July 31: "Stones," Everyday Miracles, Mary Moment

Mary Oliver is a fan of the stones . . .

Stones

by:  Mary Oliver

The white stones were mountains, then they went traveling.

The pink stones also were part of a mountain before

the glacier's tongue gathered them up.

Now they lie resting under the waves.

The green stones are lovelier than the blue stones, I thought

     for a little while,

then I changed my mind.

Stones born of the sediments tell what ooze floated down

     the outwash once.

Stones born of the fire have red stars inside their bodies,

     and seams of white quartz.

Also I admire the heft, and the circularities 

as they lie without wrists or ankles just under the water.

Also I imagine how they lie quietly all night

under the moon and whatever passes overhead--say, the floating

      lily of the night-heron.

It is apparent also how they lie relaxed under the sun's 

      golden ladders.

Each one is a slow-wheeler.

Each one is a tiny church, locked up tight.

Each one is perfect--but none of them is ready quite yet

to come to the garden, to raise corn

or the bulb of the iris.

If I lived inland I would want to take one or two home with me

just to look at in that long life of dust and grass,

but I hope I wouldn't.

I hope I wouldn't take even one like a seed from the sunflower's face,

like an ant's white egg from the warm nursery under the hill.

I hope I would leave them, in the perfect balance of things,

in the clear body of the sea.

My favorite image in this poem:  "Each one is a tiny church, locked up tight."

Most of us don't give a whole lot of thought to the stones beneath our feet.  I know I don't.  Yet, stones have stories and histories.  Ice ages.  Meteor ages.  Volcanic ages.  Moon ages.  Sun ages.  Somehow that pebble got from the top of a mountain or the bottom of sea into your shoe.  When you pick up a beach rock and skip it across the surface of a lake or ocean, you are probably undoing hundreds, if not thousands, of years of stone migration.

Stones are these everyday miracles that nobody takes the time to notice.  

Spend enough time with Mary Oliver, however, and your miracle antennae become a little more finetuned and sensitive.  I now go through my days on the lookout for wonder.  A finger of sunrise scratching the belly of a lake.  A rabbit sipping dew off grass.  Loon laughter in moonless cattails.  I call them Mary Moments.

Today's Mary Moment happened early this morning for me.  I was taking my puppy out for her morning backyard ablutions when I looked up into the branches of my lilac bushes.  There was the sun, trapped in its leaves.  I stood there, dazzled to stone for several seconds before the gravity of the day pulled me back into action.

A small miracle.  A tiny church, unlocked for a fraction of a heartbeat for Saint Marty. 

July 30: "The Roses," Less Complicated Life, Lighthouses

Mary Oliver takes time to smell and listen to the roses . . . 

The Roses

by:  Mary Oliver

All afternoon I have been walking over the dunes, hurrying from one thick raft of the wrinkled, salt roses to another, leaning down close to their dark or pale petals, red as blood or white as snow.  And now I am beginning to breathe slowly and evenly--the way a hunted animal breathes, finally, when it has galloped, and galloped--when it is wrung dry, but, at last, is far away, so the panic begins to drain from the chest, from the wonderful legs, and the exhausted mind.

Oh sweetness pure and simple, may I join you?

I lie down next to them, on the sand.  But to tell about what happens next, truly I need help.

Will somebody or something please start to sing?

Roses have come to symbolize a lot of things, most commonly love and devotion.  Even each color of rose means something a little different.  Red roses, passion or romantic love.  Pink, admiration or friendship.  White, innocence and purity.  Yellow, joy or platonic friendship.  Orange, enthusiasm or desire, and purple, enchantment.  I'm not sure that Oliver is attaching any kind of specific meaning to the sea roses she encounters, aside from wonder and gratitude.

It has been a slow day.  Keep in mind, "slow" is a relative term.  Perhaps I should have used the word "slower" instead, because none of my days are actually slow.  But, today, I only had to play keyboard for two church services this morning and then take care of some computer stuff for school.  Took my puppy for a couple long walks.  About mid-afternoon, I napped.  That's right, I slept with the sun high in the sky, which I never do.  I had to today.  Because I couldn't even keep my eyes open.  My body didn't give me a choice.

I wonder sometimes if I'd be a happier person living a less complicated life.  A Mary Oliver life.  Or at least the life I imagine Mary Oliver had, full of long solitary hikes followed by extended periods of writing followed by a plain, healthy meal.  Now, I'm sure this vision of Oliver's life is far from reality, but it's the one I've created after reading and writing about her poems for going on eight months.  This is my version of Mary Oliver.  Sort of like the version of Thoreau everyone clings to--him carving out a life on Walden Pond by himself with just an ax, pen, ink, and paper.  Never mind that Thoreau was actually living in Emerson's backyard and often had dinners with the Emerson family while living his deliberate life in the woods.  (Hate to burst anyone's Thoreau bubble.)

Maybe people like Oliver and Thoreau are lighthouses, beacons guiding us across frothy waves and winds to an existence of deliberate happiness.  This is how things should be is what they are telling us, even if they didn't always follow their own advice.  I mean, Thoreau was an industrial innovator, inventing new ways to make pencils, and Oliver taught writing at universities.  Translation:  their lives weren't wild blueberries and birdwatching all the time.

But Oliver inspires me to look for blueberries and birds every day.  Reminds me that there are things more important than money and work and success.  There are sea roses, red as blood, white as snow, and they make the world sing.

That is the harbor Saint Marty is anchored in tonight.  Pure and simple.

July 29: "You Are Standing at the Edge of the Woods," Best Friends from High School, Bald Eagle

Mary Oliver lives with mystery . . .

You Are Standing at the Edge

of the Woods

by:  Mary Oliver

You are standing at the edge of the woods

at twilight

when something begins

to sing, like a waterfall

pouring down

through the leaves.  It is

the thrush.

And you are just

sinking down into your thoughts,

taking in

the sweetness of it--those chords,

those pursed twirls--when you hear

out of the same twilight

the wildest red outcry.  It pitches itself

forward, it flails and scabs

all the surrounding space with such authority

you can't tell

whether it is crying out on the 

scarp of victory, with its hooked foot

dabbed into some creature that now

with snapped spine

lies on the earth--or whether

it is such a struck body itself, saying

goodbye.

The thrush

is silent then, or perhaps

has flown away.

The dark grows darker.

The moon,

in its shining white blouse,

rises.

And whatever that wild cry was

it will always remain a mystery

you have to go home now and live with,

sometimes with the ease of music, and sometimes in silence,

for the rest of your life.

Oliver never has a problem living with mystery.  So much of what she writes is about encountering the unexplained in the forest and simply accepting it without need for explanation or answer.  She hears the thrush, which she identifies immediately, and then she hears something else, a wild red outcry, that leaves her poetically breathless and confounded.

I had a Mary Oliver moment like this tonight.  My family and I had dinner with one of my best friends from high school who is visiting from Florida.  Prior to meeting up with my friend, my wife and I decided to go for a walk because we had some time to kill.  So, I drove to Lake Superior, and we walked along a breakwall jutting out into a sort of cove..

The evening was blue and sunny, and the waves sparked with light.  As my wife and I headed back toward shore, we saw a bald eagle dive down and snatch a large fish from the water.  The fish batted and squirmed in the eagle's talons for a few seconds.  It was magnificent to see.

The eagle landed on the breakwall about 30 feet or so away from us.  It started digging into its dinner with claws and beak while a particularly persistent seagull circled overhead, perhaps waiting for sloppy seconds.  After a couple minutes of snacking, the eagle snatched up its meal and pounded back into flight for a minute or so.  Then it landed on the breakwall again.  The seagull kept circling and screaming, not venturing close.

Finally, the eagle snatched the fish in its talons and took off again.  This time, it headed toward land.  It ended up abandoning the fish carcass on the shore and perched near the top of a tree.  It sat there, cocking its head, hunching its back, watching the small crowd of people gathering beneath it, like some member of the royal family posing for pictures.

It was a fully mature eagle, as its head was white as the North Pole.  And it didn't seem skittish, despite all the humans stupidly standing below, taking pictures and chattering with excitement.  That's what mystery does--it forces us to stop whatever we're doing and take note.

And I took note, after a long and tiring day of church and schoolwork.  

Saint Marty imagines the eagle is still sitting in that tree right now, its crown glowing like a piece of misplaced moonlight in the dusky air.

July 28: "Blue Iris," Meaning and Purpose, My Daughter

Mary Oliver wonders who she is . . . 

Blue Iris

by:  Mary Oliver

Now that I'm free to be myself, who am I?

Can't fly, can't run, and see how slowly I walk.

Well, I think, I can read books.

               "What's that you're doing?"

the green-headed fly shouts as it buzzes past.

I close the book.

Well, I can write down words, like these, softly.

"What's that you're doing?" whispers the wind, pausing

in a heap just outside the window.

Give me a little time, I say back to its staring, silver face.

It doesn't happen all of a sudden, you know.

"Doesn't it?" says the wind, and breaks open, releasing

distillation of blue iris.

And my heart panics not to be, as I long to be,

the empty, waiting, pure, speechless receptacle.

This is who Mary Oliver is:  a glass waiting for water, a canvas waiting for paint, a piece of paper waiting for poetry.  I've spent a good portion of my life wondering who I am and who I long to be.  A lot of people spend their whole lives doing the same thing--always searching for meaning and purpose. 

I think I was meant to be a poet.  Everything that's happened in my life has led me to this moment right now, sitting on my couch, reading Mary Oliver, and contemplating what it means to be a poet.  Because there really isn't an official job description, in case you haven't noticed.

Sure, most of you are thinking that a poet is a person who spends a lot of time pondering things that nobody really cares about, like green-headed flies and wind and blue irises.  I'd lay down money that most of you are also thinking, "Who needs poets?"

Yes, the world needs more doctors and teachers and medical researchers and physicists and mechanics.  I know this.  When a person I love gets sick, I don't read them a William Carlos Williams poem.  When my car breaks down, I don't try to fix it by reading "I Heard a Fly Buzz."  When I'm hungry, I don't search through the fridge for Pablo Neruda's "Ode to a Lemon."  

However, when I'm grieving, I may pay a visit to Gerard Manley Hopkins.  When I'm suffering from insomnia (which is most nights), Maggie Nelson is right there with me in all her blueness.  When I need to celebrate, I can always count on Billy Collins to raise a glass of wine with me.  And when I need to be grateful, I have Mary Oliver.  

Who needs poets?  We all need poets.

This evening, we took our daughter out to eat.  She took the MCAT today, which was the culmination of four years of college education and two months of preparation, studying eight hours a day.  Here's where being a poet comes in handy.  It helps me to find words to express what I'm feeling tonight.

I've said it before, but it bears repeating:  my kids are the greatest poems I will ever write.  They fill me with wonder and awe.  My daughter amazes me.  My son makes me laugh every day.  Mary Oliver gets it right:  the job of a poet is to be an empty, waiting, pure, speechless receptacle.  When it's time for me to give my Nobel Prize acceptance speech, I may just hold up a picture of my kids.

Saint Marty's glass is more than full tonight,  It's overflowing.

July 27: "Mink," Book Club, Hunger

Mary Oliver encounters a . , , 

Mink

by:  Mary Oliver

A mink,

     jointless as heat, was

tip-toeing along

     the edge of the creek,

which was still in its coat of snow,

     yet singing--I could hear it!--

the old song

     of brightness.

It was one of those places,

     turning and twisty,

that Ruskin might have painted, though

     he didn't.  And there were trees

leaning this way and that,

     seed-beaded.

buckthorn mostly, but at the moment

     no bird, the only voice

that of the covered water--like a long,

     unknotted thread, it kept

slipping through.  The mink

     had a hunger in him

bigger than his shadow, which was gathered

     like a sheet of darkness under his

neat feet which were busy

     making dents in the snow.  He sniffed

slowly and thoroughly in all

     four directions, as though

it was a prayer to the whole world, as far

     as he could capture its beautiful

smells--the iron of the air, the blood

     of necessity.  Maybe, for him, even

the pink sun fading away to the edge

     of the world had a smell,

of roses, or of terror, who knows

     what his keen nose was

finding out.  For me, it was the gift of the winter

     to see him.  Once, like a hot, dark-brown pillar,

he stood up--and then he ran forward, and was gone.

     I stood awhile and then walked on

over the white snow; the terrible, gleaming

     loneliness.  It took me, I suppose,

something like six more weeks to reach

     finally a patch of green, I paused so often

to be glad, and grateful, and even then carefully across

the vast, deep woods I kept looking back.

Everyone has hunger in their lives, just like the mink.  The mink, it seems, is on the prowl for food, following the smells from all four directions, unsure which way will yield dinner.  Going north may offer up salmon or venison.  South, fried green tomatoes.  West, guacamole and chips.  East, hot dogs and chili fries.  Food is the mink's primary motivation.  He's chasing his nose.

Tonight, I met with my book club.  We had barbecue and talked about black cake and the end of the world.  This after a day of meetings and emails at the library.  It was good to sit in my friend's backyard, laugh, eat, talk, and relax.  Yes, you can unwind discussing dystopian literature--it's sort of like eating your last meal before being executed.  

Think about it--if you know it's your last day on this planet, what food would you choose to eat?  Who would you hang with?  I love grilled bratwurst.  Love talking literature with smart, funny people.  Love warm summer nights that stretch on and on, jointless as heat, as Oliver says.  Tonight was a perfect way to kick off the weekend.  With people I love, eating good food, talking about great writing (or bad writing--doesn't matter).

My book club has been meeting for over 20 years.  Members have come and gone.  Some moved away.  Some got busy raising growing families.  Some died.  My mother used to be a member, and my sister, Sally (although she never read the books--she just showed up for the food and to play with my kids).  The core group who show up have been my friends for over two decades.  They have seen me at my best and worst, and they still keep coming back for more.

The gathering broke up just as dark clouds stacked up in the sky.  By the time I hit my hometown's city limits, it was a full-on torrent.  The kind of storm that makes it impossible to see more than two or three feet in front of the car.  The rain was slicing through the air sideways, and the trees along the streets were a chaos of wind and lightning.

Sometimes, you don't know you're hungry until you start eating.  I didn't know how much I needed a meal of laughter and friendship until we sat down at the table with our plates.  Usually, at the end of long days, I become J. D. Salinger.  I don't want to talk to anybody or give people directions or be social in any way.  Tonight, I had a three-hour dinner conversation about healthcare and plagues and family and cults and secular saints, and it was like medicine for my exhausted mind and spirit.

Saint Marty gives thanks for literate friends who are more like family.  And for cleansing rain.  Hallelujah and amen.

July 26: "Winter at Herring Cove," Retrospective Falsification, 1980s

Mary Oliver and a remembrance of seals . . . 

Winter at Herring Cove

by:  Mary Oliver

Years ago,

in the bottle-green light

of the cold January sea,

two seals 

suddenly appeared together

in a single uplifting wave--

each in exactly the same relaxed position--

each, like a large, black comma,

upright and staring;

it was like a painting

done twice

and, twice, tenderly.

The wave hung, then it broke apart;

its lip was lightning;

its floor was the blow of sand

over which the seals rose and twirled and were gone.

Of all the reasons for gladness,

what could be foremost of this one,

that the mind can seize both the instant and the memory!

Now the seals are no more than the salt of the sea.

If they live, they're most distant than Greenland.

But here's the kingdom we call remembrance

with its thousand iron doors

through which I pass so easily,

switching on the old lights as I go--

while the dead wind rises and the old rapture rewinds,

the stiff waters once more begin to kick and flow.

Memory is a tricky thing.  Oliver's recollection of these two seals could be completely factual.  Or not.  She acknowledges the slipperiness of the mind.  Every experience is both instant and memory.  The moment something happens, it becomes remembrance, and that remembrance is tinged with retrospective falsification, where the brain filters out the negative, leaving only the warm and fuzzy.  Retrospective falsification is the reason why women will endure childbirth more than once.  The pain and suffering of labor is erased by the joy of holding a newborn child.

Looking back on "the good old days" is something we all do.  I was a child of the 1980s.  That means the soundtrack of my youth was Michael Jackson, Madonna, Tina Turner, Bruce Springsteen, Billy Joel, and Simple Minds, among others.  Big hair, parachute pants, ripped jeans, and Miami Vice pastels.  E. T. the Extraterrestrial, Dead Poets Society, and The Breakfast Club.  In my nostalgic mind, it was a great decade to grow up in.

Of course, Ronald Reagan was President of the United States.  The AIDS epidemic killed millions.  The space shuttle Challenger exploded.  John Lennon was assassinated.  People were in a satanic panic.  And Betamax cassettes came and went.  So, not everything was sequins and moonwalking.  Retrospective falsification is hard at work.

I don't want to go back to the 1980s.  Being a teenager kind of sucked in all of its painful awkwardness.  I remember the constant feelings of inadequacy and low self-esteem.  My inability to ask the person I was crushing on to go to a movie.  I was a mess in a quiet, straight-A-student kind of way.  I didn't even get truly black-out drunk until my senior year of high school.

Tonight, when I got home from the library, it was around 9 p.m.  The houses in the neighborhood were bathed in a kind of golden summer light that appears only around dusk in July or early August.  I took my puppy for a trot around the backyard, and she flushed a rabbit out of the lilac bushes.  I could smell barbecue--someone had grilled some hot dogs.

I love this time of the year, when the hullaballoo of Independence Day subsides and what's left are long days of sun and blue, blue sky.  Is the world a perfect place tonight?  No, but it's really not about perfection.  It's about being content.  That's what I am tonight, Donald Trump and Canadian forest fires notwithstanding.

In short, for Saint Marty, it's the best of times, it's the worst of times.  Right here.  Right now.

July 25: "The Loon," Insomnia, "Blue Jay"

Mary Oliver has trouble sleeping . . . 

The Loon

by:  Mary Oliver

Not quite four a.m., when the rapture of being alive

strikes me from sleep, and I rise

from the comfortable bed and go

to another room, where my books are lined up

in their neat and colorful rows.  How

magical they are!  I choose one

and open it.  Soon

I have wandered in over the waves of the words

to the temple of thought.

                                        And then I hear

outside, over the actual waves, the small,

perfect voice of the loon.  He is also awake,

and with his heavy head uplifted he calls out

to the fading moon, to the pink flush

swelling in the east that, soon,

will become the long, reasonable day.

                                                  Inside the house

it is still dark, except for the pool of lamplight

in which I am sitting.

                                       I do not close the book,

Neither, for a long while, do I read on.

Like Oliver in the poem, I suffer from insomnia.  Often.  My squirrel brain won't turn off at night until late.  Then I wake long before daylight with the same thoughts running up and down the trees in my head, and I'm even more tired than when I closed my eyes.

I met a poet friend this morning to do some writing.  Over the last couple weeks, I've been so busy that I haven't had a chance to do much poeming.  I've been a little . . . overwhelmed with life.  Too much going on.  Currently, I'm being pulled in several directions at once, and I can't work up a whole lot of enthusiasm for any of those directions.

After writing this a.m. with my friend, I did feel a little more centered.  Like I could face the day without locking myself in the bathroom for a quiet panic attack.  My friend is always good for helping me find balance. 

I'm not out of the woods, and the squirrel in my skull is still chattering away.  However, my poet friend said to me as I was leaving her house, "I'm so glad you have Mary Oliver to keep you company."

Mary does have a way of putting Saint Marty's life into perspective.

Blue Jay

by:  Martin Achatz

                   Sleep and I have never been

best friends, more like neighbors

who greet each other at the end

of a work day, both of us

in our driveways, talking weather,

how the summer is quickly tipping

toward autumn.  In early morning dark,

I sit on my couch, stare out the living

room window at the sleeping world.

                    Night stretches 

on like some black Lake Superior,

no horizon in sight.  Then, 

as light finally begins to break

open the heavens, a blue jay flits

into a pine, sits there, gazes at me.  

I can almost see myself in the onyx 

of his eyes, as if I'm some painting 

he's come to admire.  He shifts his head, 

regards me from several angles, contemplating,

meditating, like I'm  the answer 

to his blue jay prayer. 

                    Or he's the answer to mine.  

July 24: "Summer Poem," Ice Cream, Flossing My Teeth

Mary Oliver enjoys the heron's poem . . . 

Summer Poem

by:  Mary Oliver

Leaving the house,

I went out to see

the frog, for example,

in her shining green skin; 

and her eggs

like a slippery veil;

and her eyes

with their golden rims;

and the pond

with its risen lilies;

and its warmed shores

dotted with pink flowers;

and the long, windless afternoon;

and the white heron

like a dropped cloud,

taking one slow step

then standing awhile then taking

another, writing

her own softfooted poem

through the still waters.

Some days, it's an accomplishment just to get out of bed in the morning.  Other days, it's a victory if you remember to put on underwear.  And then there are days when you work and work from sunrise 'til past sunset, and you don't seem to accomplish a whole lot of anything.

I've literally been sitting with my laptop all day long, editing a podcast, answering emails, and writing scripts.  It is now past 10 p.m., and I'm feeling a little empty.  A couple hours ago, I went and got ice cream with my wife and son.  Actually, they got ice cream, and I got a vanilla malt.  Since it was a beautiful summer evening, a lot of people had the same idea.  There was a lot of Mackinac Island Fudge being sold tonight.

Mary Oliver's summer poem is filled with frogs and ponds and lilies and pink flowers and a softfooted heron.  My summer blog post is about work and exhaustion and ice cream.  I didn't sit down with my journal to work on a new poem today.  Aside from the vanilla malt, I really didn't feel very inspired by anything.

I've been writing about Oliver's poems for over seven months now, and, in my head, I've developed an image of her and her life.  It probably isn't very accurate.  I think she was a quiet person who didn't go out of her way to say "hello" to strangers.  A creature of habit, she rose before dawn every day and went for a hike before breakfast, saying "good morning" to the birds and frogs and snakes of Blackwater Pond.  Then, after a cup of good, strong coffee, she sat down on her front porch with her pen and journal.  And she wrote.  The poems flowed out of her like breath.

That's my version of Mary Oliver.  As I said, it's probably highly inaccurate.  Today's poem is Oliver's version of summer, with all of its inherent Mary-ness.  After having spent so much time in Oliver's company now, I could have guessed that "Summer Poem" belonged to her.  Just the poet heron at the end sort of gives it away.

If anyone read all 5,349 posts on Saint Marty, I'm sure a certain version of me would emerge.  It wouldn't be quite as idealistic as the Mary Oliver in my mind's eye.  Perhaps I'd come across as depressed or angry or exhausted.  Maybe inspired every once in a while.  I can say that, if you imagine me getting up before the sun every day to write for a few hours, like Mary Oliver, you are definitely wrong.  I don't have that kind of energy.

Here is what Saint Marty has energy for at the end of this summer day:  brushing his teeth and flossing.

July 23: "Backyard," Roughing It, Mysterious and Terrifying

Mary Oliver lets things go wild . . .

Backyard

by:  Mary Oliver

I had no time to haul out

the dead stuff so it hung, limp

or dry, wherever the wind swung it

over or down or across.  All summer

it stayed that way, untrimmed, and

thickened.  The paths grew

damp and uncomfortable and mossy until

nobody could get through but a mouse or a

shadow.  Blackberries, ferns, leaves, litter

totally without direction management

supervision.  The birds loved it.

People who live in the city won't get this poem, unless they've spent time traveling and camping.  And I'm not talking a couple days "roughing it" in rented cabins or tenting in Yosemite.  I'm talking about at least three or four weeks where trees and birds are your closest neighbors.  Where you wash up in a cold lake, and text messages are notes left in a spiral notebook.  That's what Oliver is writing about here.

I grew up in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, just about 20 miles from the shores of Lake Superior.  It's not unusual for deer to walk down my street at sunrise or sunset.  Rabbits graze the tall grass of my backyard, and, in winter, the snow behind my house is mapped with animal tracks.  Last spring and summer, there was a patch of fern on the side of my property that was flattened every morning.  Something large and wild slept there every night.  It could have been a bear, although I can't imagine any respectable black bear bedding down in the middle of a somewhat populated neighborhood, even in the middle of the U. P.  Maybe it was Bigfoot setting up camp near a Bigfoot-friendly house.  If you've been in the U. P. for even a little while, you will quickly understand why the idea of Bigfoot doesn't seem so outlandish.

I spent this afternoon and evening at my wife's family's camp.  It's a rustic cabin on an inland lake down a dirt road.  No electricity or internet.  Just water and grass and wood smoke and a sauna.  An occasional sandhill crane.  We sweated, splashed around in the lake.  I took a nap to a soundtrack of wind and waves and an occasional motorboat.  When I woke, the aspect of light had changed.  It was close to 6 p.m., and the sun had started its downward journey.

As I sit writing these lines in my journal, I know that soon we have to pack up and head back to our lives of electricity and streaming services and online grading.  Just now, as I wrote the word "grading," a huge spider crawled across the page.  

This right here, this deep breath moment, is what Oliver is writing about in this poem.  It's about letting the wild be wild, leaving the world without direction, management, or supervision.  A space only mice and shadows can penetrate, and birds sit and sun and sing.  Where my human presence is Bigfoot, mysterious and terrifying, to everything untamed and untamable.

Saint Marty may howl at the moon a little tonight.

July 22: "Catbird," Shiny and Flashy, Backslide

Mary Oliver is not understandable to a . . . 

Catbird

by:  Mary Oliver

He picks his pond, and the soft thicket of his world.

He bids his lady come, and she does,

     flirting with her tail.

He begins early, and makes up his song as he goes.

He does not enter a house at night, or when it rains.

He is not afraid of the wind, though he is cautious.

He watches the snake, that stripe of black fire,

     until it flows away.

He watches the hawk with her sharpest shins, aloft

     in the high tree.

He keeps his prayer under his tongue.

In his whole life he has never missed the rising of the sun.

He dislikes snow.

But a few raisins give him the greatest delight.

He sits in the forelock of the lilac, or he struts

     in the shadow.

He is neither the rare plover or the brilliant bunting,

     but as common as grass.

His black cap gives him a jaunty look, for which

     we humans have learned to tilt our caps, in envy.

When he is not singing, he is listening.

Neither have I ever seen him with his eyes closed.

Though he may be looking at nothing more than a cloud

     it brings to his mind a several dozen new remarks.

From one branch to another, or across the path,

     he dazzles with flight.

Since I see him every morning, I have rewarded myself

     the pleasure of thinking that he knows me.

Yet never, once has he answered my nod.

He seems, in fact, to find in me a kind of humor,

     I am so vast, uncertain and strange.

I am the one who comes and goes,

     and who knows why.

Will I ever understand him?

Certainly he will never understand me, or the world

     I come from.

For he will never sing for the kingdom of dollars.

For he will never grow pockets in his gray wings.

Human beings have spent so much of their time on this planet trying to understand how the universe works.  Why is the sky blue?  Why is that bird red?  Why does the moon grow bigger and smaller?  There are so many "whys" to answer that we forget just to enjoy the turquoise sky or cardinal in winter or waxing moon over a lake.

And, worse yet, humans try to put value on everything.  Even in the poem, Oliver says that the catbird is common as grass.  Ordinary.  Nothing to write home about.  Unlike the brilliant bunting or rare plover.  Anything remarkable and different is worth more--you will never see an engagement ring with a chunk of cement as its centerpiece, or an opera written about a ballpoint pen.  The human imagination is like a magpie, attracted to the shiny and flashy.

But poets recognize the value of the non-flashy.  They write odes to artichokes, villanelles about ladybugs, sonnets for hot dogs.  Oliver, in particular, placed great importance on the unimportant.  Elevated the commonplace.  Found wonder every day of her life in milkweed and catbirds.  And when you encounter the wondrous all the time, it's pretty difficult to have a bad day.

If you are long-time disciple of this blog, you already know that I've been struggling with sadness and depression for close to a year.  In the last month or so, I've notice that my days have been filled with more sun and laughter.  It wasn't a shift that happened suddenly.  I didn't wake up one morning with a bluebird sitting on my shoulder, whistling in my ear.  It was more like the appearance of blueberries after a long, hot, dry summer.  Little pieces of sweetness and color.

Today, I've noticed a little bit of a backslide for me.  All day long, I've been pushing through mud, trying to keep my head above water.  I feel tired and overwhelmed.  I played two church services this evening, and I did a serviceable job.  No Bach or Mozart preludes.  Today's only real miracle was the fact that I made it through twelve hours without crawling back into bed and pulling the covers over my head.  

I'm hoping tomorrow will be better.  That it will be a catbird kind of day where there is little to worry about or fret over.  After all, as Oliver points out, a catbird doesn't sing for money or fame or recognition.  A catbird sings for joy and happiness and love of small things.  Shadow and sun.  Dandelions.  

Saint Marty doesn't need water changed into wine.  He'd be satisfied finding a green M&M on floor.

July 21: "While I Am Writing a Poem to Celebrate Summer, the Meadowlark Begins to Sing," Insect-Song, Alleluia

Mary Oliver sings her anthem, her thanks, her alleluia . . . 

While I am Writing a Poem to Celebrate Summer,

the Meadowlark Begins to Sing

by:  Mary Oliver

Sixty-seven years, oh Lord, to look at the clouds,

the trees in deep, moist summer,

daisies and morning glories

opening every morning

their small, ecstatic faces--

Or maybe I should just say

how I wish I had a voice

like the meadowlark's,

sweet, clear, and reliably

slurring all day long

from the fencepost, or the long grass

where it lives

in a tiny but adequate grass hut

beside the mullein and the everlasting,

the faint-pink roses

that have never been improved, but come to bud

then open like little soft sighs

under the meadowlark's whistle, its breath-praise

its thrill-song, its anthem, its thanks, its

alleluia.  Alleluia, oh Lord.

Yes, summer is a time to say thanks and alleluia.  Because the world is warm and blooming with green-song, bird-song, insect-song, star-song.  It's really easy to be grateful for days that are so full of life that everything seems to be singing.  

It's Friday evening, and I am beat.  I'm not feeling, at this point and time, very thankful for anything except the fact that it is the beginning of the weekend.  But Saturdays and Sundays simply bring a different kind of work for me.  Tomorrow I play the keyboard at two different Catholic churches in the afternoon.  Then, on Sunday morning, I play for a Lutheran church.  I will spend most of the day tomorrow practicing music.

But I will sleep in a little bit tomorrow morning.  Won't set an alarm.  Maybe I'll go for a walk when I roll out of bed.  Take in some of the sun and birds and flowers and trees.  Say a little "alleluia" for them.  Or maybe I'll stay in my pajamas, have breakfast, and read a book or write a poem.  I could say a little "alleluia" for that plan, as well.

When I started typing this post, I had every intention of writing an anthem to summer, just like Oliver.  Alleluia for the sun that doesn't disappear from the sky until well past 10 p.m.  Alleluia for the green, green grass in my backyard, and the rabbits that feed there.  Alleluia for a sky so blue that it could start humming "Blue Bayou" in Roy Orbison falsetto.  Alleluia for crickets tuning up for tonight's midnight concert.

However, I'm a little too drained for all those alleluias.  

Instead, I'm going to finish writing this post, publish it, and then dig into the couch for the rest of the night.  Maybe find some classic old movie like Casablanca or The Breakfast Club on a streaming service.  (Yes, The Breakfast Club is almost 40 years old.  That makes it eligible for classic status.)  And I'm just going to . . . not think about anything.  

Can Saint Marty get an "amen" and "alleluia" on that?

July 20: "Spring," Apollo 11, Betelgeuse

Mary Oliver on the lust of spring . . . 

Spring

by:  Mary Oliver

All day the flicker

has anticipated

the lust of the season, by

shouting.  He scouts up

tree after tree and at

a certain place begins

to cry out.  My, in his

black-freckled vest, bay body with

red trim and sudden chrome

underwings, he is

dapper.  Of course somebody

listening nearby

hears him; she answers

with a sound like hysterical

laughter, and rushes out into

the field where he is poised

on an old phone pole, his head

swinging, his wings

opening and shutting in a kind of

butterfly stroke.  She can't

resist; they touch; they flutter.

How lightly, altogether, they accept

the great task, of carrying life

forward!  In the crown of an oak

they choose a small tree-cave

which they enter with sudden quietness

and modesty.  And, for a while,

the wind that can be

a knife or a hammer, subsides.

They listen

to the thrushes.

The sky is blue, or the rain 

falls with its spills of pearl.

Around their wreath of darkness

the leaves of the world unfurl.

For over seven months, I've been exploring the universe with Mary Oliver as my guide.  She inspires me to be a better caretaker, person, and poet.  I've always had a great respect for the mysteries of nature, and Oliver fully embodies those mysteries.  She asks questions without needing answers.  Observes without having to explain.  All around her, leaves unfurl, rain falls, and birds laugh and sing.  

Human beings are inherently curious animals.  That's hardwired into us.  We like to understand how things work, from the subatomic to the celestial.  Perhaps that's the divine part of ourselves.  If you believe we are made in the image of God, then the need to create and comprehend is just a reflection of the great Poet who wrote us into existence.

Today is the anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing, and Neil Armstrong taking that one giant leap onto the lunar surface.  Fifty-four years ago, three human beings were kicking up dust in the Sea of Tranquility, and the entire planet was watching.  I'm sure it felt like humankind had just reached up and touched the face of God.

Yet, in the grand scheme of things, we still don't understand a whole lot.  We've made great scientific and technological advances, yet we're still pretty much those apes at the beginning of 2001:  A Space Odyssey encountering the monolith for the first time.  We still kill each other over waterholes and exploit resources.  

I was an astronomy nerd when I was a kid.  I know that's hard to believe, given my current state of coolness.  I had a cheap telescope, subscribed to Astronomy magazine, and got geeked about things like eclipses and meteor showers and sunspots.  I can't tell you how many nights I spent studying the surface of the moon, imagining what it was like to walk on its powdery landscape.  

I never wanted to be an astronaut or physicist.  Didn't study laws of motion or Einstein's relativity.  I was just enthralled with the idea that, when I saw Betelgeuse shining in the heavens, that light was 430 years old.  By looking up at the stars, I was literally peering through a window into the past.  Pretty cool.

Mary Oliver probably found that pretty cool, too.  The past shining down on the present into the future.  Time travel, in a way.  When the light from Betelgeuse hits Earth tonight, that light came into being a couple months after playwright Christopher Marlowe was murdered in England and Mumtaz Mahal, Queen of India and inspiration for the Taj Mahal, was born.  

We are surrounded by miracles, each and every day.  We just don't pay that much attention to them, from Oliver's flicker to Galileo's mountains on the moon.  The universe is unfurling around us, and we're just hatchlings, really, looking up at the blue, blue sky from the bowl of our nest, hungry and desperate.

That's Saint Marty's one small step of a blog post tonight.

July 19: "The Dipper," Purple Rain, Bright Side of Life

Mary Oliver remembers . . . 

The Dipper

by:  Mary Oliver

Once I saw

in a quick-falling, white-veined stream,

among the leafed islands of the wet rocks,

a small bird, and knew it

from the pages of a book; it was

the dipper, and dipping he was,

as well as, sometimes, on a rock-peak, starting up

the clear, strong pipe of his voice; at this,

there being no words to transcribe, I had to

bend forward, as it were,

into his frame of mind, catching

everything I could in the tone,

cadence, sweetness, and briskness

of his affirmative report.

Though not by words, it was

a more than satisfactory way to the

bridge of understanding.  This happened

in Colorado

more than half a century ago--

more, certainly, than half of my lifetime ago--

and, just as certainly, he has been sleeping for decades

in the leaves beside the stream,

his crumble of white bones, his curl of flesh

comfortable even so.

And still I hear him--

and whenever I open the ponderous book of riddles

he sits with his black feet hooked to the page,

his eyes cheerful, still burning with water-love--

and thus the world is full of leaves and feathers,

and comfort, and instruction.  I do not even remember

your name, great river,

but since that hour I have lived

simply,

in the joy of the body as full and clear

as falling water; the pleasures of the mind

like a dark bird dipping in and out, tasting and singing.

I wish I was the kind of person who could listen to a birdsong and say, "Why, that's a red-breasted honeysuckle" or "I believe that's a silver-backed swan swallow."  This morning, when I was letting my puppy take a stroll in our backyard, I heard a loon chuckling in the morning sun.  (Loons aren't too hard to identify if you've seen On Golden Pond enough times.  Just imagine a feathered Katherine Hepburn singing "Happy Birthday.")

Looking back over my last few posts, I've realized that what I've been writing has been a little heavy.  Actually, a lot heavy, between my father's birthday and my sister's birthday and school mascots.  I haven't had a lot of time for levity in the last week or so.  That doesn't mean that I've been in bed for seven days with the covers pulled up over my head.  That means that the soundtrack of my life has been more "Purple Rain" than "Don't Worry Be Happy."  

So, I decided when I woke up this morning that I was going to look on the bright side of life.  (You may whistle at this point, if you feel so inclined.)  After all, even in the dark times, there's still moments of light--leaves and feathers and comfort and instruction.  And birdsong.

It started raining at around 4 p.m. this afternoon, and, just like that, the outdoor concert I had scheduled at the library became an indoor concert.  Some things in life are bad.  They can really make you mad.

The rain wasn't a surprise.  I spent the entire day tracking the weather front pushing into the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, hoping against hope that some divine hand would reach down and push the rain to the north or south of us.  It didn't happen.  Other things just make you swear and curse.

But I didn't let that get my spirits down.  I made a few adjustments, put a couple things on social media, and suddenly everything was fixed--music, musicians, and audience remained dry and warm, and nobody got electrocuted.  When you're chewing on life's gristle, don't grumble.  Give a whistle.  And this'll help things turn out for the best!  And . . . 

The concert was wonderful, with people dancing and clapping and singing along.  Now, I'm home, tired, and watching Close Encounters of the Third Kind, which is one of my favorite Steven Spielberg movies.  Nobody ever remembers it.  I think it's one of his best.  Plus, anything with Richard Dreyfuss is worth a seeing.  Always look on the bright side of life.  (Whistling.)  Always look on the light side of life.

I have used up most of my peopling skills today.  I am now in Bigfoot mode.  Ready to sit in the dark and just  . . . be.  Maybe go outside and howl at the trees and clouds.  Knock on some trees.  And . . .

Always look on the bright side of life.

Saint Marty whistling.

Always look on the light side of life.

July 18: "Carrying the Snake to the Garden," Mascots, Hypersensitive

Mary Oliver and a snake . . . 

Carrying the Snake to the Garden

by:  Mary Oliver

In the cellar

was the smallest snake

I have ever seen.

It coiled itself

in a corner

and watched me

with eyes

like two little stars

set into coal,

and a tail

that quivered.

One step

of my foot

and it fled

like a running shoelace,

but a scoop of the wrist

and I had it

in my hand.

I was sorry

for the fear,

so I hurried

upstairs and out the kitchen door

to the warm grass

and the sunlight

and the garden.

It turned and turned

in my hand

but when I put it down

it didn't move.

I thought

it was going to flow

up my leg

and into my pocket.

I thought, for a moment,

as it lifted its face,

it was going to sing.

And then it was gone.

A lot of people have a phobia about snakes.  I'm not one of those people, and, apparently, neither was Oliver.  There's something almost maternal in Oliver's treatment of the tiny snake in this poem, the protectiveness and admiration parents feel watching their child compete in any kind of contest, whether it's football or forensics.  There's always an impulse to step in when things go wrong and scream with pride when things go right.  That's what being a parent is all about.

A few days ago, I wrote a post about a local school district that was considering retiring the Native American nickname and mascot of its sporting teams.  Of course, the arguments from both sides of the issue were heated, mean sometimes, and emotional.  It's difficult to change something that has been in place for around 70 years, whether it is right to do so or not.  Old timers and some new timers plant their flags on the hill of tradition.

Last night, in a very close vote after a very long and contentious meeting, members of the school board made the decision to remove the nickname and mascot permanently.  And today people are losing their minds on social media, threatening school board recalls and changing their Facebook profile pictures to the image of the now former mascot of the school.

Obviously, the United States has been a fractured country for quite a while.  Politics has torn us apart, mainly because of the election of a President of the United States who, rather than trying to bring about unity, threw gasoline onto the dumpster fire of his administration every day he was in office.  Don't misunderstand me, though.  The problems that came to a head during Donald Trump's presidency existed long before he was elected.  Trump simply gave permission to some of the worst elements of society to display their hate publicly without repercussions.  

Most of my disciples know which side of this mascot issue I support.  It's not my goal with this post to change anyone's opinion.  I know what I say here isn't going to make any difference when it comes to prying open minds that have been closed for a very long time.  People are entitled to their feelings.  However, when those feelings harm other people, then there's an issue.

I saw a Facebook post from a friend of mine this morning, an alumnus of the school in question.  My friend was incensed by the decision of the school board.  He claimed that last night's vote was evidence of how we've become too hypersensitive about things like nicknames and mascots.  Because he has Native American ancestry and his grandfather had no problem with the school's mascot, my friend doesn't understand why any Indigenous person should be upset by it.

I find my friend's position a little baffling, as he is a member of the LGTBQIA+ community.  If anyone should understand the need to be hypersensitive regarding this issue, I would have assumed it would be him.  Rest assured, if the school's mascot was a drag queen and nickname was "The Fags," he would have been the first person advocating for change.

We can't pick and choose whom it's okay to offend or not offend.  I said it in my last post about this subject, and I will say it again:  if only ONE student is uncomfortable because of the school's nickname and mascot, that's one student too many.  No child, adolescent, or young adult should have to swallow shame or anger because of a 70-year-old tradition.  Slavery was a tradition in the South for 300 years until the Civil War.

In today's poem, Oliver takes the tiny snake out of her basement and releases it into her garden.  Because it's the right thing to do.  The little snake deserves care and compassion.  We need to follow Oliver's example when it comes to our children.  ALL of our children.

If you are reading my words and are angry, I'm not sorry.  I'll tell you what I am sorry about.  I'm sorry that I live in a country where racism and misogyny and homophobia are so ingrained in the national psyche that we don't even recognize things that are racist or misogynistic or homophobic.  And then we pass those beliefs down to our children through school mascots and nicknames, for example, perpetuating the problem.

That's something to get pissed about.

And if that makes Saint Marty hypersensitive, so be it.

July 17: "Softest of Mornings," Sister's Birthday, Crossword Puzzles

Mary Oliver on the . . .

Softest of Mornings

by:  Mary Oliver

Softest of mornings, hello.

And what will you do today, I wonder,

     to my heart?

And how much honey can the heart stand, I wonder,

     before it must break?

This is trivial, or nothing:  a snail

     climbing a trellis of leaves

          and the blue trumpets of its flowers.

No doubt clocks are ticking loudly

     all over the world.

I don't hear them.  The snail's pale horns

     extend and wave this way and that

as her finger-body shuffles forward, leaving behind

     the silvery path of her slime.

Oh, softest of mornings, how shall I break this?

How shall I move away from the snail, and the flowers?

How shall I go on, with my introspective and ambitious life?

Even the softest of mornings, filled with honey and the slow crawl of a snail, can break your heart.  In fact, it is the softest of mornings that can break your heart the most.

Today would have been my sister Sally's 62nd birthday.  I woke up on this softest of mornings knowing that, thinking that, feeling that.  She's been gone for eight years now, but I still have this gaping space in my introspective and ambitious life.  She was glue, and she was foundation.  In every sense of the word, she held our family together.  Christmases happened because of her.  Birthdays and Thanksgivings and Halloweens.  She was Santa Claus AND the Great Pumpkin AND the Easter Bunny.

I could spend hours talking about her generosity of spirit.  If I ever ran into financial problems because of emergency car or home repairs, she would transfer money into my account without even telling me.  No strings attached.  No questions asked.  If my kids wanted something extra special for their birthdays or Christmas (or any other day of the year), she would get it for them because their joy was her joy.  If I was struggling with a major life decision, she would sit me down, listen to me, and then offer me advice, without any pressure to follow that advice.

But I'm not going to talk about any of that.  I want to talk about a softest of mornings moment with Sally.

Sally and I worked together at an outpatient surgery center for close to 15 years.  She was the director, and I was the business office person.  This arrangement may not have worked all that well with other siblings, but she and I understood each other.  Kept it professional when we were on the job.

On Saturday mornings, Sally and my family used to meet up at McDonald's for breakfast.  We would pile into the playroom, and she would buy my kids pancakes and chocolate milk and Diet Coke.  If we stayed long enough for the breakfast menu to change over to lunch, she would buy them chicken nuggets and fries.  While the kids crawled through the play structure, we would sit at a table and do crossword puzzles together.  (She would save the daily crosswords from the newspaper all week, so we usually had a pile of them to complete.)  

That was our Saturday mornings, and sometimes a little of our Saturday afternoons, as well.  Nothing earthquaking happened.  We talked a lot.  Laughed a lot.  Sometimes ate a lot.  And it was like watching a snail crawl up the trumpet of a blue flower.  Gorgeously slow and beautiful.  A deep breath after a week of stress and hard, hard work.  We didn't talk about office stuff.  We just enjoyed the honey of each other's company and love.

I think back on those softest of mornings now.  They weren't monumental.  No, they were so ordinary that they blend together in my mind.  I thought that I would always have those Saturday mornings with her, just like I thought Sally would be around when my daughter graduated from high school, when my son got his driver's license.  

It didn't work out that way.

I have moved past from those snail Saturdays with Sally, when it seemed like we had all the time in the world to be together.  

Yes, on the softest of mornings, time does stand still, even though the planet is still spinning on its axis at one thousand miles per hour and our lives with it.  That's the way the universe works.  

But Saint Marty would give anything to do one more crossword puzzle with you, Sally.  Happy birthday.

Strawberry Picking

by:  Martin Achatz

for Sally

You took me strawberry picking
once, drove out to a farm
where we paid to squat in green
beds laced with tongues of red.
I could feel my ears and neck
tighten under the punishing
sun as we filled Morning Glory
ice cream buckets with our
harvest, each berry looking to me
like some vital body part,
an organ or muscle necessary
for life. You sat on your haunches,
fingers staining red, as if you
were some battlefield surgeon
patching up the fallen with only
your hands. Every now and then,
you would lift a berry to your lips,
eat it in a hummingbird moment,
smiling the smile of the freshly
healed at Lourdes, where miracles
are common as empty wheelchairs
or dandelions in a July field.

The days since you’ve been gone,
I see strawberries everywhere,
in a welt of blood on my lip
after shaving, a stop sign,
a friend’s dyed hair,
my son’s sunburned shoulders,
oxygen in the gills of a perch.
Last night, I stood outside, under
ribbons of borealis, watched
them glide between the stars
like garter snakes in a midnight
Eden. The Bible says that, in the cool
of the day, Adam and Eve heard
God taking a stroll through
the garden. There were probably
peacocks nesting in the pines,
a stream talking with moss and stone,
the scurry of mole and spider
in the ferns.

That’s what I believe you heard
in your last moments of breath.
You heard peafowl screams,
brook trout leaps. Grasshopper wing
and corn silk. And you heard
his divine toes in the grass, walking
along. When he came to you,
he couldn’t resist. He reached down,
plucked you from the stem. You were
ripe. Sweet. Ready. He put you
in his Morning Glory bucket, continued
on into the dew and sunlight.

July 16: "Can You Imagine?", Poetry Breaks, Tired Mind and Spirit

Mary Oliver exercises her imagination . . . 

Can You Imagine?

by:  Mary Oliver

For example, what the trees do

not only in lightning storms

or the watery dark of a summer night

or under the white nets of winter

but now, and now, and now--whenever

we're not looking.  Surely you can't imagine

they just stand there looking the way they look

when we're looking; surely you can't imagine

they don't dance, from the root up, wishing

to travel a little, not cramped so much as wanting

a better view, or more sun, or just as avidly

more shade--surely you can't imagine they just

stand there loving every

minute of it, the birds or the emptiness, the dark rings

of the years slowly and without a sound

thickening, and nothing different unless the wind,

and then only in its own mood, comes

to visit, surely you can't imagine

patience, and happiness, like that.

So, most days, I don't exercise my imagination much.  Too busy with grading and library work and such.  I wish I had more time to contemplate things like the life of trees, the way Oliver does.  I do try, at least a couple times every 24 hours, to take what I call a poetry break.  Sometimes, I sit and write for 20 or so minutes.  Other times, I take a walk outside with my phone, taking pictures of sights that inspire some kind of emotion in me.

I'm not saying these poetry breaks fill me with the patience and happiness of trees.  In 20 minutes, I can't really thicken with time rings.  Yet, I can enjoy the wind or rain or sudden dark clouds on the horizon.  This practice, a fairly recent addition to my days, keeps me more centered.  That doesn't mean I've become Mary Oliver or Wendell Berry or John Muir.  That means that, for 1200 seconds, I'm not thinking about anything else but beauty and surprise and poetry.  Then I jump right back into the swamp of the day.

I was pretty exhausted when I got home from Calumet late this morning.  After unpacking and answering some texts and emails, I took a nap (another luxury for me).  It wasn't a choice.  I was so tired that I couldn't string two words together.  When I woke up, I indulged in a poetry break that lasted a little over an hour.  That's right, 60-plus minutes spent reading poems and planning the online poetry workshop I led tonight.  I read work by Liam Rector and Marcus Jackson and Stuart Dybeck and Mary Oliver.  Wrote in my journal.  Listened to the breeze outside my window.

Now, it's a little past 10 p.m.  I finished my workshop a little over an hour ago.  Then I had to troubleshoot some Internet issues on a couple laptops.  I was planning on doing some schoolwork, but I can feel my mind slowly unraveling now.  In a few minutes, the only thing I'll be able to concentrate on is a bowl of ice cream and a bad Stephen King movie on a streaming service.

But, spending time with my poetry peeps was great medicine for my tired mind and spirit.  A two-hour poetry break before another week in the swamp.

Saint Marty did write this poem tonight, with a little inspiration from Mary Oliver . . . 

One Wild and Precious Life

with thanks to Mary Oliver

by:  Martin Achatz

What is it I plan to do, Mary?  I plan

to love each day like a ripe peach full

of sweetness and fuzz.  I plan to love

my family the way color and curve loves

the heavens after a rainstorm.  I plan to love

my friends the way you loved that grasshopper,

feeding her sugar from your palm, letting her

wash her face and then fly away.  I plan to love

a lot, because that's what the crickets

tell me to do every night, all night:

love us, love us, love us, love us.

July 15: "Just as the Calendar Began to Say Summer," Important Lessons, Calumet

Mary Oliver on things she didn't learn in school . . . 

Just as the Calendar Began to Say Summer

by:  Mary Oliver

I went out of the schoolhouse fast

and through the gardens and to the woods,

and spent all summer forgetting what I'd been taught--

two times two, and diligence, and so forth,

how to be modest and useful, and how to succeed and so forth,

machines and oil and plastic and money and so forth.

By fall I had healed somewhat, but was summoned back

to the chalky rooms and the desks, to sit and remember

the way the river kept rolling its pebbles,

the way the wild wrens sang though they hadn't a penny in the

     bank,

the way the flowers were dressed in nothing but light.

Mary Oliver didn't learn the most important lessons of her life from a textbook or in a classroom.  Instead, she listened to the rivers and wrens.  Observed blooming flowers.  Those were her greatest teachers.  Sure, you can learn about iambic pentameter and metaphor in a traditional educational setting.  However, studying prosody and figurative language is not the same as whispering a Shakespearean sonnet in your love's ear in the dark.

It's a matter of experience.  You can read every manual available about flying an airplane, but that won't make you a pilot.  Yes, education is wonderful and important.  I've been a college professor for close to 30 years now, so obviously I value classroom learning.  However, everybody doesn't learn in the same way.  I've had students who thrive in a traditional classroom setting and students who struggle and, oftentimes, fail.  Because their brains just aren't wired for learning like that.

I'm still in Calumet tonight.  I just finished performing in a radio variety show, and now I am back at the hotel, dead tired.  There's not a whole lot of wisdom in my head right now.  I sort of feel like I used to feel at the end of a school year or semester of college:  completely and totally devoid of brain power.  I've taken my final exams, and now the switch in my head has flipped to "off."

And that's okay.  I don't have to tap into my creative spirit until tomorrow evening, when I'm leading a poetry workshop.  Even then, I may write complete and total shit.  And that's okay, too.  Summer is in full swing.  The trip home from Calumet tomorrow morning will be green and beautiful.  Pretty soon, wild carrot will be blooming in the ditches and culverts along the highway, filling the air with lace.  July lessons.

School is always in session for me.  I don't remember the last time I had more than a couple days of complete and total break, unplugged from the university and the library and all my other obligations.  There are no rivers rolling their pebbles or wild wrens singing.  No flowers dressed only in light.  My life is not a Mary Oliver classroom.

Saint Marty is now going to collapse for a few hours before rejoining the living world.

July 14: "Where Does the Temple Begin, Where Does It End?", Father's 96th Birthday, Bardo

Mary Oliver on things you can and and can't reach . . .

Where Does the Temple Begin, Where Does It End?

by:  Mary Oliver

There are things you can't reach.  But

you can reach out to them, and all day long.

The wind, the bird flying away.  The idea of God.

And it can keep you as busy as anything else, and happier.

The snake slides away; the fish jumps, like a little lily,

out of the water and back in; the goldfinches sing

    from the unreachable top of the tree.

I look; morning to night I am never done with looking.

Looking, I mean not just standing around, but standing around

     as though with your arms open.

And thinking:  maybe something will come, some

     shining coil of wind,

     or a few leaves from any old tree--

          they are all in this too.

And now I will tell you the truth.

Everything in the world

comes.

At least, closer.

And, cordially.

Like the nibbling, tinsel-eyed fish; the unlooping snake.

Like goldfinches, little dolls of gold

fluttering around the corner of the sky

of God, the blue air.

Oliver says you can reach out to things that are completely unreachable.  Like wind or birds in flight or the idea of God.  That may seem a ridiculous statement to make, but it really isn't.  Oliver isn't claiming that you can actually grab a handful of wind or put your finger on God's forehead.  No, she's saying that you can attempt to reach out.  Attempting is different from achieving.

Today would have been my father's 96th birthday.  He's been gone since 2018, but that didn't stop me from reaching out to him today.  I woke thinking about him, and he's been pretty present for me all day long.  Like a goldfinch in a tree or the wind rucking the surface of Lake Superior.  He was there, just out of reach.

As most disciples of my blog know, my relationship with my dad was a complicated one.  I loved him, and he loved me.  I know this.  However, we were very different people, with different beliefs and values.  Yet, I respected him and inherited a lot of my work ethic and devotion to family from him.  There was nothing my father wouldn't do for his wife and kids.  

My father lived long enough to see me graduate from college three times.  He read my first collection of poems and attended some of my readings.  When I was named U.P. Poet Laureate the first time, he was my biggest cheerleader.  When Donald Hall announced my name, he literally jumped out of his chair with excitement.

And when my father was dying in the hospital, I stood by his bed, watching him struggle for breath.  I couldn't make his journey easier.  Instead, I reached out, touched his hand, and let him know that I was there.  That gesture didn't bring him back.  I'm not even sure he knew I was there at that point.  Yet, it was all I could do.  A reaching out.

Today, I think my dad was reaching out to me.  All day.

I'm in Calumet, Michigan, tonight to do a show.  When my father died six years ago, I was scheduled to leave for Calumet the next day to do a show.  I thought about canceling my trip, but I didn't.  Because my dad wouldn't have wanted me to.  I'd made a commitment, and people were counting on me.  So, I made the trip and did the show.

Oliver, at the end of her poem, says, "Everything in the world / comes."  Even the things that are out of reach.  

I think my dad came to me.  He's been hovering around me like a cloud of hungry mosquitoes all day.  He's reaching out, and I'm reaching out.

In some bardo between this world and what comes next, Saint Marty and his dad are together, like two kites flying in tandem up, up into the sunshine and blue, blue air.