had I known yesterday
how today
I would long for any part of any word
I would have sung three hosannas

in her sixth year
cabbage palms
and knife fights
replaced
long bike rides

Grandmother,
what secrets did you whisper
to your quilting friends
in hushed tones, lest the menfolk hear?

Great grandfather Angelo dreamed
of America, the beautiful land
where Count Bettoni
could not tell him “faster!”

From your mountain village
you looked this way
in a dream that filled
your whole belly
with food and children.

Every time I sing that folk song, I think of the Stehekin River, formed by glaciers of the North Cascades and flowing into Lake Chelan in North Central Washington. That old river changed dramatically during our second winter living on its banks, and the “Flood of ’95″ left its mark on me.

Stare in the morning shroud
and then the day began
I tilted your cloud,

A beautiful young woman, Lily Grimaldi, is delivering her first baby on the kitchen floor of her grandmother’s old farmhouse in the country. Helping her is hunky first love and former husband (and uncle) Holden Snyder. Damien Grimaldi, her current and third hunky husband — and the father of the baby — is enormously jealous of Holden.

You know by now not to judge a book by its cover. You should also know not to judge a heart by its visible mechanical support system.

I may not look like your idea of a heart patient, but I am one.