container she has returned,
the one I’d given her last week with
split pea soup,
both filled with the very definition
of handmade (or hand shelled),
another word for love.
Güd wrtr 