Güd wrtr

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.

I like the way Brits say
half-four,

that time between hours
to signal the midpoint,
a sense of partly accomplished
and hope for what is to come.

Today I am half-65,
halfway to my next birthday—
for many of my adult years
not a date I marked,

though as a child, I counted
half birthdays like pearls,
the string lengthening a wee bit
as I inched my way to the next
precious number.

I can still hear my grandmother—
Ah, your years are your wealth, darlin’—

and with each passing one
adding another pearl,
becoming evermore clear

just how rich I am.

You know how sometimes you
make something harder than
it has to be,

which can feel like trying to
shovel packed snow hardened
into a giant ice cube?

Or, today, like futzing with
a simple poem to somehow
force it to sing

when all the damn thing wants
is to lie there with its awkwardly
mixed metaphors

and trying-too-hard similes
and have a good lie-down, not
struggle to its feet

and scamper gaily across wherever
it is you’re trying to make it dance.
Or sing.

The solution appears as you head
into the gift of a warm winter day:
Let the poem poem itself.

Stop trying to wrangle a tortured
comparison out of simple words
that don’t need fancifying,

which all by themselves trickle down
a grateful page into a wee poem
without any fuss and bother—

like this.

Keep a sharp eye out—
it’s your the last chance to see
the Claw in action for the season—

leaf season, that is, which in my city
runs from November to the end of January,

though some of the most stubborn
sycamore leaves will cling, brown and brittle,
refusing to fall until new green ones
bump them off their perch.

The Claw fleet retires after an intense
three-month season, ending a noisy run
of leaf scraping from city streets—
about 20,000 tons of green waste, I read.

Crews work rain or shine, including holidays,
the website says, and I wonder who gets
assigned to claw duty. Do they enjoy it
as much as those of us who delight in
seeing the two-vehicle operation in action—
the open-mouthed Claw scooping
and dumping leafy detritus into
a receptive truck?

And do the Claws themselves go into
hibernation till next fall when they’re
pressed into service?

I hope they get tucked into a loamy
Claw den for a good rest, as their
keepers wish them pleasant dreams—
with no piles awaiting pickup,
just leaves greening where they should,

nicely affixed to branches, waving
their happy hands in warm breeze.

Do not disturb

says the grass green sign
sprouting from blades
of a similar color,

tiny grass is dreaming

And if you peer closely,
squint a bit, you might
see tiny eyelids closed

on those leaves of grass,
infinitesimal lashes
fluttering in sleep,

growing as they rest,
babies not ready for
the weight of feet,

so for now, shhhhh!
Keep off, please—
tiny grass dreaming

mini dreams, growing
big and strong for
your soles to one day

walk upon.