Watching the enthusiastic lady
ferns spread their wings like
green swans against the fence,
I am aware that, with their
seasonal emergence that I do
nothing to prompt,
they have swallowed the rose
bush that lives beneath them,
I trust that they are sheltering
it, rather than killing it. Every
fall, when the ferns die and I
cut their brown stalks
to the ground, there’s the rose.
I try to remember her
promise:
“I’m under here. I’m fine.
Patience, dear one.
You’ll see me again.”
“Crazy bastards,” my father used to say when
he saw young people doing dangerous things—
like riding motorcycles or hot-rodding motorboats
on the lake on hot summer days—this from a guy
who had famously water skied barefoot in his 20s.
“Probably drunk,” he’d say, no stranger to a Manhattan,
though, as a responsible grown-up all about safety,
he did not drink and drive—boats or cars.
My father’s condemnation swept through my head
like a Delta breeze on the first day of July when
I read that two people in their early 30s on
the actual island of Manhattan had needle-climbed
the Empire State Building’s 200-foot spire,
unfurling a black flag that read:
When the power of love beats the love of power
the world knows peace.
Even with the forgotten comma after the introductory
clause (like this one—give your self-editor a rest, Jan),
my old heart softened, turning to moosh when I read
that Ivan Beerkus had proposed to Angela Nikolau as they
stood atop the off-limits-to-the-public landing (duh!)
before climbing down and being arrested (double duh!).
But what a story to tell their kids, huh? Or anyone, really.
“We climbed 1,454 feet in a rebellious act of devotion,”
they can boast. The power of love, indeed.
Crazy bastards, for sure. But oh, how I’m applauding
those two lovebirds, flying in their own way to
a spot most of us mere mortals can only (thankfully)
imagine—all, yes, all—in the name of peace.
•••
If you’re up for a literal birds’ eye perspective, you can watch the video
of Ivan Beerkus and Angela Nikolau’s Empire State Building
spire-topping view here.
If you’d like to read The New York Times story, you can do so here.
(for the original BFF, Dr. Susan Lester, upon her
retirement as a veterinarian, Nevada City, California)
1. At age 9, sit in a circle on the floor with your
best friend next door and her younger sister
along with a cardboard box of month-old kittens.
2. Outside the biggish box, have a smaller box
of fresh kitty litter waiting.
3. Lift one kitten gently from one box
into the other.
4. Gently lift one of kitten’s front legs
and direct it to paw the gritty surface.
Note: Some kittens will resist this.
OK, most kittens. They will sniff.
Some may, as babies do, try to eat
the sandy stuff. Discourage this
by picking up kitten and gently
distracting it.
5. Return kitten to litter box. Try again.
6. Watch as kitten, quite on its own,
figures out, scratching sand or not,
that this is a place to go.
7. You and your de facto sisters heartily
congratulate kitten—and selves—
for a “job” well done.
All these years later, you recall that these
kitties, along with every pet you met,
were the ones who began to train you,
quite unaware, that you’d be spending
much of your adult life with kitties
and doggies, caring for thousands
of four-leggeds who, along with
their two-leggeds, are beyond
grateful to and for you.
Job well done, Dr. Sue.
Rising early, for me, to see
lamby clouds frolicking across
a field of soft blue overhead,
barely 70 degrees, and, stepping
outside to retrieve and refill water
and food bowls for those who stop by
for drinks and nibbles.
I am stunned to see this pleasantness
post-solstice, late June, when
the rays of Hades often hammer us
in northland of the great Central Valley
of this golden state.
All signs point to a perfect day,
and, before I can sink into gratitude,
I wade in the mucky pool of what’s
coming—the infernal heat and days
when the famous Delta breeze
has taken herself off to other parts.
But standing in the sunshine,
empty bowls in hand, looking east
over the tops of lanky sycamores
with more decades on them than mine,
I smile into the bright.
Soak it in, something in me whispers.
This day with writers gathered
around a table, with time later
to stand in the yard, hose in hand,
watering and marveling over
what’s growing. Maybe I’ll even
pluck one of the pearls of reddening
tomatoes strung from lacy strands.
This day, perfect, truly, of many
this summer to admire and cherish—
as I’m reminding myself to do—
with you, my beloved, at the end of it.
•••
(for Dickie)
Watching Juliet, the tomato plant,
grow tall and feathery of leaf,
I’ve also been charting the emergence
of her offspring, consulting Farmer Google—
“How do you know when homegrown
tomatoes are ripe?”—feeling a bit ditsy
because, duh, when they’re red, right?
Which is true, apparently, but also,
I learn, when they go glossy red
and come off easily in the hand.
One does today as I water,
bending to feel up a small cluster.
Woo-hoo! Tomato No. 1!
“Good job, honey!” I say to Juliet,
who, I’m pretty sure, blushes.
I gently hose this first harvest,
debating: to eat now or to save?
I’m tempted to pop it into my mouth,
relish the squish, but I pause to take
a photo, aware that if things continue
this way, I’ll become a bit blasé,
awash in small red ovals.
And though I know he already knows,
I say into the ether, “Tomato, Clifford!”
feeling his smile through the veil.
He grew them decades ago in this yard,
the man who’d pluck a ripe one fresh
off the vine, bring it into the kitchen
and, as I watched, rinse and cut it
into chunks, dropping one from his
dripping hand into my mouth, then
one into his, each of us grinning as
we savored the squish,
full of faith on those hot days
that felt like forever that there would
be more, so many more, for summers
and summers to come.
do rainbow flags hang over the bar.
They’re year-round décor, part of
the furniture with the pool table
and the barstools with concave
centers that have held untold
numbers of butts over the decades.
What stories those stools—
and backsides—could tell, even if
they weren’t there in 1969,
when the bar’s name
became synonymous with
long overdue resistance.
Where the sign hangs, framed,
in the foyer, perhaps the one
once nailed to the door:
This is a raided premises
Police Department
City of New York
The rainbow flags hang, though
no one there needs reminding,
as badges of freedom,
of people’s right to exist, again,
in this moment, having to,
again, insist on such a thing
on this day in June when
resistance again flares its
gorgeous mane, full of pride
in this modest little bar
in Greenwich Village
called the Stonewall Inn.
•••
On June 28, 1969, New York police raided the Stonewall Inn bar on the pretext that it was selling alcohol without a liquor license. It was the third raid in a row on a Greenwich Village gay bar—the second on the Stonewall in a week—and this time, outraged patrons didn’t disperse but gathered on the street and actively resisted police. The ensuing unrest lasted five days and inspired activism around the country. It was a galvanizing and symbolic event in the struggle for LGBTQ rights. On the first anniversary of the uprising, inaugural gay pride parades were held in New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Chicago. They have continued annually around the world ever since.
The Stonewall Inn bar is now a national monument.
She walked in the nail salon
as I sat on my throne,
a kind young man at my feet,
and he and I both looked up
at the one so pregnant
who’d come for the same kind
of pampering my old feet were
gratefully receiving, thanks to
Eric’s masterful massage.
Two women came to stand
by her, one putting a gentle hand
over the babe inside: “How long?”
“A month,” said the mom-to-be.
And I smiled—about a month
away from my own birthday.
As she waddled to her own
throne, it hit me: This was you
68 summers ago, waiting for me.
She has your raven hair, this lady
in waiting, though her face is the color
of coffee with cream while yours
was vanilla milkshake. But I see you
as I have not, weighted with child
and impending responsibilities,
mixed with how-will-I-do-this?
fears, which every parent must have.
I wouldn’t know; I chickened out.
Now it’s June, and while today is
a mild one with a sweet breeze, heat
will come, and a baby. But now
one foot soaks in warm water as
one of her heavier-than-usual calves
is kneaded by a woman with strong
hands and her own children at home—
one who knows. And I wish that you
could’ve had pedicures in 1958—
it took you another half century
to allow such hands-on healing
masked as luxury.
We wish her well with this little
one, don’t we? An easy delivery,
if there is such a thing,
and a baby, unlike me, without
colic, who sleeps easily and long,
and a someone or two
with helping hands that can,
now and again, rub a mother’s
weary feet and calves, painting
pretty pink polka dots
on her toes to remind her
just how much she is loved.
•••
For the pregnant mamas, and the ones who were,
including mine. Thank you, Ma.
(an homage to acupuncture)
Been a minute, but please get in there
with those cat-whisker-thin needles
and loosen up that stuck qi,
unblock that energy, shine up those
meridians and let it flow, baby.
And while you’re at it, can you
jumpstart those pain-quelling
endorphins as I’m nicely wrapped
in a lovely, reclined meditation?
So that when, upon rising, I
find myself acu-stoned—
floating as if I’ve inhaled
the good stuff, which I have,
in a way, as relaxed as if after
a good massage, thinking
of Mom who used to float off
the table after every treatment,
finding her feet again and
me in the waiting room,
delivering her assessment:
“So gooooood.”
Not just because the monthly fee
is automatically snatched from my
checking account, and not simply
because a clean car runs better,
as my father used to say, and not
because it’s easy to drive through,
the driver’s front tire grabbed
by the conveyer, the car and I
pulled through the deluge,
which still makes me grin, as it did
when, in our youth, Dad found
the rare car wash that allowed
us to ride inside, the old Chevy
morphing into a spaceship,
my sister and I watching the deep
blues and fiery reds shimmy down
the windows like liquid star trails,
Dad echoing our ooh’s and ahh’s
as we three were transported
through the magic tunnel.
“Good as Disneyland, huh?”
he’d say, and we, who had
begun our lives an orange grove
away from the Magic Kingdom
had to admit that it was
pretty darn close. I still love
the car wash blues, baptizing
the four wheels that carry me
everywhere, the holy water of suds,
the benediction of the rinse
and the blesséd flap-flap of
lasagna-shaped chamois riding
the windshield. Not to mention
the miracle of emerging clean
and, with luck, a space to sidle
into where a long-nosed nozzle
will suck up the schmutz
on the floor mats, where a
green towel can wipe away
all manner of sins on windows,
Father grinning from his spot
in the firmament,
the car purring like a happy
cat soaking up the attention,
loving all that love.
(for Catherine O’Brien)
And there we sat on her sofa,
our dead husbands prowling
the room like phantom cats,
though she never knew mine,
and I never knew hers, drifting
in, as they do, as we chatted,
my photographer and her artist,
some of his paintings on the walls
wrapping their arms around us,
as if to say, “There, there, girls,
right here with you, you know.”
Because, as mine taught me
long ago, the veil between
their side and ours is so thin,
they pop in as soon as they
hear their names, or even
as we think of them,
bless them,
blessing us.
Güd wrtr 