Güd wrtr

Three chrysalises nestle on a leaf,
a trio of Taylor’s checkerspots, once

thought extinct. But, pupa by hard-
shelled pupa, the former caterpillars

wound into their spotted sheaths
busily go about the earnest business

of growing wings, of becoming
fliers, thanks to thoughtful humans

working to ensure their existence.
With luck they will eclose in spring

as full-fledged fliers to lay clusters
of up to 1,200 eggs, doing their best

to perpetuate their kind. That such a
tiny creature should matter in a world

losing species every day. That these
butterflies-to-be—gestating canaries

in the proverbial coal mine—will,
upon emergence, with urgent delicacy,

remind us of what is worth saving,
of delicate beauty so easily lost.

heading into the post office to mail a book,
and there, next to my car, it lies face up,

hearting at me. I blink, begin walking, but
after three steps, I turn and return to bend

and peer more closely—a lone cookie encased
in plastic, the kind you might find in a bakery,

intact, not a crack or a crumble on its heart-y
icing. I think, I’ll leave it here for the next

person who comes along needing some
love. But when I come out of the post office,

it has begun to drizzle, and it occurs to me
that the sweet heart might not withstand

the predicted drenching to come. So I pick
it up, looking for someone to offer it to,

but there is no one. I am alone in the P.O.
parking lot, a rare occurrence on a Saturday,

as drops dot me and the cookie. And I wonder,
Is this some kind of sign?

Which is when the voice of my long-dead
red-haired angel cracks from the overhang

of dove gray cumulus: Honey, you think this is
an accident? How many times have I told you:

There are no accidents. Who do you think
this is for? And—tempted to remind her

that it should be “whom,” not “who”—she
shushes me. Don’t get distracted by grammar,

honey. Of course, it’s for you. Always pick up
love when it appears before you.

And so I do.

populating Trader Joe’s,
reminded of the beauty of
the slightly crooked nose,

the extra chins under dark-
pupil’d eyes, the crinkles of
countenance that show

our infinite varieties of human,
the spice of life in everyone’s DNA
right there on Aisle 4 where

I reach for the 21 Seasoning Salute,
which will go home to snuggle
next to other spices in the cabinet

right next to the fridge,
where the faces of beloveds
cling, magnetized, as well as

the inside of the medicine cabinet
and the filing cabinets in my office—
among them the sweet faces

of two little girls in red,
the ones we used to be so long ago
I cannot remember us then,

except when I look at photos
like this one—our baby-teeth grins,
our white-blonde hair,

a pair of young souls with
nothing but promise, with
everything ahead of them.

•••

for Donna Gail, just because

We see it gathering over the mountain,
roiling and gray, a cumulus tumbleweed
heading our way.

And no matter how much we think
we’re prepared, always part of us
wonders, are we?

No matter how much warning,
how much we’ve anticipated,
it always lands differently

than we imagined—sometimes
more harshly, bucketing water
or pelting snow, delivering

more than we can handle.
But we do, somehow. We rise,
sometimes leaping into

the moment, to offer a hand
to someone deeper in struggle
than we are. And,

sometimes, the storm passes
overhead with the merest
grumble, not unleashing

its heavy cargo on us
for reasons we’ll never know,
allowing us to exhale

what we’ve tightly held,
step outside into the new day,
grateful for another

blessing bestowed.

The last time we leapt like this
many of us could not imagine
leaping again, much less for joy,

stuck as we were at home,
forbidden to see, let alone
touch, others outside our

bubbles. Four years down
the road, we find ourselves free
to roam about as we please,

walking, dancing, leaping, living
these lives for which we find
ourselves ever more grateful,

this freedom of movement
a gift we hadn’t known
could be rescinded—

this extra day also a gift
of catch-up time, not least
for Leaplings, who celebrate

the day of their births once
every four years. So leap already.
Take a big running one,

if you can, over, say, a ribbon
of water. Land with your two
(or four) good feet squarely

in the next month, marching
toward a new season, with, yes,
a jaunty spring in your step.

•••

With thanks to Sue Reynolds, James Dewar and Whiskey, for their hospitality
and gracious hosting of this California visitor last fall.

(Granite Bay State Park, Folsom Lake, California)

Walking on half-sand, half-rocks
usually underwater, I do not expect

to find—peering at rock bits of
crimson-ribboned crystals

and mica-flecked granite—
a small elephant on its side,

pressed into fine grit, its
trunk curling high. A mini

archaeological find, its intact
gray form compels me to

gently dig it out, brush it off,
wondering how it got here—

if it fell from a child’s hand,
part of a treasured collection—

imagining it both wet and dry
as the lake rises and recedes,

as it does every season, covering
and uncovering what has been lost,

what is waiting to be found.

which is what I hope we’ll have
when I get to your place

which is, I imagine, no place
in particular, which is why

I hope beyond all hope
that there’s still some you

in that place of no place
and there’ll be some me,

too, and even if we don’t
have arms or bodies,

a close, I’ve-missed-you
hug will feel like all the ones

we shared embodied,
all the ones I’m missing

now.

1. Yes, they have red on their wings, but they are not red-winged blackbirds.

2. Only breeding males look this glossy, this fancy, all spiffed up for the ladies.

3. They may sing in the dead of night, but they don’t have the same lovely voices as their red-winged cousins.

4. They’re found in marshes and adjacent fields.

5. Once they bred in immense colonies in natural freshwater wetlands of California’s Central Valley.

6. In the 19th century flocks could consist of hundreds of thousands of tricolored blackbirds.

7. Their numbers—like the birds themselves diving for insects—have plummeted.

8. Since then the population has declined from several million to fewer than 200,000.

9. Because so much of their marshy habitat has been lost, they are endangered.

10. Because they now often nest in fields where grain is grown, harvesting can destroy tens of thousands of nests.

11. But hope is the thing with feathers, after all, and birdfolk report seeing tricolored blackbirds flying in weed-filled fields set aside by farmers.

12. Take these broken wings and learn to fly.

13. All your life, you were only waiting for this moment to arise.

•••

Thanks to Sir Paul McCartney for the best blackbird poem/song ever.

You can see a one-minute video of a recovering tricolored blackbird colony in a weed-filled Central Valley field here.

And you can learn more about Merced farmers working to enhance the tricolored blackbirds’ habitat featured in “Dairy Cares: Protecting California’s Tricolored Blackbird.”

•••

(the 18-foot-tall troll of Bainbridge Island)

•••

(for Terri Wolf)

She’s a storyteller, Pia,
sitting in a forest glen
on an island where
someone I loved
once lived.

My best friend,
writer/storyteller,
would admire curly-
haired Pia sitting
serenely amid
the trees,

a sweet smile on her
face, her large hands
ready to embrace
anyone who steps
into them.

Which I do as
another writer/
storyteller friend
takes a photo of us,

we story spinners
here and gone,

wide-eyed in wonder
as this whimsical
being, sitting quietly,
holds so much
peace in her gentle,
giant hands.

•••

Pia the Peacekeeper lives on Bainbridge Island, Washington, and was built over seven days in August 2023. She’s made entirely of recycled materials by Danish artist Thomas Dambo, who has done more than 100 giant troll sculptures around the world. She is one of six Dambo sculptures in the Pacific Northwest.

You can watch a two-minute time-lapse video of her construction here.

You can learn more about Pia the Peacekeeper and the other PNW trolls here,

No matter how far you rome,
there’s no place like pome

And though I can’t rhyme for spit,
I try to find a way to work in:

—foam
—loam
—chrome
—Jerome

even
—Styrofoam

And then I can’t stop:

—climbing the dome
—fingering the comb
—meditating with om
—writing this tome

thinking of home*

•••

* Because, it is said, “Home is where the cat(s) is (are).”