Güd wrtr

I rise as three planets
parade through the summer sky
under the ginormous Buck Moon

creeping slowly up the southeastern
horizon, much as a young male deer
might peer through the brush,

The Anishinaabe call this one
the Berry Moon, while the Abenaki
think of it as the Thunder Moon.

A moon by any name that travels
the skies tonight into tomorrow
reflects the full moon that lit my way

into the world 68 years ago, a moon
in Aquarius, as a president signed
into law the act that created NASA.

Ten years later men orbited
the moon for the first time, and ten
days before my 11th birthday,

two men walked on its powdery
surface. On every birthday I look up
and think of them taking that

giant leap for mankind under that
bright Aquarian moon, thankful
that I landed on the planet

when I did, part of the generation
hoping to save it, part of
the generation that has not.

But grateful that I, like the deer, was
delivered, wide-eyed and blinking,
into life on this precious blue marble.

You turned over your baby car to me
so I could drive you on Thursdays—
and me on all other days—

a half century after you sat in another
passenger seat as I, with my learner’s permit,
mangled the clutch on your Toyota.

To your credit, not once did I see
your fingers grip the door handle in
your-then-my Elantra. Of course,

you couldn’t see well by then, though
you insisted otherwise. I refused the gift
at first, saying that I was afraid that

I’d boo-boo it (which I now have), and
you said, with uncommon gentleness,
“Janis, it’s just a car.”

It didn’t strike me then, but all these
years later, Ma, I hear the “I love you”
in that sentence.

I finally got the message.

•••

(In memory of the woman who was in labor with me on this day in 1958.)

Why not? They look good purple.
Maybe magenta, too.

Taking away the purple crayon
was just mean.

I’m sorry she did that to you.
Here’s your purple crayon.

And while we’re at it, let’s get out
the periwinkle one, too.

Ooo, and the boysenberry, the mulberry,
the orchid, the amethyst, the plum,

and yes, the grape.
Do not forget the grape.

Use ’em all, my friend. Sure,
throw in some birds and clouds

and hills that reek faintly of
newsprint. Don’t forget the swirly

sun. I love your swirly suns
raining all that bright down

on us mere mortals, making
every bit of life grow,

especially those fabulous
purple trees.

They perform this act of sharing
every summer—people bringing
bags and baskets of tomatoes,

sending them around the sanctuary
in bowls with tongs, encouraging
this one to offer the vessel of fruit

to the next one. And I hold the little
round red bit of goodness in my palm
until after Rev. Lucy’s blessing,

when we all pop them into our mouths,
a bursting gift of seasonal joy.
On the way out we are encouraged

to take home some tomatoes,
offerings from other folks’ gardens
to join some of mine that I will

cut and place in a bowl with chunks
of watermelon and the first cucumber
of my crop, along with lacy shards

of green onion, to be topped with
crumbled feta for tonight’s dinner.
Heaven beams up at me, bright red

as I linger over the bowl, big spoon
in hand, encouraging the gifts from
the soil to mingle, leaning in for

a grateful sniff before adding mint
plucked from my yard’s generous
stems, then, bringing fingers to face,

inhaling the scent of forever.

•••

With thanks to the Unitarian Universalist Society of Sacramento
(UUSS) for its generous tomato communion (and Rev. Lucy Bunch’s
delightful homily on celery, of all the humble vegetables).

It can’t be anything but
a universal day of wonder,

as they all are,

simply because
you’re in it.

(Yes, you.)

(with apologies to the great songwriter/poet Paul Simon)

In a coupla days they gonna take it away
my mama’s boo-boo’d Elantra.
I’m sad about the loss,
but my friend rushes in.
We was all on the way to see cars.

We were on our way,
kinda know where we’re goin’.
We’re on our way,
takin’ our time,
don’t know where,

Singin’
Me and Lisa down at the car lot.

Toyota Corolla!

Singin’
Me and Lisa down at the car lot.

•••

Thanks to my dear friend (from high school band/yearbook/newspaper days to now) Lisa Morgan, car goddess extraordinaire, for her guidance in the process that led to the purchase of a (practically new) car, a 2025 Toyota Corolla, to replace my mom’s 2016 Elantra that, though barely injured (and I’m just fine), wound up totaled by the insurance company.

Also thanks to the folks at Echo Park Automotive in Roseville, California. We’re on our way!

A short story by Janis Haag, age 8, found in an old box labeled “Janis school papers”
in the rafters of her parents’ garage. Thanks to Donna and Eric Just for retrieving it!

(for Mother)

In all the boxes of papers
I brought home from your office,
the files, the transcripts, the articles,

folders upon folders of coursework
over decades of continuing education,
you have left subtle messages

a year and a half past your expiration
date. I sort through paper—so much
saved paper, an affliction I inherited—

tossing things that likely were
important to you. But I am looking for
treasures, for love notes never sent,

hoping that they pop up like prairie dogs
out of their holes, looking around for
your girls, who wonder what you

you might be trying to tell us. If, as you
believed, we’re all bits of energy pinging
around the universe, that might account

for the zing when, touching an otherwise
ordinary sheet of binder paper, I find
original haiku in your scrawly hand.

I peer intently to make out the words,
messages from your former embodied self,
though I think that you and Father, too,

in your metaphysical manifestations
may have a sizable menu of ways to get
our attention. Like the doorbell at your

former house that spontaneously dings
but does not dong at your grandson and
his wife. Or lamps that light themselves

for no discernable reason. Or the two
red dragonflies flitting around Donna
and Eric’s back yard one hot July day,

their grandchildren happily playing
in under arcing streams of water.
“We have never seen a red dragonfly,”

Donna texts. And the message crawls
across my brain like the news ticker
in Times Square:

Let this be a sign unto you.
OK, then. We will.

(Story and illustrations by Janis Haag, age 7)

•••

This treasure was stored in a box in the rafters of my parents’ garage—along with many other writings by a budding author—recently found by my sister and brother-in-law clearing that area.

There were more stories in the box from this young author (soon to celebrate her 68th birthday), some of which you may see here in the coming weeks.

Light will move
through broken places
soften the edges
of empty spaces

—Julie Flanders

•••

Ma, I’m glad you’re not here to see
your baby car partially unclothed,
its innards exposed in a fenced

parking lot on a city alley.
It was, I thought, a small boo-boo,
but the car body gods have

deemed it a total loss, though
it doesn’t seem so to me.
We’re never a total loss, are we?

Confessing this into the air feels
like I’ve failed you, who gave me
your baby car when you could no

longer see well enough to drive it,
though you insisted otherwise.
“I can see the light,” you said

again and again, and we believed you,
we did, but from then on we drove
you places, me chauffeuring Mondays,

Donna on Thursdays, with drivers
you hired for other days. How odd
that I boo-boo’d the car, not you,

who drove tipsy more times than
we could count, though you always
insisted that you were “just fine.”

“Apparently you were,” I murmur
through blurry eyes, as I remove
what is mine from the baby car,

which I still think of as yours.
And in the rental, driving home,
what should pop up in the shuffle

of music magically beaming from
my phone through car speakers
but a song about light—

you who signed cards
Love and Light,
Mom—

There it is, moving through
the broken places, reassuring
your baby girl with a shh-shh,

softening edges of empty spaces,
“a moment embracing what time
is erasing, the light.”

•••

Quoted lyrics from “Light,”
a song from “The Book of Rounds” by October Project
Words: Julie Flanders / Music: Emil Adler