Güd wrtr

The little patch of earth I steward
today opened its mouth to gratefully
receive what might well be the last
precipitation of the season,

living, as I do, in the land of little rain,
which makes me thankful, too,
for what humans do to collect it
and protect it,

makes me think of the finally
free-flowing Klamath River
far north of my home turf,
wrangled into submission

by the water-hungry occupiers
more than a century ago,
dammed in more ways than one,
at last set free, now recovering

as its indigenous defenders
have wanted for a hundred years,
salmon swimming ever farther
upstream to spawn,

the baby salmon now starting
their journey to the ocean in
water that those who know
it best once called putrid.

Now, they’ll tell you,
the river, at long last,
smells sweet.

•••

I’m grateful to have heard this story featuring Amy Bowers Cordalis
of the Yurok Tribe and the author of “The Water Remembers”
describing the recovery of the Klamath River since the last
of its four dams was removed in October 2024.

Every step is part of the journey.
—Brother David Steindl-Rast

•••

Begin, the good brother advises,
with a pause and a deep breath.
Then ask the question:

What am I carrying into this moment?

Every step becomes a pilgrimage,
a journey to a sacred center,
one that transforms,

even if we do not feel the shift.
Intentional step after intentional
step keeps us on our path,

though mine is likely not the same
walkway as yours. What you carry
is not what I carry into this moment.

Yet we both take one step at a time
toward what all beings want: love,
self-compassion, courage

and understanding. We ground
with each step; we unfold. May we
remember to set down what

is not ours to carry. Lighter,
then, may our wings carry us
wherever we need to go.

You know that thing that happens
when you think you’ve got
the thing down—

you’ve been practicing the thing
ad nauseum bit by bit
here and there for weeks—

and you go to do the thing,
confident that you can do
the thing—because you had it,

you really had it, during all
that practice—and then it
becomes abundantly clear

that you don’t have the thing
down when it really matters,
making you wonder what

all that practice was for,
which sends you right back
to practicing, your jaw now

set in its most determined
posture, because you are
going to get that thing down

if it’s the last thing you do,
which is when that little voice
of… well, who knows who…

nudges you with its ethereal
elbow and says, “Honey, relax.
You’re bound up like a rubber

band ball. It’ll happen if you
just relax.” And you sigh, letting
your jaw soften into its naturally

jowly state, and you think of
whoever it was in the long ago who
made you laugh when he said,

“We’re having fun, dammit!”
And you remember it was the one
you called Father, sitting out there

in the dark, applauding his girl
up there in the band, playing her
little heart out. She didn’t have

that thing down perfectly either.
She still doesn’t. But she is having
fun, dammit. She really is.

(for Cliff)

I plant a single tomato plant in your memory,
a slender sprig about a foot tall that will,
if she follows the directions on her little stake,
produce small, torpedo-shaped orbs
perfect for plucking and popping
in the mouth.

Her name, according to her little plastic
license plate, is Juliet.

This is another act of faith, which I am
inspired to propagate because of the massive
number of annual and perennials I have tucked
into soil this spring, nudged by my garden
godmother friend.

You annually stuck springs of tomatoes-to-be
by the back fence, the sunniest place in the yard.
But since the sycamore tree has been trimmed
several times since your departure, more sun
falls on the little bed by the garage.

And since that is the spot where a mural
of brightly growing greenery now lives,
I hope it might inspire the little plants
looking up at it.

Following the advice of the nursery plant
counselor, I trundle home a wire cage not
unlike a hoop skirt to cradle the seedling.
Loosening its roots, nestling it in place,
transports me to long-ago summers here
when wooden half-tubs that formerly aged
wine sprouted cages and tomatoes—
a solution after our poaching dog developed
a fondness for the fire-engine red fruit.

That was another thing I learned from you:
Tomatoes are botanically fruit, though we think
of them as vegetable, because, of course, we can
be more than one thing at a time—like Juliet,
flesh and spirit growing out of the good earth,
lingering in the air.

(for Rose Varesio on her birthday)

we are wild particles of time
whirling to find each other as we drift apart
our lives sharpened and made wider
if we can survive the velocity of love

—maria popova

•••

Love speeds by us and through us
in a forward direction, not looking back,

leaving us winded when it’s had its way
with us. But here’s velocity in action

as buds appear, tight and green,
then through no human interference

take on the shape of roses-to-be
before unfolding their origami selves

into lush fragrance. How is that not
love? Yes, it will too soon relax into

itself, allowing for a graceful end,
but are we not made wider,

have we not flourished in the flowering?
We wild particles of time have done

much more than survive. Love has
blossomed in us and ever does,

as the beloved forever lives in us
season after season.

Plant something, suggests a wiser mind
than mine. Which I’ve been doing.
Literally.

And when the noise of cruelty and oppression,
of war and meanness vibrates through me
like a tuning fork,

I go to the nursery. As if I need more plants.
Bring them home. Water them. Speak kindly
to them.

“We do not need to see the whole future to begin.
We need to know where to put our hands.
And then we need to keep going.”

I put my ungloved hands in the dirt,
doing what is possible, a tiny possibility,
that might,

with enough water and sunlight and love
outlast this moment. And another.
And another.

Even if it dies, as it surely someday will,
As I surely someday will. Though what
I plant

might well outlive me,
as the dirt under my nails will
remind me for the rest of the day.

•••

(The quote in the fourth stanza is from the Rev. Cameron Trimble,
which inspired this poem. You can find her good writing here.)

Bee daisy, too,
bee butterfly bush,
though the fragrant

purple spears have
yet to make their
appearance.

All kinds of bees—
fat fuzzy ones,
lithe black ones,

bee-like hoverflies with
their three pairs of commas
tattooed on their backs—

all pollinators seduced
by the come-hither
blossoms begging

for a fly-by. The here-
today-gone-in-a-few
flowers create urgency

in those winging in
for a swish and a sip.
Or maybe it’s the other

way ’round—perhaps
the busy bees prompt
the blooming, their buzzy

business sounding
the call to the tightly
budded—”We’re here!

Time to come out
and play!” And they do,
insects and flowers like

kids on a playground,
full of motion,
full of light.

The companion spirit who knows me best
drops in at the oddest times, often with
a can’t-miss-this message that might

as well be a burning bush. Driving
down H Street toward home, I see on
the rear end of a Toyota pickup:

TELUWHT

Reading it, grinning, I say aloud,
“What, Clifford?” as if he’s making a
suggestion from the passenger seat.

And when, at a stoplight, the driver sticks
his arm out the window, hand flexed
in a wave, I laugh as the line beams

into my brain: “Tell you what, Toots.”
And though I still don’t know what what
he meant, I’m pretty sure it doesn’t matter.

Message received, babe. Back at’cha.

becomes home, no matter how long we lived there,
long enough for some to set down slender tendrils of roots

or far longer so as to embed ourselves in the earth,
whether welcoming loam for growing things or hardpan

or desert or dirt below a city that never sleeps. Our soles
left impressions in that ground, whether we loved it or not,

that implanted itself in us, who claimed it as home—
these foothills goldening under broad-topped oaks

spreading their arms wide, a refuge for birds we seldom
hear in our grownup city lives. Why must we have to leave

before we realize how much that landscape shaped us?
When might we see how much we shaped it, too?

Riding the elevator down
to the basement, the university
music professor warns that it might
feel a little creepy down there.

Though I spent time with bands
and percussion instruments in this
building more than a half century ago,
I’ve not been in its bowels.

But an old xylophone lives there
in a huge room of extra instruments,
and the kind professor drags it
into the long tube of hallway

where, with the first strike of a mallet,
I know it is the perfect practice place.
Just as my mother and three other
quartet ladies loved to warm up

in a tiled bathroom, as I know to look
for a hard-surface floor on which
to park a marimba or xylophone,
I learned long ago to appreciate

the resonance of a pure space,
even with a bit of echo, to practice.
Even better to do so solo where
I am the only one hearing

the hits and misses on xylophone
keys that, on this vintage model,
have literally taken many beatings
but still sound OK. Not unlike

the old girl percussionist trying
to get her chops back after a long
absence, running the same passages
again and again, till she gets it,

if not perfectly, then better
with each try, regaining long-ago
confidence and a little more
competence with every note.