Remembrance

Some say there's rosemary, that's for remembrance,
But I say please fill my arms with Russian sage
Growing wide and unwieldy along the gutters of
Second Avenue, planted by earnest and well-intentioned
Xeriscapers wanting to save the world,
But who did not, perhaps, fully understand
The true nature of this aggressive
And sharp-scented beast.

Saturday she pushed her own stroller
All the way home from 7-11,
My two year-old granddaughter, Buster Boots,
Who cannot be contained by a mere strap in a seat.
She meandered beneath an arch of blue stalks
On the street corner that left tiny blossoms,
thick as honey bees, in her unwieldy hair
So when I turned her over to her father that night
She smelled of Slurpee and sun on skin
And sweet, sweet wild sage.

Understory

"Understory: A layer of vegetation beneath the main canopy of forest."

I learned about understory in Alaska

As my friends and I waded through the 

Green grasses beneath the alder trees on

A tiny island in a river as silver as Coho

Salmon while dragonflies flitted 

 Past us in a sheen of blue.

I marveled at the thought of each quiet

Thing--seed and leaf and moss and shrub--

Whispering their stories there 

Beneath the noise of our unhearing feet.

Moment

I once asked a friend which
Emotions he feels most strongly.
Love and fear, he said. And you?
Love and loss, I said. Love and loss.
This morning in a melancholy mood
I felt the urge to count those losses
Just as the moon, solemn and silent,
Counts her stars like coins each night.
I began listing the things I miss--
Oh, the sound of certain voices
And the feel of those voices
All around me.
But then I saw a daylily,
Its dawn-pink petals, curved and fluted,
Arching above a spray of green leaf,
And it must be said in the moment
I was distracted by delight.

Sawdust

This morning on our walk,
Sally said the smell of sawdust
Takes her back and
Almost makes her cry,
Which made me think of
My grandpa's garage
Where he worked as
The town mechanic,
Tinkering with trucks and cars,
While telling tales to the
Old men who wandered
Inside and bought
glass bottle sodas, then
Sat on chairs and window sills
Like elders of a gas station church.
I saw them again this morning--
My grandfather and his friends--
When Sally remembered sawdust,
And I missed them all,
Along with the scent of oil on concrete.

To the Moon (and Back)

I make it a point to check in with You each night
Usually through my bedroom window
But sometimes from my front porch where
I can see shining You, riding high in an inky sky.

Fifty years later we're all watching You tonight
After men landed like gnomes in your lunar gardens.
We were in California that day, our parents and
My brothers and I, on one of Dad's recruiting trips.

It was their anniversary, a small step for mankind,
An enormous step for them,
So Dad announced, "Yessir, your mother sent me 
To the moon and back."

Mom, who was knitting, punched him in the arm.
Not in front of the children.
Dad laughed while 13 year-old me felt
Mortified for them both.

Turn up the radio, I said
Or maybe I only wanted to say it.
But when I see You tonight, the laughter
Will unspool from me now like my mother's yarn.

In the Heart of the City

On our walk through the grassy cemetery this morning
The brown dog stopped and stood at attention,
Quivering like a new recruit on his first day at boot camp.
I followed her yellow gaze and saw
The thing following us--
Another dog, I thought at first,
But less brown than mine,
Its dull coat shot through with gray and gold,
Prick-eared, lean-legged and steady-eyed,
Its yellow gaze unafraid.
Not a dog, I realized, but a coyote,
The desert trickster surprising
Me and the brown dog this morning
On our walk in the heart of the city.

Solstice

What was Solstice like in Finland?
I ask my husband on this summer's eve.
We are sitting together on the patio,
Watching a granddaughter blow soapy bubbles.
I only remember the long white nights
and the bonfires lit by the lakes.

It's not much of a memory but
I can see it all and more, lily-of-the valley
and birch branches strewn like leafy wings
on the shores of burning seas where
the mermaids call each to each.
And yes. I hear them call to me.