November 30: "The Return," Theseus, Thread

Mary Oliver on how to find your way home, with a little help from Theseus . . .

The Return

by:  Mary Oliver

The deed took all my heart.

I did not think of you,

Not till the thing was done.

I put my sword away,

And then no more the cold

And perfect fury ran

Along my narrow bones,

And then no more the black

And dripping corridors

Held anywhere the shape

That I had come to slay.

Then, for the first time,

I saw in the cave's belly

The dark and clotted webs,

The green and sucking pools,

The rank and crumbling walls,

The maze of passages.

And I thought then

Of the far earth,

Of the spring sun

And the slow wind,

And a young girl.

And I looked then

At the white thread.

Hunting the minotaur

I was no common man

And had no need of love.

I trailed the shining thread

Behind me, for a vow,

And did not think of you.

It lay there, like a sign,

Coiled on the bull's great hoof

And back into the world.

Half blind with weariness

I touched the thread and wept.

O, it was frail as air.

And I turned then

With the white spool

Through the cold rocks,

Through the black rocks,

Through the long webs,

And the mist fell,

And the webs clung,

And the rocks tumbled,

And the earth shook.

And the thread held.

Yes, Oliver is using the myth of Theseus as a way to talk about being lost and found.  Most of you, faithful disciples, are probably familiar with the narrative--how Theseus outsmarts King Minos of Crete, kills the Minotaur, and leads the Athenians out of the labyrinth.  Of course, he doesn't do it by himself.  He seduces Minos' daughter, Ariadne, and Ariadne gives Theseus a ball of yarn to help guide him out of the Minotaur's home.  It's Ariadne's love that saves Theseus.

Love is a powerful force in the universe.  It has started and ended wars, inspired sonnets and plays and songs, and led many a lost soul from darkness to light.  In the end, that's what homecoming is all about--following your heart back to a place where love blooms like dandelions, wild and golden and abundant.  (Let's not get into the fact the Theseus lied to Ariadne, who either hanged herself or ended up marrying the god Dionysus.  Either way, Theseus is an asshole.)

Tonight, I am sitting in my office at home typing this post.  My wife is reading in the living room.  My son is upstairs playing online games with his friends, and my puppy is perched in a living room window, barking her brains out at every passing walker or car.  Basically, I'm surrounded by love on this last night of November.  I even received a text message from my daughter a little while ago; it contained a video of all these famous people thanking their fathers for their unconditional support and love.  It made me cry.

Yes, I'm struggling with darkness right now, but I know that my wife and kids love me.  That is the thread that I'm holding onto this evening--the thread that will lead me out of the labyrinth in which I currently find myself.  That thread will lead me home.

When my mother was dying in the nursing home, I sat by her bed, listening to her watery breaths.  All my other family members had left for a little while.  I took my mother's hand in mine, and I held on for dear life, as if she was a balloon or kite struggling to slip "the surly bonds of earth to touch the face of God," as Ronald Reagan said after the explosion of the Challenger space shuttle.  I thanked her for being my mother.  Told her how much I loved her.  Let her know we were all going to be okay.  "It's okay," I whispered to her.  "You can go home now."  She died a few hours later.

Everyone on this planet needs a home--a place to return after long and fraught days of struggle.  A place where love simmers on the stove like a pot of tomato soup, filling the air with promise.  My mother taught me this, not so much in words but in everything she did for our family, every day of her life.

Saint Marty hopes he can do the same:  be the thread--the tomato soup--for his wife and kids.

November 29: "On Winter's Margin," Abundance and Starvation, Sunset

Mary Oliver is the prince of crumbs . . .

On Winter's Margin

by:  Mary Oliver

On winter's margin, see the small birds now

With half-forged memories come flocking home

To gardens famous for their charity.

The green globe's broken; vines like tangled veins

Hang at the entrance to the silent wood.

With half a loaf, I am the prince of crumbs;

By time snow's down, the birds amassed will sing

Like children for their sire to walk abroad!

But what I love, is the gray stubborn hawk

Who floats alone beyond the frozen vines;

And what I dream of are the patient deer

Who stand on legs like reeds and drink the wind;--

They are what saves the world:  who choose to grow

Thin to a starting point beyond this squalor.

Winter's margin--that is where I find myself right now.  Oliver, too.  For her, the admission price to walk through the entrance to the silent wood is a half loaf of bread to share with the birds amassed in the snow.  The birds sing for their feast while the solitary hawk circles above and deer lap up the currents of cold air.  Winter's margin is both abundance and starvation.

At this time of the rolling year, as Dickens would say, it's easy to focus on the darkness that is slowly chewing down the day.  The winter solstice is fast approaching, and soon light will be as precious and scarce as honeycomb.  For many, this squalor of winter brings on times of struggle.  Long days of exhaustion and hunger.

The holidays used to bring me only joy and light.  I would drive around, gawking at the neighborhoods festooned with glowing decorations.  On All Saints' Day, I would unpack my Christmas tree, put a little Bing Crosby or Perry Como on the turntable, and go to town.  By the time Dr. Seuss' How the Grinch Stole Christmas! aired, I was in full Whoville mode.  

Nowadays, I'm a little more like Charlie Brownish, in need of a nickel therapy session.  I still love the trappings of the season, but, more and more, exhaustion is my dominant state of being in December.  During the height of the pandemic, with churches closed, retailors severely regulated, and holiday gatherings all but illegal, I actually felt the peace on Earth the angels sing about in the Biblical nativity narrative.  That December 25, at home with my kids and wife, was one of the best of my whole adult life.

As with most periods of peace, though, it didn't last long.  The next year, from Black Friday onward, the Christmas crush was in full swing.  Concerts.  Plays.  Church services.  Movies.  Sales.  Cookie exchanges.  It all came roaring back, as if we hadn't learned anything from the previous holiday season.  We went from simple as hay to harried as squirrels.

And the darkness and exhaustion returned for me.

On my way home this evening, I was feeling particularly spent.  This whole week has been a series of close encounters with individuals and groups frenzied with Christmas needs and wants.  Even though it was only Wednesday, and not even December yet, I was ready for a long winter's nap.  

And then the sky exploded with light.  Gold and orange fire burned the clouds.  I stood outside.  In wonder.  In awe.  It reminded me that the universe is always filled with beauty and peace.  That yuletide gifts are everywhere, and darkness never gets the final word.  Ever.

Saint Marty feasted on the abundance of winter's margin tonight.

November 28: "The Swimming Lesson," How to Survive, Publication

Mary Oliver learns how to survive . . . 

The Swimming Lesson

by:  Mary Oliver

Feeling the icy kick, the endless waves

Reaching around my life, I moved my arms

And coughed, and in the end saw land.

Somebody, I suppose,

Remembering the medieval maxim,

Had tossed me in,

Had wanted me to learn to swim,

Not knowing that none of us, who ever came back

From that long lonely fall and frenzied rising,

Ever learned anything at all

About swimming, but only

How to put off, one by one,

Dreams and pity, love and grace,--

How to survive in any place.

Oliver is not really talking about learning how to swim in this poem.  She's talking about learning how to survive--the fall and frenzied rising from depth to air.  Some days, you drown.  Other days, you float.

Today was kind of a drowning day for me.  Lots of busy work to get done.  Teaching.  A radio interview.  Dealing with Christmas trees.  And a concert by a wonderful musician friend.  In between all of that, emails and phone calls and grading and writing.  It felt as though I was kicking as hard as I could, trying to get my head above water.

And then this happened:  I picked up a copy of Marquette Monthly, a monthly publication with a pretty wide distribution across the region.  A couple months ago, the editor published one of my poems.  This month, he accepted one of my Christmas essays for December.  I opened up the issue, and there it was on page 25--my essay titled "The Christmas Eve Wrinkle."

Now, unless you're a writer, you probably won't really comprehend the thrill of seeing something you've written in print.  There's really nothing like it.  It's akin to getting a puppy for Christmas or your son washing his dirty dishes.  A moment of grace and joy.

I know that not a whole lot of people are going to read it.  And, of those people, most won't give two shits about it.

However, Saint Marty is still riding the waves of that grace, seeing land close by.  

November 27: "Beyond the Snow Belt," From a Distant Land, Beaver Moon Night

Mary Oliver reflects on the skull of winter . . . 

Beyond the Snow Belt

by:  Mary Oliver

Over the local stations, one by one,

Announcers list disasters like dark poems

That always happen in the skull of winter.

But once again the storm has passed us by:

Lovely and moderate, the snow lies down

While shouting children hurry back to play,

And scarved and smiling citizens once more

Sweep down their easy paths of pride and welcome.

And what else might we do?  Let us be truthful.

Two counties north the storm has taken lives.

Two counties north, to us, is far away,--

A land of trees, a wing upon a map,

A wild place never visited,--so we

Forget with ease each far mortality.

Peacefully from our frozen yards we watch

Our children running on the mild white hills.

This is the landscape that we understand,--

And till the principle of things takes root,

How shall examples move us from our calm?

I do not say that it is not a fault.

I only say, except as we have loved,

All news arrives as from a distant land.

Oliver is dead on with her wisdom here:  all news does arrive as from a distant land.  It doesn't matter whether we're talking about a killing blizzard or oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico or school shooting in Florida.  Unless the news involves people or places we have loved, it's merely words.  No faces or names or photos of bombed-out buildings can change this fact.  Unless it's the face or name of a loved one--unless we have lived in that bombed-out building--we remain apathetic and/or indifferent.  Unmoved from our calm.

I have friends and family members who live in their own realities.  They think that the 2020 election was stolen from Donald Trump.  They insist that the global pandemic was merely a hoax perpetrated on the world by foreign powers and elected officials--those millions of people who died, just characters in a fable designed to scare us.  And the insurrection on January 6, 2021, in Washington D. C. was just a bunch of sight-seeing tourists.

If you believe any one of those statements in the previous paragraph, you should probably stop reading this post now.  Turn on Fox News,  Go listen to Sean Hannity.  Attend the nearest KKK rally.  Cover your head with tinfoil so the government can't read your thoughts.  Or, to put it in terms you might understand better (and I will type this very slowly for you):  you . . . are . . . fucking . . . stupid.

Just because it isn't snowing in my neck of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan right now doesn't mean that the storms to the west and east are fairy tales.  I don't have to shovel ten inches of snow to know that winter is raging around me and that people are getting buried in white tonight.  

Facts are facts, no matter how many times you say "fake news" in five minutes.  

So, as we go about our holiday shopping, prepare our holidays feasts, we need to remember the facts:  there are people cold and starving in this country while billionaires buy jets and yachts and figure out ways not to pay taxes.  Thousands of Ukrainians have died, millions more have become refugees, and entire cities have been reduced to rubble since the Russian invasion a year ago.  The Middle East is a tinderbox of violence, edging closer and closer to nuclear war.  

Now, imagine that hungry homeless person is your sister or son.  Imagine that your grandmother is a Ukrainian citizen living in a bombed-out apartment building in Kyiv, and imagine your daughter lives in Gaza with her family.  

Each far mortality involves someone's mother or grandmother or sister or son.  None of us are beyond the snow belt on this Beaver Moon night.

Saint Marty has his snow shovel ready.

November 26: "Jack," Work Horse, Christmastide

Mary Oliver reflects on changing seasons in life . . .

Jack

by:  Mary Oliver

The wagons stand

And rust, and glitter sometimes in the moon,

Since we have lost dominion of the fields.

No more great clattering Jack,

His thick mane filled with chaff and wind,

Will let us lead him from the easy barns;

No more sweet gentle Jack

Will let us strap him to his leather bondage

And help us tow the weight of summer home.

The days

Are easier now, and we have time for thought,

Idling in corners of our weedy land.

But now we learn, as season follows season

And no one plants upon these hills,

How poor a gift is freedom to the spirit

That loved the labor.  Now, like Jack,

We stand turned out into eternal Sunday,

And look through moonlight at the silenced wagons.

Yet we have lives to balance our regret,

Can turn in other things.

Now in the moonlight we can move away,

While he is left staring upon the stark

Arrangement of the wagons leaning earthward:

The simple blood that cannot name its lack,

But knows the world has fallen out of reason,

That it is autumn, and no laborer comes.

Oliver says in this poem, "How poor a gift is freedom to the spirit / That loved the labor . . ."  Jack--sweet gentle Jack--is used to the rhythm of the seasons.  Plowing.  Furrowing.  Planting,  Harvesting.  Plowing again.  All Jack knows is the great clattering work of the farm, and, when he no longer has that work, Jack is lost.  He's entered a world of eternal Sunday.

As a person who works every day of his life, I sort of envy Jack.  Yes, Jack's a work horse, accustomed to hard labor, and when that back-breaking work becomes a footnote in his life, he is left staring at the remnants of his old existence forlornly.  Like Jack, I'm kind of a work horse, too.  I love most of my jobs.  Teaching at the university.  Planning programs for the library.  Playing organ/keyboard for various churches on the weekends.  Blogging.  Writing poetry.  Leading poetry workshops.

But, let's face it, work--even fulfilling work--can be exhausting.  That's why I envy Jack's eternal Sunday.  To have a life that is just sabbath, day after day, sounds pretty good to me at the moment.  You see, there are two seasons in my life that are most busy:  Christmas and Easter.  At Christmas, there's final grading at the university on top of all the usual holiday craziness, including five or six additional worship services on Christmas Eve and Day for various denominations--Catholic, Lutheran, and Methodist mostly.  Easter is much the same--forty days of extras, including Holy Week, which culminates in about five or six services in the space of three days.

So, you can see why being put out to pasture doesn't sound quite so terrible to me right now.

On the other hand, I am not a person who can remain idle very long.  I have a feeling that, if/when I'm able to retire,  I will find other ways to fill my time.  That's just the way I'm built, I think.  Like Jack.

So, if you happen to run into me in the next few weeks, please pardon me for being distracted or frazzled or bone tired.

Saint Marty is simply back in his Christmastide saddle again.

November 25: "No Voyage," Disaster and Pain, Charmed with Happiness

Mary Oliver makes peace with her life . . . 

No Voyage

by:  Mary Oliver

I wake earlier, now that the birds have come

And sing in the unfailing trees.

On a cot by an open window

I lie like land used up, while spring unfolds.

Now of all voyagers I remember, who among them

Did not board ship with grief among their maps?--

Till it seemed men never go somewhere, they only leave

Wherever they are, when the dying begins.

For myself, I find my wanting life

Implores no novelty and no disguise of distance;

Where, in what country, might I put down these thoughts,

Who still am citizen of this fallen city?

On a cot by an open window, I lie and remember

While the birds in the trees sing of the circle of time.

Let the dying go on, and let me, if I can,

Inherit from disaster before I move.

O, I go to see the great ships ride from harbor,

And my wounds leap with impatience; yet I turn back

To sort the weeping ruins of my house:

Here or nowhere I will make peace with the fact.

This isn't an easy Mary Oliver poem.  It's a poem about grief and wounds.  Voyages undertaken to escape the inescapable.  The truth is pretty simple:  a person can learn just as much (maybe more) from a life of disaster and pain as from a life charmed with happiness.  And let's face it:  no life is without its share of weeping.  It's unavoidable.  It just comes with the territory of being a human being in a broken world.  Either you let that weeping eat you up, or you make peace with it.

I want to write about two things today.  One falls under the disaster/pain category.  The other, under the happiness category.

First, on Thanksgiving, we had dinner with my sisters.  It was a lovely meal.  After we'd gorged, I found out that one of my sisters had been sneezing, sniffling, and coughing for several days, and one of her managers at her job was COVID-positive.  I immediately made my sister take a COVID test, and it came back positive.  

Cut to:  last night and this morning, my son has been sneezing, sniffling, and coughing, but he isn't fatigued or lacking his normal piss and vinegar. My wife and I have tested negative for COVID for two days straight so far.  My son, unfortunately, tested positive this afternoon.  He's doing well, still screaming at his gaming friends in his isolation ward upstairs.  However, my wife and I are now waiting for the other COVID shoe to drop, so to speak.  Not quite a disaster, but certainly a pain in the ass.

Second, today is my puppy's fourth birthday.  Four years ago, when I came up with the notion of getting a dog for Christmas, I had no idea how much it would change our lives.  Since she first came into our home, our little bundle of fur has brought us so much joy.  She loves unconditionally and seems to have a sixth sense for when I've had a particularly bad day:  she will jump up on the couch beside me and simply lay her head on my knee, lifting her blue eyes to look up into my face.  And that bad day somehow doesn't seem quite so bad anymore.

There it is:  disaster and joy in the weeping ruins of my house.  My son upstairs, swearing and coughing.  My puppy downstairs, mangling her birthday present--a chew toy in the shape of a fried egg. 

And Saint Marty in his office, blogging about making peace with it all.

November 24: "Night Flight," Coming Home, 15-Year-Old Son

Mary Oliver comes home . . .

Night Flight

by:  Mary Oliver

Traveling at thirty thousand feet, we see

How much of earth still lies in wilderness,

Till terminals occur like miracles

To civilize the paralyzing dark.

Buckled for landing to a tilting chair,

I think:  if miracle or accident

Should send us on across the upper air,

How many miles, or nights, or years to go

Before the mind, with its huge ego paling,

Before the heart, all expectation spent,

Should read the meaning of the scene below?

But now already the loved ones gather

Under the dome of welcome, as we glide

Over the final jutting mountainside,

Across the suburbs tangled in their lights,

And settled softly on the earth once more

Rise in the fierce assumption of our lives--

Discarding smoothly, as we disembark,

All thoughts that held us wiser for a moment

Up there alone, in the impartial dark.

Coming home is always like descending from the dark wilderness of the sky into the arms of something, somewhere, or someone familiar as Cheerios.  Here, Oliver flies over the final jutting mountainside, descends toward that dome of welcome where loved ones gather.

I live in a region where wilderness is more common than people, trees more abundant than crowds on Black Friday.  It's really simple to live a hermit's life in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.  All you need is a parcel of land, four walls, a roof, and a method of keeping warm.  That's it.  A person with sufficient funds could go shopping once or twice a season and then disappear into the pines.  

However, I do not live a hermit's life.  In fact, my jobs require me to be social.  Some days, this requirement is easier to accomplish than others.  Don't misunderstand me:  I love my friends and family.  They bring me joy and happiness.  However, the poet side of me would prefer to sit in my office at home, writing and avoiding human contact.  Given the chance, I could easily pull an Emily Dickinson and disappear into my bedroom.  Just knock three times and leave food outside my door.  Then leave.

I now live with a moody, 15-year-old boy who is about as antisocial as polite society allows.  When forced, he can almost be friendly and pleasant.  At home, however, he's unpredictable.  A hurricane that keeps switching course.  When I call up the stairs to his bedroom to tell him dinner is ready or an asteroid is going to crash into the planet causing an extinction event, I may get a sweetly smartass comment.  Or he may go full-on Joan Crawford with wire hangars on me.  He's Howard Hughes without the money living in my attic.

Now, I was 15-years-old once.  I get the weirdness of being at that awkward stage of life--viciously self-centered and viciously self-conscious.  Worried about what everyone thinks and says.  It's a terrible time.  And, of course, as with all 15-year-olds, they take it out on those who love them most.  Parents.  Sometimes siblings.  Safe people.

And that's what homecoming is all about.  After being out in the world, surrounded by people who may or may not care about you, in places that you may or may not like, doing jobs that may or may not be fulfilling, you return to home base, like you used to do when playing tag or hide-and-seek as a kid.  And you're safe from all the meanness outside the front door.  With safe people who love you whether you act like Saint Francis of Assisi or a temperamental, hormonal teenager.

The moon is trapped in the branches of a tree in my backyard tonight.  My son is screaming at friends he's playing games with on his computer.  My puppy is sleeping in her crate.  My wife just went to bed.  And I'm writing in my office, listening to the house slowly settle down for a long, late-November sleep.

Saint Marty is home.

November 23: "Going to Walden," Thanksgiving, Giving Thanks

Mary Oliver contemplates . . .

Going to Walden

by:  Mary Oliver

It isn't very far as highways lie.

I might be back by nightfall, having seen

The rough pines, and the stones,, and the clear water.

Friends argue that I might be wiser for it.

They do not hear that far-off Yankee whisper:

How dull we grow from hurrying here and there!

Many have gone, and think me half a fool

To miss a day away in the cool country.

Maybe.  But in a book I read and cherish,

Going to Walden is not so easy a thing

As a green visit.  It is the slow and difficult 

Trick of living, and finding it where you are.

Mary Oliver chooses not to make the pilgrimage to Walden, even though she lives close by.  She refuses the temptation of the rough pines, stones, and clear water.  Of skipping stones across the pond with the ghost of Thoreau.  For Oliver, it seems, Walden is more than a historic place; it's a mindset, a way of living that is slow and difficult to achieve.

It is Thanksgiving Day in the United States.  If you read my post from last night, you already know the problematic history of the holiday, especially for the Indigenous population of this land.  For me, I don't so much celebrate the myth of pilgrims and Native Americans sitting down to a feast in Plymouth Colony.  Instead, I celebrate the act of giving thanks for the blessings in my life--my family and friends and good health and good food.  Although I should do this every day of my life, it is this particular day that occurs once a year that reminds me how truly lucky I am.

This morning, my wife, son, puppy, and I participated in a local 5K Turkey Trot.  It was a cold walk, in the mid-twenties for temperatures with a punishing wind.  It wasn't easy.  Yet, I recognized the grace of the moment.  I was with two of the people I love most in my life, and everyone around us was smiling, laughing, and calling out, "Happy Thanksgiving!"

The rest of the day was much of the same:  gatherings with loved ones to eat and drink and laugh and share.  I missed seeing my daughter, who is with her significant other in Wisconsin celebrating the holiday.  But, I know that she is loved and safe and healthy where she is.  I received texts from close friends wishing me glad tidings (that sounds old-fashioned, but that's what the messages were), and now I'm home, in my pajamas, fighting a tryptophan coma as I type these words.

I did end up having Thanksgiving dinner with my sisters after all, and they both worked hard all day to prepare the feast, using a family recipe for the stuffing, tons of cream and butter in the mashed potatoes.  By the time I ate my last bite of pecan pie, I felt like a beached beluga.  And I could feel the spirits of absent family members gathered at the table with us--my dad, who loved stuffing; my mother, who loved pecan pie; my sister, Sally, and brother, Kevin, who both loved pumpkin pie; and my sister, Rose, who loved everything about Thanksgiving.

It has truly been a day to give thanks, filled with light, laughter, and love.

Saint Marty doesn't need a guardian angel named Clarence to convince him that he has a wonderful life.

A Thanksgiving poem for this night . . . 

Pecan Pie

by:  Martin Achatz

Mix eggs, sugar and Karo,
melted butter, vanilla from Mexico
in a bowl until it all runs
yellow as corn silk. Add pecans,
one-and-a-quarter cups. Fold
them into the gold syrup,
the way a farmer folds
manure into a field of hay
or my son folds a Tootsie Roll
under his tongue, plants it there,
lets it feed the furrows
of his young body. Pour this filling
into a shell, edges fluted
by my wife's hands, crimped
between thumb and forefinger
to peaks and troughs of dough.
Bake at 350 degrees.
Forty-five minutes to an hour.
You'll know when it's done.
The house will smell
brown and warm and sweet.
Dip a butter knife blade
into the center of the pie.
If it comes out hot and clean,
take the pie out of the oven. Put it
on the front porch to cool.
You can leave it there overnight.
It'll be waiting in the morning.
Cover it with a hand towel. Carry
it to your parents' house,
where your mother asks you
"Is it cold outside?"
over and over as you cut
the pie. "Yes," you tell her.
And "yes" when she asks again.
It is cold this Thanksgiving.
And, yes, pecan pie is her favorite.
Give her a large slice,
with extra Cool Whip
and a hot cup of coffee.

November 22: "Learning About the Indians," Complete Fiction, Thanksgiving Truths

A Mary Oliver poem to keep in mind tomorrow . . . 

Learning About the Indians

by:  Mary Oliver

He danced in feathers, with paint across his nose.

Thump, thump went the drum, and bumped our blood,

And sent a strange vibration through the mind.

White Eagle, he was called, or Mr. White,

And he strutted for money now, in schoolrooms built

On Ohio's plains, surrounded by the graves

Of all of our fathers, but more of his than ours.

Our teachers called it Extracurricular.

We called it fun.  And as for Mr. White,

Changed back to a shabby salesman's suit, he called it

Nothing at all as he packed his drums, and drove,

Tires screeching out of the schoolyard into the night.

In this poem, Mary Oliver is drawing attention to how we have dehumanized Indigenous cultures in this country.  White Eagle is playing a part for Oliver and her classmates.  Wearing feathers.  Painting his face.  Beating on drums.  It's a show.  A pageant that has little to do, probably, with who he really is.

Most of what my generation was taught about tomorrow's holiday was complete fiction, as well.  The peaceful feast between the pilgrims and Indigenous peoples at Plymouth colony is a myth created to whitewash (literally and figuratively) the truth.  Here are some real truths about Thanksgiving:  the Wampanoag people weren't even invited to that first feast; the Wampanoags had encountered Europeans previously, and some of them had actually been to Great Britain and spoke English fluently; the Wampanoags were ravaged by diseases brought to the "New World" by European colonizers; in their first encounter with the Wampanoag people, the pilgrims stole from their winter provisions; Europeans repaid their Indigenous allies by usurping their lands and imprisoning, enslaving, and executing their Native "friends"; the "thanksgivings" that were celebrated after the first one often occurred when Europeans massacred Native peoples, one such celebration including the beheading of the Wampanoag leader Metacom in 1676; finally, Indigenous peoples were here at least 12,000 years before America was "discovered" by white Europeans.

Those are some of the truths about Thanksgiving.  I didn't learn them from the construction-paper Thanksgiving pageants of my elementary school years.  My guess is that not too many people sitting down to their turkeys and mashed potatoes and stuffing and pumpkin pies tomorrow are aware of these truths, either.

Don't get me wrong.  A day set aside for giving thanks is a good thing.  A sacred thing.  But we shouldn't dress up that day with fables, exaggerations, and out-and-out lies.  Most of us live on lands stolen from Indigenous peoples.  Those lands were acquired by violence, disease, and false promises.  So, give thanks tomorrow, for your family, friends, and abundant blessings, not for the fairy tale of the first Thanksgiving.

Me?  I will say a prayer of thanks that I've survived another year.  That my wife and children are healthy and happy.  That there is food to eat, clothing on my back, and warmth in my home.  And I will honor the memory of loved ones absent from the table tomorrow evening.  My parents and brother and sisters who I've buried in the last seven or eight years.  

I made a pecan pie tonight.  It was my mother's favorite.  It's now my son's favorite, too.  

Those are the truths of Saint Marty's Thanksgiving this year.

November 21: "The Lamps," Company of Light, Himalayan Salt Lamp

Mary Oliver keeps night at bay . . . 

The Lamps

by:  Mary Oliver

Eight o'clock, no later,

You light the lamps,

The big one by the large window,

The small one on your desk.

They are not to see by--

It is still twilight out over the sand,

The scrub oaks and cranberries.

Even the small birds have not settled

For sleep yet, out of the reach

Of prowling foxes.  No,

You light the lamps because

You are alone in your small house

And the wicks sputtering gold

Are like two visitors with good stories

They will tell slowly, in soft voices,

While the air outside turns quietly

A grainy and luminous blue.

You wish it would never change--

But of course the darkness keeps

its appointment.  Each evening,

An inscrutable presence, it has the final word

Outside every door.

I prefer the company of light.  So does Oliver.  Her lamps, flickering and gold, tell her good stories as the air outside her front door changes, becomes blue with twilight heading toward dusk.  And then night.  

As the winter solstice approaches, more and more people crave light like starved houseplants.  I think it's a natural, human instinct.  There are religious celebrations of light--Candlemas, Hanukah, Christmas, Diwali, the Lantern Festival.  Light is rebirth, the turning of the heart and mind away from ice and snow and cold.  Darkness is despair.  Light is hope.

Of course, at the end of her poem, Oliver says that darkness has the final word outside each of our doors.  That is true.  No matter how many light switches we turn on or how many fires we kindle, darkness inevitably comes.  Benjamin Franklin said, ". . . in this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes."  I would add darkness to Franklin's list.

Darkness takes many forms, from grief and sorrow to rest and sleep.  As I've been writing in my most recent blog posts, darkness has been a pretty constant presence for me recently, physically, spiritually, and mentally.  When I get to my office every morning, I don't immediately switch on the fluorescents.  I sit at my desk in the glow of a Himalayan salt lamp, which is warm and comforting.  I give myself ten or so minutes to adjust to the coming day.

I don't try to banish darkness from my life.  That's an impossible task.  Instead, I open my door and invite darkness in.  Makes friends with it.  Try to tame its insatiable hunger.  Yes, living with sadness and despair is not easy.  However, if you never experience despair, you won't be able to recognize joy when it comes your way.  And if darkness is a stranger to you, then light will never stop by for a visit, either.  They are two sides of the same coin (if you'll pardon the cliché).

My sister, Sally, understood this fact.  She was a registered nurse who saw her fair share of pain and suffering and mortality.  Yet, she always went out of her way to make people happy, with her generous, loving spirit.  The night before she passed, I visited her.  I leaned over her hospital bed and whispered in her ear, "I love you.  It's okay.  You don't have to be afraid of the dark."  She died the next morning as the sun was climbing into the sky.  

Tonight, I can feel darkness sitting next to me on the couch, watching over my shoulder as I type these words.  This doesn't bother me, though.  Because I know that night always gives way to day.  That is a guarantee, even in Alaska where darkness can last up to two months at a time.

In the corner of my living room right now, a Christmas tree blazes like the beginning of the universe.  

Say it with Saint Marty now:  "Let there be light." 

November 20: "Farm Country," Modern Conveniences, Gratitude

Mary Oliver makes chicken soup . . . 

Farm Country

by:  Mary Oliver

I have sharpened my knives, I have 

Put on the heavy apron.

Maybe you think life is chicken soup, served

In blue willow-pattern bowls.

I have put on my boots and opened

The kitchen door and stepped out

Into the sunshine.  I have crossed the lawn,

I have entered

The hen house.

We all go through life without really thinking about modern conveniences.  We turn on a faucet without thinking about copper pipes, sewage disposal, or filtration.  We flip on a light switch without thinking about the electrical grid, powerlines, or clean energy.  And we open a can of Campbell's Chicken Noodle without thinking about how pieces of chicken came to be swimming in that broth.  Convenience.

I try not to take those kinds of luxuries for granted.  I don't have to walk ten miles through a desert to find potable water.  Don't have to slaughter a chicken or cow for dinner.  I certainly don't have to sew my shirt and pants out of flour sacks.  Compared to the citizens of other countries, I live like a very rich person.

I am blessed.  

I have to remind myself of that fact sometimes.  We all do.  If you find yourself getting all bent out of shape because the Green Bay Packers didn't win or that Joe Biden is President of the United States instead of Donald Trump, walk to your refrigerator, open the door, and look at all the food stored there.  Or turn up the thermostat on the wall and feel the heat pouring out of your furnace.  Or put on your winter jacket and go for a walk.

Then say a prayer of thanks for it all.

As I was driving to work this morning, dreading all the things I had on my to-do list, I was stopped cold by the sunrise blazing over Lake Superior.  It wasn't just a sunrise--it was a sun-shout.  Blazing orange and gold.  I pulled over to the side of the road and took a picture.  When I found myself getting discouraged or annoyed during the rest of the day, I took out my phone and stared at that picture, to remind myself that the world is full of everyday miracles.  

Tonight, I hosted a program at the library.  All of the people in the show were good, good friends--writers and musicians.  We got together, like Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland, and put on a show.  We laughed and recited poems and told stories and sang songs.  All around the theme of gratitude.  And it was really amazing.

This Thursday, if you celebrate American Thanksgiving, be grateful that you didn't have to wring the neck of your turkey.  Or grow the corn and potatoes that you're eating.  Truly give thanks, for the friends and family you have in your life.

And for sunrises that stun you with wonder.

Saint Marty is drowning in thankfulness tonight.

November 19: "Aunt Leaf," Celestial-Sea-Star, Decorating Buddy

Mary Oliver invents an aunt . . . 

Aunt Leaf

by:  Mary Oliver

Needing one, I invented her--

the great-great-aunt dark as hickory

called Shining-Leaf or Drifting-Cloud

or The-Beauty-of-the-Night.

Dear aunt, I'd call into the leaves,

and she'd rise up, like an old log in a pool,

and whisper in a language only the two of us knew

the word that meant follow,

and we'd travel

cheerful as birds

out of the dusty town and into the trees

where she would change us both into something quicker--

two foxes with black feet,

two snakes green as ribbons,

two shimmering fish--

and all day we'd travel.

At day's end she'd leave me back at my own door

with the rest of my family,

who were kind, but solid as wood

and rarely wandered.  While she,

old twist of feathers and birch bark,

would walk in circles wide as rain ad then

float back

scattering the rags of twilight

on fluttering moth wings;

or she'd slouch from the barn like a gray opossum;

or she'd hang in the milky moonlight

burning like a medallion,

this bone dream,

this friend I had to have,

this old woman made out of leaves.

What if we could all invent people we need like Oliver does?

I would invent a young woman with the heart as large as the heart of a blue whale, hair deep and bright as a polished chestnut.  I'd call her Star-of-Heaven or Golden-Field-of-Dreams or Celestial-Sea-Star.

I would speak to her in a language only she and I know, like Oliver and her great-great-aunt.  The language would be wind in pines or moonlight in water, each needle, each wave making a tiny sound:  love me, love me, love me.

She and I would fly with cardinals, burrow deep into the mud of lakes with mussels, lifted and grounded, waiting to see what evolution the heart would undergo--into hummingbird wing or elephant foot.  Brushing the air, splitting the ground with its beats.

Her blood in my veins, my blood in hers.  Helix speaking to helix.  And, under the milk stars, we would fill the night with a kind of hope--light and color, sweet as wood smoke from a midnight chimney.

She'd come with empty pockets, fill them with the stones of my love, and leave, trailing a tail long and beautiful as a peacock's, 

She would be my flesh, my blood, my hope, my light.

And flights of angels would sing hosannas to her, sweet child, flint of my Christmas tinder.

Saint Marty gives thanks for his decorating buddy.  His Celestial-Sea-Star.

November 18: "Pink Moon--The Pond," Change of Seasons, Christmas Tree

Mary Oliver's soul is freed . . .

Pink Moon--The Pond

by:  Mary Oliver

You think it will never happen again.

Then, one night in April,

the tribes wake trilling.

You walk down to the shore.

Your coming stills them,

but little by little the silence lifts

until song is everywhere

and your soul rises from your bones

and strikes out over the water.

It is a crazy thing to do--

for no one can live like that,

floating around in the darkness

over the gauzy water.

Left on the shore your bones

keep shouting come back!

But your soul won't listen;

in the distance it is unfolding

like a pair of wings, it is sparking

like hot wires.  So,

like a good friend,

you decide to follow.

You step off the shore

and plummet to your knees--

you slog forward to your thighs 

and sink to your cheekbones--

and now you are caught

by the cold chains of the water--

you are vanishing while around you

the frogs continue to sing, driving

their music upward through your own throat,

not even noticing

you are something else.

And that's when it happens--

you see everything

through their eyes,

their joy, their necessity,

you wear their webbed fingers;

your throat swells.

And that's when you know

you will live whether you will or not,

one way or another,

because everything is everything else,

one long muscle.

It's no more mysterious than that.

So you relax, you don't fight it anymore,

the darkness coming down

called water,

called spring,

called the green leaf, called

a woman's body

as it turns into mud and leaves,

as it beats in its cage of water,

as it turns like a lonely spindle

in the moonlight, as it says

yes.

I have experienced what Oliver is writing about.  That moment, after a long season of ice and snow and cold, when you step outside and hear the tribes trilling.  For Oliver, it happens in April.  For me, smack dab in the center of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, that moment usually comes sometime in May.  The very air is transformed into song by the choirs of frogs, and I know that everything is becoming everything else.  And my soul crawls out of the bones of my body and becomes the air and music and frogs and water and stars.  

This happens at the cusps of every season--winter into spring into summer into autumn into winter again.  There is that one moment when your soul knows that everything is becoming everything else.  It's happening right now.  In the mornings, the grass flashes with frost.  I took my puppy for a walk this morning, and the puddles on the sides of the street were white with rime.  Night comes earlier and earlier, and the heavens are like crystal--fragile, sparkling with moon and starlight.  

Usually, long before this begins to happen, I'm already preparing for the moment.  In fact, you might say that I prepare for this moment all year.  It's not uncommon for me to be listening to Christmas music in August (or May or June or July).  Many a year, I've decorated my house for yuletide before I've even carved the pumpkins.  And, if you stop by my home for a visit in March, you may be greeted by the soft glow of electric sex from the leg lamp in my living room.  Yes, I'm that annoying neighbor who has a Christmas tree still glowing on his front porch on Easter Sunday.

This year, however, the light has come late.  I could say I've been too busy or too tired.  That I haven't had a single moment to celebrate the shift of seasons.  However, that would be a lie.

The truth is this:  darkness has more power over my existence than light right now.  As the days become shorter and shorter, I haven't reached for the light switch.  Instead, I've been wallowing in the night like some feral nocturnal pig.  There's a line from Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol:  "Darkness is cheap, and Scrooge liked it."  

I don't necessarily like the black mood that has descended on me, but I also find it difficult in my current state of mind to go through the usual holiday rituals.  Thus, until today, the boxes of decorations in my garage and attic have remained unopened as other houses up and down my street have been transformed into Clark Griswold fantasies.  

That changed today.  While my wife was at work and my son at a friend's house, I went about the work of decking my halls:  hauling out Rubbermaid totes of lights and garlands and ornaments and manger and trees.  I streamed one of my favorite holiday films, The Man Who Invented Christmas, and I assembled and lit our tree.  My wife and daughter finished the job tonight.

As I type the last few sentences of this post, my living room is simmering with light.  An angel is watching over me from the top of the tree, and I can feel my soul stirring a little in my bones.  Turning over like a bear from hibernation toward the scent of spring.

And Saint Marty says yes.  

November 17: "Strawberry Moon," Poetry and Pain, Thanksgiving

Mary Oliver writes about deep pain and anger . . . 

Strawberry Moon

by:  Mary Oliver

1.

My great-aunt Elizabeth Fortune

stood under the honey locust trees,

the white moon over her and a young man near.

The blossoms fell down like white feathers,

the grass was warm as a bed, and the young man

full of promises, and the face of the moon

a white fire.

Later,

when the young man went away and came back with a

     bride,

Elizabeth 

climbed into the attic.

2.

Three women came in the night

to wash the blood away,

and burn the sheets,

and take away the child.

Was it a boy or girl?

No one remembers.

3.

Elizabeth Fortune was not seen again

for forty years.

Meals were sent up,

laundry exchanged.

It was considered a solution

more proper than shame

showing itself to the village.

4.

Finally, name by name, the downstairs died

or moved away,

and she had to come down,

so she did.

At sixty-one, she took in boarders,

washed their dishes,

made their beds,

spoke whatever had to be spoken,

and no more.

5.

I asked my mother:

what happened to the man?  She answered:

Nothing.

They had three children.

He worked in the boatyard.

I asked my mother:  did they ever meet again?

No, she said,

though sometimes he would come

to the house to visit.

Elizabeth, of course, stayed upstairs.

6.

Now the women are gathering

in smoke-filled rooms,

rough as politicians,

scrappy as club fighters.

And should anyone be surprised

if sometimes, when the white moon rises,

women want to lash out

with a cutting edge?

The Strawberry Moon coincides with the summer solstice--when daylight rules, and moonlight lasts scant hours.  Of course, after the solstice, night starts nibbling away at the seconds of summer.  Darkness takes over.

Poet Sandy Cisneros once wrote, "Maybe all pain in the world requires poetry."  I agree with that.  Oliver's poem agrees with that, too.  Her great-aunt's wounds are deep and bloody, and she never recovers from them.  Instead, she retreats from the world and everything in it that causes hurt or sadness.  Oliver transforms that sadness into an aching narrative that ends in righteous anger.

If you have been reading this blog for any length of time, you already know that I have few secrets.  I am not great-aunt Elizabeth Fortune.  I will never hole up in an attic and cocoon myself away.  I know that life isn't a Hallmark card.  More often than not, life is a Mary Oliver poem, full of beauty and wonder, as well as scars and longing.  Yet, even scars can be wondrously beautiful because they indicate you've been through a war and survived.  

Thanksgiving is next week, and Christmas comes fast on its heels.  I'm trying to embrace gratitude right now, even though next Thursday isn't going to look like any Thanksgiving I've ever experienced.  My daughter will be celebrating the holiday in Wisconsin with her significant other's family because of a grandmother whose health is failing.  My closest siblings have decided to do their own Thanksgiving thing by themselves.  I wish them well.  Thanksgiving is about counting your blessings, not settling scores.  I'm not going to spend the day angry and resentful and sad.  Only turkeys need to feel bad on Thanksgiving.

Have I given into anger and sadness these last few days?  Sure.  But then I realized that I was only making myself miserable.  I don't need anyone's help to do that.  I've documented my struggles with darkness in this blog and in my poems.  At the moment, light is fading, and night is taking over my being.  I can feel it.  It's happened before, and it's happening again.

But here's the thing about night:  there is still light in the midst of it.  Stars and planets, galaxies and nebulae that shine down on us.  That light may be millions of lightyears away, but it is still there.  Guiding us.  I hope that the people in my life who are struggling (with sadness or anger or grief) realize this.

Saint Marty wishes them all light and love now and throughout the coming season.

November 16: "Snow Moon--Black Bear Gives Birth," Sameness, Out Loud

Mary Oliver writes about motherhood . . .

Snow Moon--Black Bear Gives Birth

by:  Mary Oliver

It was not quite spring, it was

the gray flux before.

Out of the black wave of sleep she turned,

enormous beast,

and welcomed the little ones, blind pink islands

no bigger than shoes.  She washed them;

she nibbled them with teeth like white tusks;

     she curled down

beside them like a horizon.

They snuggled.  Each knew what it was:

an original, formed

in the whirlwind, with no recognition between

itself and the first steams

of creation.  Together they nuzzled

her huge flank until she spilled over,

and they pummeled and pulled her tough nipples, and she

     gave them

the rich river.

It's a tender scene that Oliver paints here:  the mother giving birth in the torpor of hibernation, the tiny, pink cubs hungrily gulping the rich river of her love.  It's ancient and wholly new--draped in the steams of creation.  An old story revised into new story.  That's how the universe works, through constant reinvention.

Any faithful disciple of this blog already knows how I feel about change.  As the husband of one of my best friends once said, "There's nothing wrong with sameness."  I agree with that maxim.  Every time I got out to eat, if it's at a restaurant I know, I will order the exact same entree.  Every.  Time.  Perhaps it's a matter of comfort:  I don't want to be surprised and/or disappointed.  If I like the poutine, why would I order shrimp bisque that I've never tried instead?

I have the same belief about life.  I prefer routine to adventure.  Even though each day is rife with unique challenges of one kind or another, I cling to habit as much as possible.  Variety isn't the spice of life.  A more accurate statement would be:  variety is the ghost pepper of life.  It gives me heartburn and diarrhea.

Tonight, I hosted an event that has been happening every third Thursday of every month for around 20+ years.  It's called Out Loud, and my beloved friend, Helen, started it.  Before the pandemic and Helen's passing, Out Loud always occurred at Joy Center, Helen's fairy cottage of art and poetry and music and creativity in the middle of the woods.  But, changed happened.

Now, Out Loud has morphed, for the time being, into a virtual gathering of Helen's friends and admirers (and everyone--I mean EVERYONE--admired Helen).  I have tried to carry on the tradition.  Helen entrusted Out Loud to me.  In one of the last conversations I had with her, Helen thanked me for keeping her streak going.

During Out Loud tonight, Helen was with us.  I read two of her poems.  The other people present also invoked the spirits of  cherished memories and lost and living loved ones--siblings and mothers and fathers and friends.  One attendee was fresh with grief--his brother was killed in a terrible accident this morning.  In this sacred space Helen created,, we held each other up.  Expressed love and compassion and support. As we always do.

While the venue may have changed, Out Loud is still a safe space.  A healing space.  Every month.

And Saint Marty is so grateful for its routine.  Its sacred sameness.

 

November 15: "Mussels," Traditions, My Family Circle

Mary Oliver gathers some . . . 

Mussels

by:  Mary Oliver

In the riprap,

     in the cool caves,

          in the dim and salt-refreshed

               recesses, they cling

in dark clusters,

     in barnacled fistfuls,

          in the dampness that never 

               leaves, in the deeps

of high tide, in the slow

     washing away of the water

          in which they feed,

               in which the blue shells

open a little, and the orange bodies

     make a sound,

          not loud,

               not unmusical, as they take

nourishment, as the ocean

     enters their bodies.  At low tide

          I am on the riprap, clattering

               with boots and a pail,

rock over rock; I choose

     the crevice, I reach

          forward into the dampness,

               my hands feeling everywhere

for the best, the biggest.  Even before

     I decide which to take,

          which to twist from the wet rocks,

               which to devour,

they, who have no eyes to see with,

     see me, like a shadow,

          bending forward.  Together

               they make a sound,

not loud,

     not unmusical, as they lean

          into the rocks, away

               from my grasping fingers.

There's a certain part of this poem that rails against human intrusion.  The mussels exist in the cool caves of the riprap, clinging together in fistfuls as the tides roll in and out, their shelled bodies opening just enough to make a not unmusical sound.  Oliver, with her boots and pail, wades in, reaches down, and tears the mussels away from their salty beds.

Human beings excel at being human.  We have an uncanny knack of messing the universe up--oil spills, strip mining, droughts, dustbowls, and climate change.  We are gifted fuckups.  We are unkind to the world and each other.  It is who we are--fallible and clumsy and cruel at times.

I grew up in a tight-knit family.  We did everything together.  Vacations,  Holidays.  Birthdays.  Every Independence Day, we had barbecues.  Every Thanksgiving, while the turkey was filling the house with hunger, we put up the Christmas tree and decorations, including my mother's manger scene which was elaborate and beautiful.  New Year's Eve, we decorated with streamers and balloons, played board games, and ate and ate and ate.  These are the celebrations and traditions that defined our lives.

Now, my family is much diminished and scattered.  My sister, Sally, who was the true guardian of our traditions, has been gone for eight years.  My sister, Rose, who believed in Santa Claus until her last breath, walked into eternity almost two years ago.  Between the deaths of Sally and Rose, both of my parents passed on, as well.  

Believe it or not, I'm a pretty sentimental person.  When I hear Bing Crosby singing, "I'm dreaming of a white Christmas, just like the ones I used to know," I think of my mom playing that on her record player, one of those huge, wooden monstrosities that could double as a casket if you emptied out its guts.  As the holidays approach this year, I do find myself dreaming of the ones I used to know, and I'm grieving.

The world changes all the time.  I know this.  Human beings discover new and improved methods of intruding. messing things up.  Families change all the time, too.  People enter, people exit.  Decades-old practices are forgotten. or they're swept up and thrown away.

In the past, I've fought like a cornered wolverine to continue my family traditions.  However, I'm tired of being a one-person army.  I won't be pulling on my boots, grabbing a pail, and heading out into the riprap to pry those mussels out of the dim, salty caves of people's hearts this year.  

Last night, I hosted a concert by a Native American band called Waawiyeyaa.  The name is an Anishinaabe term meaning "it is a circle."  The leader of the band, a friend of mine named Marty, talked about the importance of community and family and traditions.  Belonging, honoring, and continuing that circle.  The Indigenous community gets it.

This holiday season, it seems, my circle will be much smaller.  Traditions, at one point or another, weren't traditions.  They were simply events that were repeated over and over until they became traditions.  I intend to keep my family traditions burning bright.  Next Thursday, I will sit down with my wife and son for a dinner with all the traditional foods--turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, corn, rolls, and pie.  I will invite the spirits of all my absent family members who were a part of and loved those traditions:  my mother and father, my sisters Sally and Rose.  I will keep them alive.

Saint Marty isn't going to be the one who breaks the circle.

November 13: "The Truro Bear," Cape Cod, Happiness

Mary Oliver on the mystery of happiness . . . 

The Truro Bear

by:  Mary Oliver

There's a bear in the Truro woods.

People have seen it--three or four,

or two, or one.  I think

of the thickness of the serious woods

around the dark bowls of the Truro ponds;

I think of the blueberry fields, the blackberry tangles,

the cranberry bogs.  And the sky

with its new moon, its familiar star-trails,

burns down like a brand-new heaven,

while everywhere I look on the scratchy hillsides

shadows seem to grow shoulders.  Surely

a beast might be clever, be lucky, move quickly

through the woods for years, learning to stay away

from roads and houses.  Common sense mutters:

it can't be true, it must be somebody's

runaway dog.  But the seed

has been planted, and when has happiness ever

required much evidence to begin

its leaf-green breathing?

I'm not sure where Truro is.  There is a Truro in Cornwall.  There is also a Truro in Massachusetts.  To make things even more complicated:  there's a Truro in Madison County in Iowa.  Then there's Truro Vineyards on Cape Cod.  Which Truro is being haunted by a bear in Mary Oliver's poem?  I don't know.

Oliver lived most of her life in Provincetown on northern tip of . . . (drumroll) . . . Cape Cod.  Perhaps that answers the question.  I'm still not convinced, though.  I suppose the most important thing to take away from "The Truro Bear" is that the bear seems to be an impossibility.  Something that defies common sense.  

Yet, as Oliver points out, happiness doesn't require common sense or evidence.  The seed of the idea of the Truro bear has been planted, and, once planted, it sprouts and grows.  The Truro bear begins taking leaf-green breaths.  Anything with a molecule of mystery in its DNA will assume a life of its own.  Including happiness.

Defining happiness is like defining the Truro bear.  Happiness doesn't require common sense or evidence.  Writing this blog post makes me happy.  Reading a beautiful poem does the same.  Chocolate.  My 15-year-old son coming downstairs to kiss me goodnight.  My daughter sending me a text that says she loves me.  Christmas lights on a neighbor's house.  All these things make me happy.

But what is happiness?

For the Truro bear, it's blueberry fields, blackberry tangles, and cranberry bogs.  New moons and star-trails.  The shoulder hunch of shadows in the hillsides.  All these things are Truro bear happiness, according to Oliver.  

The universe is full of Truro bears lumbering through starry woods.  Full of mystery.  Happiness.  From the time we are kids, we chase these Truro bears.  Because we all want to taste the sweetness of blueberry, feel the sun on our hairy backs.

Ever since Saint Marty drew his first leaf-green breath, he's been a bear hunter.

November 12: "The Black Snake," Norman, Elisa

Mary Oliver encounters death . . . 

The Black Snake

by:  Mary Oliver

When the black snake

flashed onto the morning road,

and the truck could not swerve--

death, that is how it happens.

Now he lies looped and useless

as an old bicycle tire.

I stop the car

and carry him into the bushes.

He is cool and gleaming

as a braided whip, he is as beautiful and quiet

as a dead brother.

I leave him under the leaves

and drive on, thinking

about death:  its suddenness,

its terrible weight,

its certain coming.  Yet under

reason burns a brighter fire, which the bones

have always preferred.

It is the story of endless good fortune.

It says to oblivion:  not me!

It is the light at the center of every cell.

It is what sent the snake coiling and flowing forward

happily all spring through the green leaves before

he came to the road.

Emily Dickinson wrote, "Because I could not stop for Death-- / He kindly stopped for me . . ."  

Oliver stops for death.  She gets out of her car and carries death, cool and gleaming, off the road, places him beneath the leaves of some bushes.  As she gets back into her vehicle and drives on, she meditates on the suddenness and inevitability of death.

This morning, I played a service at a local Lutheran church.  As with most churches I know, there are what I call "pillars":  people who seem as much a part of the building as the pews or altar or pipe organ.  This past week, one of the pillars of this church died.

Norman was his name.  A kind, older man who always sat in the second pew behind me.  I've been playing full-time for this church a little over a year, and Norman always went out of his way to talk to me.  Sometimes it was about my wild socks (I like the funky and colorful).  Sometimes it was about the postlude I played--I like people to dance out of church, humming a good tune.

The flowers from Norman's funeral were still in the sanctuary this morning.  A LOT of them.  In front of me was a floral arrangement with a ribbon that read "Grandpa."  I thought of all the Sundays Norman sat behind me with his wife.  How he would get a small smile on his face if I played something he particularly liked.  One Sunday, he whispered to my wife, "That's the way to get 'em moving."

Norman was sick for only a little while.  Last Sunday, he was placed in palliative care in the hospital.  He died on Monday.  Death came quickly for him.

I'm going to miss Norman.

This afternoon, I went to the piano recital of the daughter of one of my best friends.  The recital took place in a local funeral home, which may seem a little . . . weird.  However, it was perfect.  There was a grand piano and plenty of space.  Elisa is the name of my friend's daughter.  She played a program of music by Kuhlau, Chopin, Bach, and Gershwin.  Some of my favorite pieces.  It, also, was perfect.  Elisa played beautifully, looking confident and relaxed and young.  Really young.  Just on the cusp of young adulthood.

In the Bible, Christ says, "So you, too, must keep watch!  For you do not know the day or hour of my return."  That was the gospel passage that was read this morning in church, and I thought of Norman as I listened to it.  Then, I went to Elisa's recital in a funeral home.  Needless to say, thoughts of mortality have haunted me quite a bit today.  

After dinner tonight, I went for a walk with my wife.  As I looked down the street, I saw the sky broken open by the setting sun.  A bright skin of light sat on the horizon, as if something was trying to enter the heavens or leave them.  Maybe it was Norman telling me how much he liked my socks this morning.  Maybe it was angels smiling down on the world because of Elisa's music.  

Or maybe Death was kindly stopping for a few moments, to remind Saint Marty that light is at the center of every cell.

November 11: "Last Days," Veterans Day, Second Chances

Mary Oliver meditates on autumn . . .

Last Days

by:  Mary Oliver

Things are

     changing; things are starting to

          spin, snap, fly off into

               the blue sleeve of the long

                    afternoon.  Oh and ooh

come whistling out of the perished mouth

     of the grass, as things

turn soft, boil back

     into substance and hue.  As everything,

          forgetting its own enchantment, whispers:

               I too love oblivion why not it is full

                    of second chances.  Now,

hiss the bright curls of the leaves.  Now!

     booms the muscle of the wind.

It is that time of the year where everything boils back to substance and hue.  I took my puppy for a walk earlier this evening, and I could smell the bright curls of the leaves under my feet, feel the breath of winter on my face.  It is a time of change.

Today, the United States celebrated Veterans Day, honoring all the men and women who have served/are serving in the armed forces.  My father served in the Army.  My wife's father served in the Air Force.  In the midst of the changing seasons, we pause to express gratitude for the sacrifices made by all these brave individuals.

Oliver says that she loves the oblivion of autumn because it promises second chances.  Hope even.  

That's why I find celebrating Veterans Day in November particularly appropriate.  Because people serving in the United States military really sacrifice themselves for hope.  Hope for peace.  Hope for freedom.  Nobody would volunteer for oblivion.

Yes, human beings have committed horrible acts against each other.  Genocides.  Holocausts.  Wars.  Lynchings.  Slavery.  I could go on and on.  History is rife with human atrocities.

Yet, in the face of atrocities, human beings have also fought against them.  Fought for justice and peace and liberty and compassion.  Those ideals are worth defending.  And that is what, I think, military service is (or should be) about--second chances.  Witnessing something terrible and trying to make it better.

Tonight, Saint Marty salutes all military veterans.  People who have tried/are trying to make the world a safer, happier, freer place by their service.