Güd wrtr

Before I heard the news, on my way
home from Tuesday morning exercise,
I drove by the cemetery and turned in,

not really thinking that I’d pay you a visit.
But something steered me to the curb
just inside the gate, propelled me

out of the car to your spot under the tree,
next to your friend Dave, whose plot
you helped his widow select,

where you’re now his neighbor.
No permanent marker yet, just a small
rectangle with your name and plot

designation. No matter. I’ve been here
before. With others who love you, I
watched the simple casket you requested

as it lowered into your final resting place.
Your spirit hovers everywhere—not least
several days ago at your celebration

on the 83rd anniversary of your birth,
the party you planned, literally, on your
deathbed with your nearest and dearest,

who, by the way, carried out your
instructions—you good writer, editor,
art lover, opera singer—to the letter.

I plopped myself on the damp grass
and took in your view, as you must have
when choosing this spot. Gorgeous sky,

summer blue, trees umbrella-full,
an antique tomb sheltering someone
you might written about

standing tall in the distance.
“I wrote you a poem,” I said,
reading it aloud, unaware that

another larger-than-life singer
beloved to many had just died.
I spent the rest of the day weepy,

thinking of you and Dolly and others—
longtime friends both real and imagined—
who’ve graduated to companion spirit

status. Though if you gals were
still embodied, you might suggest
a tweak or two for the poem.

I’m listening for insight from you,
Michigan girl, and the songwriter poet
from Tennessee. Feel free, both of you,

to drop in, humming, any time.

•••

(for Pat and Dolly)

became your favorite phrase,
especially when you two traveled
the world, strangers showing up
to guide you,

she, driving, preferring to get lost,
to happen upon the happenstance,
you, capable co-pilot, navigating.

This is how it is with best friends,
women who understand each other,
particularly the unspoken bits,
she the extrovert, you the in-.

Who are you now without her?

She who always had things to say,
who bought just-right gifts and wrote
to so many she loved, sending cards
from around the globe.

She who once wrote in a 3 a.m. email
to a niece, “Blank page. I’ll fill it.”

And, of course, she did, with words
that niece still carries, as do you, who
embody the love of this buoyant woman
so many of us followed,

off for a little explore in the after,
perhaps happily lost, delighted
by the next luminous adventure.

•••

for Leilani Hu Yang in memory of her best friend,
Patricia Beach Smith (Aug. 23, 1943–May 13, 2026)

Near the end of the money
she gives a dollar to the man
on the corner with a sign
asking politely,

and, returning to her car,
silver on the ground
winks at her.

She picks it up,
richer.

When did she tuck it away with
the pink jacket and hat? And did
Grandma and Grandpa buy it
for their first granddaughter?

It seems like the ancestor of
every frilly dress they bought
for us two girls with ruffled
petticoats, though all that

remains is the lace-trimmed,
diaphanous fabric with its
thick ribbon. I cannot imagine
myself so tiny, my head

no bigger than an orange,
the bonnet likely obscuring
most of my new-to-the-world
face. I did not know my parents

as church-goers, but they chose
a godmother and went to
Auntie Lo’s church to have
me blessed for eternity,

which I’m pretty sure happens
automatically for the newly
arrived. After all, we’ve just
dropped in from some cosmic

spot into this alien world
where beings are speaking
gibberish to us. We will need
all the spiritual help we

can get, forgetting that we
wee ones are among the angels
who showed up to bestow
a bit of grace on the grownups,

we little ones in our poufy
dresses, kicking our bootie’d
feet as if we’ve been dropped
into the deep end and are

trying to swim toward the light,
toward this foreign air, this life
that none of us—not even
the wise ones—can envision.

Not only the planet, ravaged as it is
by humanity since humans first
stalked the joint like they owned it,
lording their two-footedness
over all others,

but also the ubiquitous five-and-dimes
vanished in the waning moments
of the last century, birds that used to
reliably sing the day anew, along with
your favorite mom-and-pop café and
the ice cream shop on the corner.

And, of course, us.

But not today, my monkey mind jabs at me.
Not today. We may be fiddling, the planet
literally burning in places where wildfire
once seemed as remote as the stars,

but we respond as our neighbors flee
the flames. We offer water and shelter,
those of us who are, for the moment, safe.
Or who feel safe in this moment. In the next,
I might be the one fleeing drought or flood,
coming to you, fellow human, both of us
unwittingly part of the cabal that
engineered this extinction.

But now—right now—I reach my open hand
in your direction. You take it, unclear about
who is helping whom, who is saving whom.
Or for how long.

What matters is that we did. We tried.
We are for however long we have.

I looked it up: 33% to 42% of people
give nicknames to their cars, with
40% of younger drivers doing so.

We Boomers not so much. Except
that I have three close female friends
in my age group who’ve named their

rides—all quite cleverly. These are
the people who are likely to say,
when they learn that I have

a new car, “What’s her name?”
While I’m all for the gender choice,
shouldn’t cars be nongendered,

especially in this day and age?
Apparently, about 55% of drivers
personify their cars as female.

And nearly 73% of drivers who name
their cars say they feel a stronger
emotional bond with their vehicle.

Listen: I find it hard to name pets.
I’ve had cats and dogs for months before
they let me know their names.

But when the photographer in my life
posed the new car and me under
the deep rosy crape myrtle,

I thought, “Maybe she’s Myrtle,”
which surprised me. We call the new
crape myrtle in front of his house

Myrtle. Would that confuse the tree,
to have another Myrtle parked near it?
And such an old-fashioned name—

right up there with Edna, Bertha,
Florence and Mabel. She’s such
a sporty car—shouldn’t she have

a racier name? Doesn’t matter.
I’m a Boomer who has not named
her cars, even the ones I most loved.

But maybe it’s time to turn over a new
leaf, Myrtle. Maybe you’re just the kick
in the pants this old gal needs as you

and I drive together, taking the bumpy
with the smooth, seeing just how far
we’ll go (sing it with me, baby)

on this long and winding road.

•••

Statistics from a survey by the GM Buy Power Card
as reported by CBS news in 2018.

We are all ancestors in training.
—Francis Weller

Whaddya mean, you didn’t know there was a class?
The whole freepin’ thing’s a class, for heaven’s sake.

And we do mean “for heaven’s sake.” That’s why you’re here.
On Earth. In a body. You’re an ancestor in training.

You’ve been studying your whole life. Learning to ride
a bike? Falling off and getting back up? Major lesson.

Your best friend’s dog dies? Advanced class in compassion.
Your dog dies? The one you love doesn’t love you?

The ones you love most die? Heartbreak and tears,
grief and loss—graduate level stuff, at any age.

The hardest of the hard. That’s why there’s so much of it.
Ample opportunity to love much. Practice love and more love.

Along the way—if you do this well—you become a teacher,
then graduate to wise elder. Not everyone gets there,

but we see potential in you. You’re always a student, too,
which is the mark of an exceptional ancestor-to-be,

when you understand that. Yes, life is short. Sure,
sickness and stiffness, pain and illness, death and taxes.

But joy. Gotta practice joy. Spread it around like a good germ.
Shower folks with smiles as if they were free (because they are).

Delight in the smallest things as you take up the hose to water
the old gardenia in the front yard—the tail-wagger leaving

the apartment next door with his person, as they do every day.
The little boy across the street coming home from preschool,

running to the door, that day’s painting in hand, hollering
for his mom. Dad following. Toss them a friendly wave,

you soon-to-be ancestor. Graduation’s right around the corner.
Of course, you’ll pass. Everyone does. You, with flying colors.

I knew I’d been losing them for years,
dropping them like fall leaves here
and there, there and here.

But I never imagined they’d appear
in the little square cigar box that long ago
sat in my closet with other childhood

belongings, consigned by my nearly
15-year-old self to a sturdy packing box
that my father then hefted into the rafters

of the garage. Fifty-three years later
my sister has retrieved the weighty thing
on which my teenaged hand scrawled

in Red Sharpie: “This belongs to Jan”
with a brief list of contents: sand dollars,
artwork, Girl Scout manuals, yearbooks.

Nowhere did it indicate, when I lifted
the lid off the box that had not seen
daylight for 50 years, that I’d find

a cluster of shiny marbles like colorful
pearls waiting for someone to rediscover
them, winking their cat’s eyes at a much

older me, blinking in surprise. So that’s
where they went—not lost, just tucked
away. And now that I’ve found them,

I have no idea if it’s possible to put
them back where I need them
in this aging brain. But look—there’s

a shooter and a clearie, translucent
and air-bubbled, tiny time machines
in this creased palm that holds them,

ricochetting me way, way back to
the then, on the playground with friends,
on my knees, shooting my favorite

glassy green boulder into a chalk circle
polka-dotted with so many marbles
I had yet to lose.

Ripe and ready, one of her offspring
wears a scar, which is not surprising.

Even the young among us acquire
boo-boos, which, if we are lucky,

heal nicely as our growing selves
lengthen and thicken. The early

scars are joined by later ones,
just as Juliet, the lanky tomato plant,

has popped out a good number
of juicy ovals this summer, some

misshapen and odd. A thin line
on one’s side does not dissuade me,

when the fruit is just-right red, from
gently plucking it and bringing it

into the kitchen with several of its
brethren, bound for tonight’s

corn salad. We swallow our scars,
rather than letting them swallow us,

imbibing all that healing that makes
us these perfectly imperfect selves.

To be reminded who we’re meant
to be, stand here still. Look up.

—Kim Stafford, from “Bright Dark Sky”

•••

We are meant to be vast, like the sky,
why birds draw our eyes upward,

why trees’ long limbs and great height
do, too, why the susurrus of wind

though leaves reminds us that what
can’t be seen is powerful beyond

the heart’s measure. We are large,
as the poet said, contradictory, yes;

we contain multitudes. And when
we are still, standing in our infinite

selves, looking up, we see that
we, too, are sky, the blue-black sky,

day and night, cloudy and bright,
astronomical, limitless, extraordinary.

•••

susurrus: a light whispering or rustling sound like wind through leaves; a murmur.