276/365 Helen L

Philosopher distance
was the space across which
you taught and talked: not an

unmanageable span,
but a cool tanned-arm-stretch,
the shake of your
chin-level hair

punctuation

to the pause as you
imagined appropriate
responses to students' simple
understanding or misunderstanding,

helping us reach
toward a way-of-knowing
not-only-all cerebral.

275/365 Helen Y

You and Mel anchored our end of the block
old-timers who remembered streetcars and
a full-service corner grocery.

Your lifelong feud with Marge-across-the-alley
threatened my relationship with her as you sought
an ally.

Setting another example, you swept
the sidewalk nearly every morning, up earlier
than dawn.

274/365 Stacy H

Elfin landlady, handy gal, prof:
eyes crinkle wisely as you
relay Stefan's questions about a
thermostat, garage opener, mail.

Plaid cowboy shirt: costume? comfy
rejection of an Edina girlhood? the way
to mix-up the nuns and students and siblings
who expect a straighter arrow, un-narrow
searcher who'll find
it.

273/365 Ralph R

Landlords, naturally, can be less friendly
less accommodating than you, easy

occupant of our four-square brick duplex
tender of arborvitae and shoveled walks
weekend refinisher of all wood floors

Lawnmowing your science, not easy
with a wild flowerchild garden
climbing fences, not heeding your need
for order, composure, control

272/365 Lisa F

fronds unfurl
fiddleheads
fingertips
on cotton on ivory
live things they are

copper creases
cupped palms
shining hair
an areola a nimbus
light things they are

map of small towns
scattered wide
varying browns
undulating hills
some with grain some with peaks
linked things they are

271/365 Helen

Hippie-haired and Birkenstock-shod, you work best
when least constrained, a way I recognize:

committee work easy to critique, even to agree, but
hard to complete. The classroom is a better space, students say,

so I'll learn from your curriculum, both technical writing
and environmental literature: sharing shared subjects.

270/365 Mrs. Ferden

Piano lessons

Avocado green carpeting
couch chairs matching

face of brown-paper wrinkling
even at 35, eyebrows arching

pencil evenly drawing
eyes up from teeth overlapping
edged by coffee's staining

Rushing
before one recital, caught wearing

two different earrings:
you introduced the evening's

performances by telling
the audience, laughing

269/365 Toni

Daughter could set any pass, any corner
of the court: agility and grace, slender slipping

into the gap between hitters, skills she must've
learned from you, skillful caterer and server

readying food-and-drink for the masses
Exceptional openness, gracious friendliness,

staffing concession stands, hosting sleep-overs
for volleyball teammates: Good Mom

268/365 Pam M

Good=hearted, good=humored, good with
words as well as box scores

Sitting on metal bleachers for
daughters' games, you filled me in
on a bit of other=parent gossip,
friendly not wicked

Another word=girl, bookish in
Grand Forks: parents settling in northern Minnesota
connections to another generation, the kids' benefit

267/365 Bob&Marie

You stored my dime-store bookshelf
in your garage for months, boxes of
books, old files, boots for the
off-season, a few LPs, teapot.

You taught me teaching, thesis
writing, getting work done
with two children: a proud profession,
even in a small town-and-gown
village, smaller than your
own home neighborhood.

266/365 Alan

Thick-necked, bulb-lipped
perhaps all wrestlers are so.
Big personality for a small
town, shouts on main street
meant no prom date for you
or me.

Now a
blue-eyed blunderbuss, freckles like
sugar crystals, master electrician like
Al, sharing story about former
high-school beauty's air conditioner:
endangering your livelihood.

265/365 Allen

Neighbor nephew visiting summers
from "The Cities"
moustache at fourteen

Dark silky hair, eyes blue as stones
nose long as your cousin's
skin just as pale

We went to movies, mostly, that
summer "Jaws" was popular, its
sudden frights jolting girls
into boys' arms, both laughing
embarrassed yet happy

264/365 Kitty

Grad school
natural intellect
languages came
easily, even
body language

Were you
really Jewish
from California
almost orphaned
or were
such origins
exaggerated
as I
was told
much later

Chicken soup
with black
pepper you
made once
to cure
my cold
and warm
your hands
for dinners
by candlelight

263/365 Annie

Orphaned at eight, you said,
although father still lived
soon with new wife who
liked her own children best

Battered blonde, still clearly
beautiful when smiling, black
lashes plush and lowered, hiding
violet irises, violent memories

Near a year we spent as
volleyball teammates and after,
cigarette smoke lingering

262/365 Kathy W

Were you 52 yesterday? Springy setter with a
Virginia drawl, team-player whose ego edged
up against ability, never quite matching.

Sandy-haired blue eyes, gravel-voiced and
grinning, big-hearted beach bum, landing in
Minnesota for love, bringing the party to each
new kitchen, firepit, double-jetted hot-tub:
optimistic as a new-minted penny.

261/365 Mark D

Finals week, last month, hallway crossing:
wraith-thin in thick, baggy sweatpants
familiar dark-gray vest. All I managed was
"Hey, there" and smile as
you turned towards the men's room.

You died last night.

Smart curmudgeon, irascible
liberal arts guy I respected and tangled with,
alert to your intelligence and commitment
to old-fashioned virtues:
self-respect
hard work
purposefulness
excellence
integrity

You thought students capable of these
certainly
exhibited them yourself,
even as you groused about
institutional innovations and
the shenanigans of our current
late-capitalistic educational enterprise.

Almost never smiled, yet seven years kept
a hallway bulletin board restocked with
historical cartoons, satirical images
showing continuous human folly.

I'll miss
: uncompromising dismissal of stupidity
: unwavering certainty
: quietly scathing critique
: scowl
: you.

260/365 Rick O

Thin-nosed thin friend,
you remind me
that I used
your washing machine
about twenty-three years
ago, the time
incarnate in your
young co-worker, kid
you think of
highly: thank you.

Accidental neighbor, only
other male guest
at a departure
luncheon fixed by
a priest who'd've
liked to've shepherded
us-both.

259/365 Andreas

Speaking German to children
seemed natural to you

Thus you shifted gears
when our kids visited,

hanging out while parents
were in grad school

Studying languages, managing departmental
politics: none of these

things has changed or
diminished, even as a

huge death has defined
what's become your life:

father-mother-son-survivor

258/365 Ginny

Thin as a Q-tip
silver short hair
you played second
base in waist-high
jeans, cotton turtleneck.
We'd compare our
older kids as you
came up to bat, almost
always base-hit. Later, we
crossed paths as you
parented a younger one,
meeting another
mother for consultations,
concerts, adult time.
Serendipity.