Güd wrtr

(for Patricia Beach Smith)

Some of your many loved ones
gathered on a windy Monday
to watch your final journey,

lowered smoothly into the ground
next to a friend, becoming
interred neighbors—a sweet

bit of kinship since you had
helped the man’s widow
select that spot under the leafy

umbrella under which you, too,
will lie for eternity. Then life went on,
as it does. Some of us headed

to your house as we’d so often
done for gatherings of friends
you loved to host. And if we

thought you wouldn’t be there,
we were wrong. You drifted through
doorways, hovered in the scarves

and jewelry you left for friends
to choose and take with us.
But I lingered at your mini grand

piano, where, on the music shelf
above the keyboard rested
the romantic third movement

of “Scheherazade,” wishing you
were there to play it. You,
opera singer, writer, storyteller.

If you’d return for 1,001 nights,
staving off death like the young bride
telling tales to her sultan husband,

I’d sit with you on the bench as you
played, every note a blessing,
preserving the illusion of forever.

We thought it was just on the coast
where winds gusted so fiercely that

we were pushed over a bit by them—
a gentle shove, not like that of a bully,

but of someone wanting to get our
attention. But as we drove inland

from the seaside to our valley home
town, we saw trees shimmying

and rock’n’rolling to tunes we
could not hear. And when we

spilled out into our yards
littered with downed sycamore

branches separated too early
in the season from their hosts,

leaves still green and growing, we
felt ourselves stop and again mourn

the too-soon gone. Who may have
departed on a timetable arranged

before they were born. Who may
have understood that theirs was

a limited-time-only offer. Who may,
unlike us, feel fine with the way

things ended, snapped off in a mighty
gust, sailing through the blustery,

landing in a soft green grass heap,
perhaps with others like them, thinking,

“Wow, what a ride! What a
marvelous adventure that was!”

(for Dickie)

And why not count every precious day,
even if it adds up to an oh-my-god,
how-can-this-be number?

Why not celebrate the walk down
the trail to the little waterfall’d spot
we call Coup de Grace,

as we have done dozens of times
over the past four decades?
Because the path will be laced

with the particular green of
spring-ripened sword and lady ferns,
along with the wild rhodies

dangling from massive
bushes like tutu’d fairies
dancing in the breeze.

Because we have received
notice this week as we linger
by the sea of two beloveds’

unexpected departures,
making me evermore grateful
for your slower, lurching

self ahead of me on the path,
stopping here and there
to decide whether to take

a photo or six. “Use the film,”
we joke as we position our
phones. “Burn the pixels.”

Because we’re here—you with your
83 years, 3 months and 3 days,
me with my 67 years, 8 months

and 16 days. We may never
pass this way again, as the
old pop song goes.

Did you get a picture?
Excellent. Take another
while we still have the light.

The tall, wind-pummeled giants
line up parallel to the sea,

lean benevolently over the always-cool
pathway serenaded by birds,

lulled by waves, some extending
long limbs graceful as ballerinas

low to the ground, which
also turn out to be roots,

interlacing with the next tree
and the next one after that,

weaving a wood wide web
underground, sinking their

anchors deep, stabilizing
the fabric of their existence,

sharing nutrients and water with
shaded and struggling relatives.

As a two-legged guest, I walk
this corridor of greatness

reminded how gentle and quiet
cooperation can be,

eavesdropping on conversations
I can’t possibly understand,

inhaling what is exhaled by
this community of brethren

assembled for the benefit of all,
the living and the dying,

remembering what has passed,
wind and birds singing them on.

•••

Monterey cypress groves, of which there are many on the California coast, are physically linked by vast mycorrhizal networks—underground systems that share nutrients and send chemical signals that allow the whole network to, among other things, activate defense mechanisms against disease.

When one of us

shuffles off this mortal coil,
gives up the ghost,
crosses over,

breathes one’s last,
heads for the last roundup,
joins the choir invisible,

it startles the rest of us,
forces us to pause as
mourning sets in.

Nothing to be done
but remember,
to hold, if we can,

other beloveds close,
because they, too,
we, too,

will similarly slip away
one day, though we
cannot imagine

existence without
the ones who make us
us.

In the meantime,
behold the transitory
flowers, the bush lupine

overlooking the sea,
the wild iris unfurled
and purpled,

the lush pink rhodies,
their frilly skirts already
drooping.

Doesn’t make them
any less lovely
in their momentary

existence. In fact,
we realize with each
passing season,

it makes them
all the more
exquisite.

My favorite editor at the big newspaper
sidled up to me one day as my

rumpled, nondescript khakis and I
confronted the huge computer screen

blinking its green insistence.
She set before me what became

my favorite ice cream soda:
a Jik Jak frost from Vic’s—

chocolate malt ice cream with
nuts in bubbly water. She’d been

in town maybe three months
and knew more about my city

than I did, this woman with an
explorer’s heart, who loved to talk

to everyone. She drank conversation
like water, lived for repeatable

anecdotes. And she appreciated me
in a way that no other editor did

at that paper, affirming my still-
young self while gently teaching

me how to write well about
home interiors because, she said,

our job as journalists was to validate
people more than their surroundings

or job titles. “People,” she liked to say,
“matter more than anything.”

She loved opera and theater, food
and art, flowers and travel. She loved

so many people who loved her, too.
She loved me, partly, I think, because

I shared her younger sister’s name,
and my boss became my champion.

One day as I arrived in our office
wearing, unusually, a floral dress

with a wide skirt that swirled
when I turned, she smiled,

saying, “You look like Monet’s
garden,” a compliment, I knew,

from one who’d been there more
than once. She cocked an eyebrow

and waggled a forefinger at me.
“No beige,” she said.

I’ve never worn the color since.

•••

In memory of Patricia Beach Smith,
Sacramento Bee editor and arts reviewer,
Aug. 23, 1943–May 13, 2026

Pamela’s on the noon to 2 shift today,
sunny and breezy, coolish on the bluff
overlooking both sections
of Tidepool Beach.

She doesn’t mind: She’s bundled up
against the chilly wind, which
two days ago when I was here
blew warmer on this bluff,
spring bringing a mixed bag
of weather conditions, as it does
on the California coast.

Down on my favorite beach,
currently inaccessible as a harbor seal
rookery/napping spot, three new
mamas and babies sleep, sun-dried
into sand-colored torpedoes,
though one is dalmatian spotty.

I get a good look through Pamela’s binocs,
which she uses to count the harbor seals
arrayed on both beach and on far rocks
like barnacles, looking rock-like themselves
until one moves a head or flippers.

The seal docents keep watch over
their pinniped neighbors all day,
every day, for the months when
the mothers occupy the beaches,
giving birth and tending the young
till they’re weaned, then disappearing
into the waves, leaving behind
bereft offspring.

The babies’ cries are hard on
the docents, too, most of them
having done their stints as moms,
but they are here to ensure that
clueless humans don’t disturb
the new families, that they have
a safe place to rest.

We all need such spaces, in a world
where they are sometimes hard
to find, I think, as I watch Pamela
count and send good juju
to those napping on the sand,
in the water, on the rocks,
big and small,

the been-there encouragement
of one who has tended little ones,
who knows what it is like when
they will, all too soon, set off
on their own journeys,

making their way across
the shallows, into the deep,
through the rough and tumble
of the sea.

•••

With thanks to and admiration for the Harbor Seal
Rookery Docent Program, originated and still lead by
Laura Yale of The Sea Ranch, California, for the past 30 years.

And with gratitude to my friend Pamela (PJ) Hill,
who allowed me to sit with her during one of her
docent shifts on the bluff.

(for PJ and Dave and Scooby)

As we arrive, Scooby,
the head dood, leader of the pack,
the alpha golden doodle,
arrows right for us—
“People!” his wiggles seem to say—

though his dad has a firm hand
on the leash attached to the gyrating,
excited 6-year-old delighted by
company who’ve come to dine
with his people.

Two other doodles in the household
respectfully hibernate in their crates,
allowing Scooby to happily take
center stage, and who among us
wouldn’t want him to?

The big curly bundle of energy
proves an enthusiastic host,
making his rounds, licking guests’
chins, standing still for a massage,
oblivious to the conversation
zinging over his heads.

He’s here for the company,
this social animal, and we delight in
his doodly-doodleness before we
sit around the lovely table
relishing excellent homemade
sauce over pasta with wine,
visiting old friends and making
new ones.

After dinner, we humans feel
as content as the sweet dog
who drapes himself atop the sofa,
lowers his head to rest on his
his fluffy front paws, satiated,
like us, by food and fellowship,
settling in for a good snooze.

What’s not to love about this
moment, as we look out the long
windows, admiring the gentle
evening light goldening the meadow
across the street, and beyond it,
the unbridled ocean stretching
to a clear horizon at the end of
this gorgeous day?

•••

With thanks to PJ and Dave for dinner in their home—
as well as to the doodles Skooby, Shelly and CoCo—
and new friends Susan and Jan, for such a lovely evening.

that you get less than 15 minutes after
you arrive at the house you love
by the ocean because you simply

have to go out on the deck, unlatch
the clasp that holds down the lid
to the hot tub and check the temp,

but the new tub has been installed
so that you cannot see the digital
readout any other way than inching

around the planks surrounding
the damn tub and kneeling to peer
at the faint numbers in the late

afternoon light, which is when you
feel the zing of splinter thread its
way into your left ring finger,

and after you swear, you make out
the number 104, then with an undamaged
finger stab the down arrow button

to 101, rising carefully to look out
to the ocean, so close here, which
is where you should be, taking your

first walk on this bit of sand after
far too long away, so, after you go
inside, literally take a stab or 30

at your left ring finger, managing
to extract only part (of course) of
the damn splinter, with more

swearing to quell the pain, you detect
a sigh of someone not you, saying
“Breathe, honey,” so you do,

taking the hint to put on your
shoes and sweatshirt and hightail
it out to the trail that leads

directly to the dunes that hump
along the ridgeline, giving you
an excellent view of lemon yellow

lupine waving breezily at you,
and you forget about your finger
as you make your way to the sand,

watching the sun still giddily
high in the sky for 7 p.m., and
you remember that this is late

spring going on summer,
your favorite time of year, so you
find a rock where diminished

waves arrive nearly but not quite
at your feet, reminding you of
the always-thereness of ocean

and sun and sky, and why,
always, you are so happy to be
here, refueling the ocean creature

you know yourself to be.

You always see better with your heart,
especially when your vision is going
or has been impaired all your life.

“Nice to see you” is an expression,
not a reality, though you might well
be happy to be in someone’s orbit.

I wonder now if she, her vision mostly
gone, could see better with her heart near
the end, fighting departure as she was.

I wanted her to soften as her body
died by inches, hoped that she’d get
mooshy around the edges.

If anything, she toughened as her
skin stretched tight on bone. What
do we, the living, know about dying?

Especially if those on their way
can’t tell us. Maybe her heart was
one big puddle of love by the time

she took her last breaths. Maybe
that’s what I feel now, when she
flits into my peripheral vision—

flickers of kind, pinpoints of gentle.
Or maybe it’s because I want it
to be so, that I wish to hold her softly,

the way I wanted her to hold me,
the way she surely must have
once upon a time, when she and I

were both new.