Search

for Janet

Begin
from the premise
that your life’s your own
again

and you are free
to tear through reedy fields
shouting now, now, now
at diving chickadees

as if you were a dog awakened
after death passed by,
and now, all paws akimbo,
means this time

a sacred work,
a wishing well, a friend
who sets her task aside,
and offers: walk with me

so we can cast the penny of ourselves
like planting seed
for flowers we can’t name,
expecting, this time, soil

beneath our nails, our hearts
like children at their roadside stands
with lemonade and grace.
We stand before the vast

and meditate on serendipity, our pulses
in our hands like yarn:
talk with me
about our library of dreams,

our fingers soft across the pages,
spinners in their web, memorizing pattern,
fate, slipping on
like handmade socks.

On a friend’s retirement, I wanted something that would usher in her next season with the same kind of excitement that always comes with getting out of school for summer. There’s an explosive energy of a world pulsing with opportunity, a kind of manic drive to run that has no real object or desire but release. Rather than seeing herself as concluding, I wanted to offer a sense of beginning. Her dog entered the poem when I found out this friend had spent a large portion of the preceding months ministering to the dog she thought was dying. The dog recovered. The dog’s actual name is Grace. My favorite image, that library of dreams, is the collection this retired librarian now curates, in between knitting projects. “Search” seemed appropriate for someone who dedicated her career to helping others find.