December 20, 2024: "Florida in December," Winter Solstice Eve, "Dear God/Santa/Universe/Bigfoot/Elvis,"

I met with two wonderful people this morning--one poet friend who came to my office to write with me, another poet/healer friend who guided me through an energy session.  After I left my poet/healer friend's home, I felt lighter than I have in weeks.  It was sort of like Christmas morning, just a few days early.

My last day of work for the year at the library.  It was a push to get everything done.  Edited a podcast episode.  Answered emails.  Planned a few events for the start of 2025.  By the time I left the building, it was 4:30 p.m., and the sun was already fading from the sky.  

When I got home after work, my wife and I took our puppy for a long walk in the cold, clear night.

Billy Collins goes for an evening stroll, too . . . 

Florida in December

by: Billy Collins

From this dock by a lake 

where I walked down after a late dinner— 

some clouds blown like gauze across the stars, 

and every so often an airplane 

crossing the view from left to right, 

its green starboard wing light 

descending against this soft wind into the city airport. 

The permanent stars, 

I think on the walk back to the house, 

and the momentary clouds in their vaporous shapes, 

I go on, my hands clasped behind my back 

like a professor of nothing in particular. 

Then I am near enough to the house— 

warm, amber windows, 

cold dots of lights from the Christmas tree, 

glad to have seen those clouds, now blown away, 

happy to be under the stars, 

constant and swirling in the firmament, 

and here on the threshold of this house 

with all its work and hope, 

and steady enough under a fixed and shifting sky.

At the end of this long week, I find myself pretty tired.  Tomorrow is the Winter Solstice.  That means there will be only eight hours and 32 minutes of daylight.  Having battled darkness for over a month now, I've been sort of experiencing an extended Winter Solstice.  After tomorrow night, the light starts to return.  Slowly.  Second by second, and minute by minute.

Work and busyness have helped me fend off sadness these last 30 or so days.  I have to admit that I'm a little apprehensive about having so much "free" time these upcoming weeks.  Without the distraction of college teaching and library programming, I may just curl into a fetal position on the couch and binge watch every version of Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol that I can find.

Tonight, however, I give thanks for two wonderful friends who gave me hope this morning.  I also give thanks for another friend who messaged me today after listening to me reading my annual Christmas essay on Public Radio.  She wrote, "Your words are gifts to the people of the Upper Peninsula!"  Pretty amazing to be surrounded by so much light on Winter Solstice Eve.

Here's something (very rough) that Saint Marty wrote this morning with his poet friend:

Dear God/Santa/Universe/Bigfoot/Elvis,

by: Martin Achatz

I would like daily naps, breaks

around lunch time--after my ham sandwich,

before vacuuming, writing the next poem,

reading the next social media post that keeps

me awake until that time

when even the snow is asleep. 

Chocolate.  Always chocolate.

Which is just a wish for sweetness

in my life, something to remind me

I am loved even if the dishes aren't washed,

bed not made, or car brakes grind

like teeth in the middle of night.

Peace would be nice.  I'm not

even sure what I mean by that.

Maybe peace of mind--everything

working like the engine of a furnace

on a cold January night.  Or maybe

I mean world peace.  Ukrainians 

breaking bread with Russian

soldiers in Odessa, Muslims and Jews 

dancing together in the streets of Gaza.

Or maybe, just maybe, it's a cardinal

sitting in the branches of a pine tree

in my backyard, painting the world

with the bright brushes of its wings.

December 19, 2024: "Biographical Notes in an Anthology of Haiku," Tough Days, Poet Friends

Have you ever had just one of those days?  The kind where, about halfway through it, you think to yourself, "I should never have gotten out of bed this morning?"  

If you just answered "no" to that question, you're either lying, have had several concussions, or take stronger medications than I do.

I don't want to go into detail about the series of frustrations and moods I've endured today.  Water under the bridge, as my father would say.  He was the king of denial and emotional suppression.  (Dad voted for the Felon in Chief in 2016 and probably would have again this year.  However, Dad drew his last breath in 2018, before the pandemic and January 6th insurrection.)

If I were to write a haiku about today, it would probably go something like this:

Christmas in six days

too much left undone today

antidepressants

Billy Collins studies up on haiku masters . . .

Biographical Notes in an Anthology of Haiku

by: Billy Collis

          Walking the dog,
          you meet

          lots of dogs.
          —Sōshi

One was a seventeenth-century doctor
arrested for trading with Dutch merchants.
One loved sake then disappeared
through the doors of a monastery in his final years.

Another was a freight agent
who became a nun after her husband died.
Quite a few lived the samurai life
excelling in the lance, sword, and horseback riding

as well as poetry, painting, and calligraphy.
This one started writing poems at eight,
and that one was a rice merchant of some repute.
One was a farmer, another ran a pharmacy.

But next to the name of my favorite, Sōshi,
there is no information at all,
not even a guess at his years and a question mark,
which left me looking vacantly at the wall

after I had read his perfect little poem.
Whether you poke your nose into Plato
or get serious with St. John of the Cross,
you will not find a more unassailable truth

than walking the dog, you meet lots of dogs
or a sweeter one, I would add.
If I were a teacher with a student
who deserved punishment, I would make him write

Walking the dog, you meet lots of dogs
on the blackboard a hundred thousand times
or until the boy discovered
that this was no punishment at all, but a treat.

And if I were that student
holding a broken piece of chalk,
ready to begin filling the panels of the board,
I would first stand by one of the tall windows

to watch the other students running in the yard
shouting each other’s names,
the large autumn trees sheltering their play, 
everything so obvious now, thanks to the genius of Sōshi .

If you live long enough--whether you're a nun, farmer, or Plato--you will have good days and tough days.

Most of today was pretty tough.  This evening, however, I hosted Out Loud (a monthly open mic opportunity).  I gathered virtually with three other poets via Zoom, and we talked about grief and light and solstice and the color blue.  It was really good tonic (minus the gin) for my soul.  

Here's the thing:  I can be absolutely unfiltered with my poet friends.  They know me and my current struggles.  (I also had a visit this morning at the library with another old friend who brought me a Christmas gift.)  There's huge blessings in having people in your life who accept you as you are, warts, scars, and all.

Went for a walk with my puppy this evening.  We passed a dark house with a Christmas tree glowing in its front window.  A beautiful, bright miracle in the falling dusk.

It reminded Saint Marty that everyone can be a haiku or candle or miracle in a dark world.

December 18, 2024: "The Deep," Hope and Joy, Window

Well, I'm semi-recovered from the start of the week. Still feeling a little . . . hungover from end-of-semester stress, among other things. When my mind is engaged for such an extended period of time, without breaks or rest, it takes me a while to recover. Plus, with the headspace I've been in recently (still am), I'm floating in a world that doesn't make a whole lot of sense. The holidays are supposed to be filled with hope and joy.

Billy Collins studies a map . . .

The Deep

by: Billy Collins

Here on this map of the oceans everything is reversed—
the land all black except for the names of the continents
whereas the watery parts, colored blue,
have topographical features and even place names

like the Bermuda Rise, which sounds harmless enough
as does the Cocos Ridge, but how about exploring
The Guafo Fracture Zone when you're all alone?
And from the many plateaus and seamounts—

the Falkland, the Manning, the Azores—
all you could see is water and if you're lucky
a big fish swallowing a school of smaller ones
through the bars of your deep-sea diver's helmet.

And talk about depth: at 4,000 feet below the surface,
where you love to float on your back all summer,
we enter the Midnight Zone where the monkfish
quietly says his prayers in order to attract fresh prey,

and drop another couple of miles and you
have reached The Abyss where the sea cucumber
is said to undulate minding its own business
unless it's deceiving an attacker with its luminescence

before disappearing into the blackness.
What attacker, I can hear you asking,
would be down there messing with the sea cucumber?
And that is exactly why I crumpled the map into a ball

and stuffed it in a metal wastebasket

before heading out for a long walk along a sunny trail

in the thin, high-desert air, accompanied

by juniper trees, wildflowers, and that gorgeous hawk.

I think everyone harbors a certain fear of deep things--water, caverns, tunnels, conversations, therapy.  It's very human to avoid places or circumstances that force you to confront the sea cucumbers or monkfish of your life.  Not to mention those large, dark shapes so far away that you can't even identify them.

Most people retreat to the familiar and comfortable.  A sunny trail lined with juniper trees and wildflowers.  I just finished teaching a Good Books class at the university.  All of the memoirs, novels, and graphic memoirs we read this semester dealt in some way with forms of mental illness.  In several of the works, when the authors are dealing with deep depressions, they begin reading books they loved as a child, which makes complete sense to me.

Think about it.  You feel yourself floating in an abyss of darkness, where you can't seem to find any light whatsoever.  Then you start reading Charlotte's Web or Charlie and the Chocolate Factory or Island of the Blue Dolphins--stories that are so familiar you can almost recite them from memory.  It's like draping yourself in a warm quilt.  For a short while, you gain a miniscule sense of control over your life.  

I've been swimming in the deep for a while now.  What have I been doing for comfort?  Reading poets I love.  Mary Oliver, in particular.  Watching movies I've seen a hundred times.  White Christmas starring Bing Crosby and Danny Kaye is my current jam.  I still cry, but the tears are familiar to me.  I expect to get choked up when I read "Wild Geese" by Oliver or watch the final scene in White Christmas when it starts to snow on Christmas Eve.  I guess that's my version of crumpling up my map of the deep, scary oceans, throwing it out, and going for a sunny walk.  

Sometimes, even looking out a window you've looked out thousands of times can be a form of therapy.  From my office at the library, I can see the church across the street, a tree that's still retaining fragments of autumn in its branches, and falling snow.  Three small, lit Christmas trees line the windowsill.  On the tree are Bigfoot ornaments, adorned with the word "Believe."

Saint Marty needs that reminder on a daily basis right now.

December 17, 2024: "Rome in June," Exhausted, Sacred Spaces

Final grades are submitted, and I am the walking dead tonight.  I barely have the brain power to string a coherent sentence together.  After I'm done typing these few words, I am going to put my head on a pillow and sleep so hard that I may miss the rapture if it happens.

Billy Collins goes Keats hunting in Rome . . . 

Rome in June

by: Billy Collins

There was a lot to notice that morning

in the Church of Saint Dorothy, virgin martyr--

a statue of Mary with a halo of electric lights,

a faded painting of a saint in flight,

Joseph of Copertino, as it turned out,

and an illustration above a side altar

bearing the title "The Musical Ecstasy of St. Francis."

But what struck me in a special way

like a pebble striking the forehead

was the realization that the simple design

running up the interior of a church's dome

was identical to the design on the ceiling

of the room by the Spanish Steps

where Keats had died and where I

had stood with lifted eyes just the day before.

It was nothing more than a row

of squares, each with the carved head

of a white flower on a background of blue, 

but all during the priest's sermon

(which was either about the Wedding at Cana

or the miracle of the loaves and fishes

as far as my Italian could tell)

I was staring at the same image

that the author of Hyperion had stared at

from his death bed as he was being devoured by tuberculosis.

It was worth coming to Rome

if only to see what supine Keats was beholding

just before there would be no more Keats,

only Shelley, not yet swallowed by a wave,

and Byron before his Greek fever,

and Wordsworth who outlived Romanticism itself.

And it pays to lift the eyes, I thought outside the church

were a man on a bench was reading a newspaper,

a woman scolding her child,

and the heavy sky, visible above the narrow streets

of Trastevere, was in the process

of breaking up, showing segments of blue

and the occasional flash of Roman sunlight.

Again, no brain power tonight.  I hope to feel human by tomorrow, but there are no guarantees.  

I love Collins' narrative in today's poem, him standing in the room where Keats died of tuberculosis.  There are few places I've visited in my life that hold the same sort of sacred energy for me.  Some churches--Saint Patrick's Cathedral in New York City, in particular.  Some historic landmarks--Pearl Harbor in Hawaii nearly destroyed me.  Some places attached to writers I admire--the root cellar of Roethke House in Saginaw felt like I was breathing poetry.  The very air in these spaces seems sacred.

But then there are ordinary sacred spaces, as well.  For me, tonight, recovering from some long days of grading and schoolwork, my couch feels pretty damn sacred.  Plus, my puppy is next to me, nudging my hand with her nose.  

Saint Marty can give thanks for that.

December 16, 2024: "All Eyes," Grading Like Crazy, Ghosts

I am furiously finishing up my teaching duties for the semester.  That means that I'm grading like crazy, have been all day.  Will be grading all night, literally, with a short nap here and there when my eyes cross and I can't see the computer screen clearly.

Translation:  I am not fit to be around people or impart wisdom tonight.  By tomorrow night, I will look like an extra on a zombie movie.  Let's call it Night of the Grading Dead.

Billy Collins writes about being dead . . . 

All Eyes

by:  Billy Collins

Just because I'm dead now doesn't mean
I don't exist anymore.
All those eulogies and the obituary
in the corner of the newspaper
have made me feel more vibrant than ever.

I'm here in some fashion,
maybe like a gust of wind
that disturbs the upper leaves,
or blows a hat around a corner,
or disperses a little cloud of mayflies over a stream.

What I like best about this
is you realizing you can no longer
get away with things the way your used to
when it would be ten o'clock at night
and I wouldn't know where you were.

I'm all ears, you liked to say
whenever you couldn't bother listening.
And now you know that I'm all eyes,
looking in every direction,
and a special eye is always trained on you.

I often imagine my dead as spirits constantly around me, watching my every move.  That's both comforting and terrifying at the same time.  Tonight, I wish I could hand them my laptop, tell them what needs to be graded, and go to bed.

I can't do that, obviously, because I don't know if ghosts can identify a comma splice or a sentence fragment.

Therefore, it is going to be a long, sleepless night.

Saint Marty did step into his backyard a moment ago and saw a bright star burning in his neighbor's window.  Even in the midst of darkness, there is light.

December 15, 2024: "France," Good Catholic Boy, Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Sometimes, the pure ridiculousness of life is astonishing.  This morning, at the Lutheran church where I play keyboard, I experienced that sort of astonishment.

Billy Collins gets fed up . . . 

France

by: Billy Collins

You and your frozen banana,

you and your crème brûlée.

Can't we just skip dessert

and go back to the Hotel d'Orsay?

You and your apple tart

and your plates of profiteroles.

Can't we just ask for the check?

Can't you hear Time's mortal call?

Why linger here at the table

stuffing ourselves with sweets

when all the true pleasures await us

in room trois cent quarante-huit?

Collins really doesn't want to eat any dessert.  Doesn't want a fancy sweet that he can't pronounce all that well.  What he's trying to do is convince his dinner companion to return to their hotel room for some post-meal delight, and he does so with his usual wit and charm.

I don't have anything quite so sexy to write about.  

I played four church services this weekend--two last night, two this morning.  All but one were Catholic.  The outlier was a Lutheran church.  The opening hymn for the Lutherans was listed as 626 in the hymnal, a song titled "By Gracious Powers," with words by Dietrich Bonhoeffer, music by Robert Buckley Farlee.  I'd never heard it before.  

As I started playing it on the pipe organ, I chose a quieter setting, counting on the song being an old standard for the gathered congregation.  I went through the introduction then launched into the first verse.  

Nobody sang, except the pastor, and even he seemed to be struggling.

Realizing that something was amiss, either with my playing or the congregation itself, I got to the end of the refrain and immediately launched into verse two, louder, the right hand an octave higher on the keyboard.

Still, nobody was singing, and I began to panic.

About verse three, I realized that I was on my own.  Everyone else had given up.  It was five verses long, but it felt like an entire symphony.  There I sat on the organ bench, a good Catholic boy, powering through a Lutheran hymn that even a retired Lutheran pastor of 30 years didn't recognize.

With each consecutive verse, I played louder and louder, until the stained glass windows seemed to be rattling and fracturing.  When the song finished, I lifted my hands from the keyboard and looked out at the congregation.  They sat there, dumbfounded and confused.  I sat there, drenched in sweat.

At the end of the entire service, one gentleman from the music selection committee made an announcement, apologizing for "By Gracious Powers."  "I don't know what happened," he said.  "I was not familiar with that song at all."

The pastor chimed in, "In the 30-plus years I worked as a pastor, I think I've sung that song twice."

The whole situation was pretty fucking hilarious.  A Catholic leading a bunch of Lutherans in a song that nobody knew.  Ridiculous.  Astonishing.  Even tonight, as I was recounting this story to two musician friends, I couldn't stop laughing.

Saint Marty died a slow, musical death this morning.

December 14, 2024: "Best Fall," Good Ole Days, Golden Light

Today, I found myself full of nostalgia for the "good ole days."  Now, if you ask me what the "good ole days" were, I wouldn't be able to define them all that well.  I suppose it would include me not having to work five jobs; my kids being young enough still to think I was one step away from being a god; all my siblings living and healthy; and the Felon in Chief being just a two-bit real estate hustler with a bad haircut, living off his daddy's fortune. 

Billy Collins gets nostalgic, too . . . 

Best Fall

by: Billy Collins

was what we called a game we played

which had nothing to do

with a favorite autumn,

somebody else’s gorgeous reds and yellows.

no, eleven years old

all we wanted was to be shot

as we charged sacrificially into the fire

of the shooter lying prone behind a hedge,

or even better, to be that shooter

and pick off the others

as they charged the gun

each one stopping in his young tracks

to writhe and twist

aping the contortions of death

from the movies,

clutching our bleeding hearts

holding ourselves

as we lifted—a moment of ballet—

into the air then tumbled

into the grass behind our houses.

and whoever invented that game

made sure it would have

no ending,

for the one who was awarded

best fall by the shooter

got to be the next shooter

and so it went, shooting and being shot,

tearing at our cowboy shirts

trying our best

to make death look good

until it got almost dark

and our mothers called us in.

Of course, nostalgia paints the past in golden light, erasing all the struggles and pains and stresses.  It's not about objective reality.  Rather, it's a Norman Rockwell rendering of reality, wholesome and mostly untrue.  

Yet, most of the day, I was yearning for John Hughes movies and Walkmans, Molly Ringwald and River Phoenix.  My life was seemed much simpler back then.  No mortgages, car payments, or income taxes.  All I worried about was getting someone to take me to see Star Wars:  A New Hope again.  (I saw that film 27 times in the theater when it was first released.)  

I'm sure one or two or five years down the road, I'm going to be thinking back nostalgically on tonight.  Christmas tree glowing in the corner of the room.  Puppy snoring and moaning in her cage.  A full moon glowing in tree branches outside.  And Joe Biden serving as President of the United States.  (Come January 20, 2025, when the Felon in Chief takes the oath of office, the past four years are going to seem like a trip to Oz on the back of a flying monkey named Ozzie.)

Nostalgia is a retreat from unpleasant or painful presents.  An escape hatch, if you will.  The 1980s were far from perfect (Ronald Reagan was President of the United States, for God's sake!), but we had the best music.  The past four years weren't utopian, but we didn't have a person with the IQ of a rabbit in charge of the nuclear codes.  

For me, thinking backward is a retreat from the darkness I'm currently experiencing.  I remember lying on my bed, listening to the local Top 40 station, recording a hit mix of songs with my cassette player.  Billy Joel's "It's Still Rock and Roll to Me" and Yes's "Owner of a Lonely Heart."  And that was the most important thing I had to do.

Saint Marty will return to reality tomorrow.  Tonight, he's going to watch bad Hallmark holiday movies and dream of white Christmases, just like the ones he used to know.  Without global warming, convicted rapists in the Oval Office, and Fox News.

December 13, 2024: "After the Funeral," Friday the 13th, Light-Light

I try not to be superstitious, but I don't take any chances, either.  I don't walk under ladders or break mirrors.  Avoid places where black cats may wander across my path.  If I see a penny tails up on the ground, I don't reach for it.  My rationale is that there has to be some kind of basis for these old beliefs.  (Think about it--if you walk under a ladder, the chances of something falling on your head and injuring/killing you are greatly enhanced.)

I did venture out this Friday the 13th, although I avoided putting myself in the same room with anyone wearing a hockey mask.

Billy Collins buys his friend a drink-drink . . . 

After the Funeral

by: Billy Collins

When you told me you needed a drink-drink
and not just a drink like a drink of water,

I steered you by the elbow into a corner bar,
which turned out to be a real bar-bar,

dim and nearly empty with little tables in the back
where we drank and agreed that the funeral

was a real funeral-funeral complete with a Mass,
incense, and tons of eulogies.

You know, I always considered Tom a real
friend-friend, you said, lifting your drink-drink

to your lips, and I agreed that Tom
was much more than just an ordinary friend.

We also concurred that Angela’s black dress
was elegant but not like elegant-elegant,

just elegant enough. And a few hours later
when the bartender brought yet another round

of whiskeys to our table in the corner
we recognized by his apron and his mighty girth

that he was more than just a bartender.
A true bartender-bartender was what he was

we decided, with a respectful clink-clink
of our drink-drinks, amber in a chink of afternoon light.

So I didn't experience any bad Friday the 13th luck-luck, just regular bad luck.  I screened the film Shadowlands at the library today as part of a C. S. Lewis Holidays series.  For some reason, I decided to set things up early and make sure all the equipment was working properly.  When I inserted the brand new, just-out-of-the-package Blu-ray into the player, it didn't work.  It froze and wouldn't play.

I quickly ascertained that Shadowlands is not streaming on any service.  The best I could do was a pirated version uploaded on YouTube for free.  So, I went to a good friend in the library's Tech Services Department.  He examined the Blu-ray disk, saw that it was fingerprinted and scratched in one place.  He pulled out a contraption that looked like a rejected prop from the original Star Trek  series, and he buffed the disk.  

Problem solved.  Disaster averted.  A large group of people showed up to watch the movie.  That's good luck-luck.  

Had dinner with my whole family tonight--pizza from Little Caesar's, mac & cheese from Domino's.  Then I went home, put together music for this weekend's worship services, and headed out to a couple churches to practice.  

Most of the churches where I play are already decked out in Christmas finery.  (Except for the Catholics.  That transformation happens after the Fourth Sunday of Advent.)  At the Lutheran church this evening, I stopped to admire the decorations.  A beautiful manger scene.  Eight- or nine-foot tree.  Greens and candles.  An Advent wreath, of course.  

I took some pictures, to look at if I started feeling particularly sad-sad later.

As I said earlier, I'm not a superstitious person.  Yet, I wonder if I somehow did something wrong that brought on this affliction of darkness right now.  I know that's the sadness talking, coming from a place not based on rational thought, but superstition and faith are not based on objectivity and observation.  They're based on pure belief, regardless of verifiable truth.  One (superstition) based on fear.  One (faith) based on hope.

I'm not going to get all philosophical here.  That would be boring-boring.  

I just want to say that I choose hope over fear, lighting a candle each week to shine light into the dark corners of my life.  Real light.  Light-light that pushes away feelings of isolation and loneliness and despair.

Saint Marty is now ready for sleep-sleep.

December 12, 2024: "Irish Poetry," Christmas Trees, Concert

It was a very busy day, and that's good.  It keeps my mind occupied, unable to sit and reflect on dark things, which is my penchant at the moment.  It feels as if the soul of Flannery O'Connor has possessed in my body, mind, and spirit.  Where others see light, I see an escaped serial killer pointing a gun at my chest, saying, "You would of been a good person if it had been somebody there to shoot you every minute of your life."

Billy Collins is possessed by Seamus Heaney  . . . 

Irish Poetry

by: Billy Collins

That morning under a pale hood of sky
I heard the unambiguous scrape of spackling
against the side of our wickered, penitential house.

The day mirled and clabbered
in the thick, stony light,
and the rooks’ feathered narling
astounded the salt waves, the plush arm of coast.

I carried my bucket past the forked
coercion of a tree, up toward
the pious and nictitating preeminence of a school,
hunkered there in its gully of learning.

But only later, as I stood before a wash stand,
and gaunt, phosphorescent heifers
swam purposely beyond these windows,
did the whorled and sparky gib of the indefinite
manage to whorl me into knowledge.

Then, I heard the ghost-clink of milk bottle
on the rough threshold
and understood the meadow-bells
that trembled over a nimbus of ragwort—
the whole afternoon lambent, corrugated, puddle-mad.

This poems, for me, is a brilliant parody/homage to great Irish poets, like Heaney and William Butler Yeats and Eavan Boland.  (If you don't know Boland, look her up.  She's fantastic.)  In some ways, I think Collins wants us to laugh at his cleverness (which is abundant), but he also wants us to appreciate words and language like these great writers from the Emerald Isle.  Those words that roll around on the tongue like candy.

As I said, busyness defined my day.  I had meetings and appointments and deadlines and events.  The main event, The Winter Wonderland Walk Celebration.  At the library where I work, community members and businesses  and schools and organizations are invited to set up and decorate Christmas trees in the main art gallery.  It takes a LOT of wrangling of a LOT of people.  The results are always beautiful, but the effort, at times, can be a little soul-crushing.

Thank goodness, I received a great deal of help this year, from my officemate and friend.  She pretty much handled tree placement, communication, and troubleshooting.  In past years, most of that work has fallen on my shoulders, and my holiday spirit quickly fizzled during the weeks after Thanksgiving. 

My officemate is very aware of my blueness this year.  Because we share a work space, we know each other pretty well.  We share our triumphs and failures, our joys and our sorrows.  She's seen me at my best and worst, and she still cares about me.  That is the definition of friendship.

In addition to the forest of Christmas trees, the library also hosted a holiday concert by two of my favorite musicians in the area.  I played keyboard in a church praise band with them at one time, and they've backed me up at many poetry readings and programs over the 20-some years of our friendship.  They are two of the best people I know who have also seen me at some of the lowest moments of my life.  (They  played and sang at the funerals of both my sisters and my parents.)

There is no way I can thank all the people who've blessed my life with their love and caring over the years.  Words aren't enough--and that's coming from a person who venerates words like holy relics.  Flannery O'Connor once wrote, "The truth does not change according to our ability to stomach it."  My inner tribe knows my truth, in all its shining darkness, and they still love me.  That is a miracle.

The Irish have a particular term--anam cara--which translates as "soul friend" in Gaelic.  The famous Irish philosopher John O'Donohue wrote this, "With the anam cara, you could share your innermost self, your mind and your heart. You are joined in an ancient and eternal way. This belonging awakened and fostered a deep and special companionship. You are understood as you are without mask or pretension. The superficial and functional lies and half-truths of acquaintance fall away. You can be as you really are.”

Saint Marty was surrounded by anam cara tonight.

December 11, 2024: "Heraclitus on Vacation," Pretty Humble, "Ode to a Desk Lamp"

The philosopher Heraclitus said, "No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it's not the same river and he's not the same man."

Billy Collins said . . . 

Heraclitus on Vacation

by: Billy Collins

It is possible to stick your foot
into the same swimming pool twice,

dive, or even cannonball
into the deep or shallow end

as many times as you like
depending on how much you had to drink.

Billy Collins is obviously having some fun with Heraclitus.  I appreciate his irreverence.  There's nothing wrong with thumbing your nose at people who take themselves too seriously.  I've been a part of academia for over 30 years, and I've met my share of inflated egos.

I like to believe that I have remained pretty humble throughout my life.  It's the way I was brought up.  Don't get me wrong--I love the spotlight.  Few things give me as much pleasure as reading my poems in front of an audience and feeling them respond to my words.

However, I know that I'm not that important.  I haven't solved world hunger or cured cancer.  I recycle and compost, but I'm not Greta Thunberg.  I write poetry, but I'm not Diane Seuss or Jericho Brown.  I have two great kids, but I'm not Mike Brady dispensing sage, fatherly advice.  And I have great friends who love me, but I'm not Fred Rogers singing "It's a Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood."

I am simply trying to be the best person I can be on a daily basis.  Sometimes, I succeed.  Often, however, I fail miserably.  That keeps me from spending too much time on top of anyone's pedestal.  I make tons of mistakes, and I feel as though I disappoint a lot of people who are important in my life.

I believe the best way to remain humble and true to yourself is to own and atone for your mistakes.  So please accept my apology if I've somehow let you down in any way recently or in the past.  It's never my intention to hurt or harm the people I love.  

Clarence, the angel from It's a Wonderful Life, says this to George, "Strange, isn't it?  Each man's life touches so many other lives.  And when he isn't around he leaves an awful hole, doesn't he?"

When Saint Marty is gone from this world, he hopes he leaves a very large hole to prove that he somehow made a difference.

Here's another poem by Collins about something that has made a difference in his life . . . 

Ode to a Desk Lamp

by: Billy Collins

Oh faithful light, under which I have written

and read for all these decades,

flying saucer with your underbelly softly aglow,

rising on a stem from a heavy metal base,

lamp I rescued from my old girlfriend's mother,

who was about to toss you

from her condo on a bluff

overlooking the ruffled Pacific.

Has anyone been with me longer?

me without siblings or children,

you with your kindly 60 watt frosted bulb,

you who have not died like others I know,

you nestled in a bath towel

on the floorboards of the car

as I backed it down the driveway of my marriage

and steered east then south down the two- then four-lane roads.

So many nights like this one,

me sleepless, you gazing down on the page

and now on a crystal rock, a tiny figure of a pig,

and an orchid dying in its blue China pot.

But that is more than enough

of the sad drapery of the past as I hold the present

between two fingers and the thumb

and a blue train whistles in the distance.

It's time to saddle up, partner,

once I unplug your tail from the socket,

time to ride out west,

far from the gaucheries of men,

the inconstancy of women,

and the rowdy mortality of them all, 

until we find a grove of trees near a river--

just you and me with our bedrolls under a scattering of stars.

December 10, 2024: "The Music of the Spheres," Busy Mind, "Orient"

I know y'all are probably getting tired of my posts about the struggle of sadness.  It's difficult to write happy or funny things when you're in the doldrums.  So, if need be, let my words become white noise--constantly present, but easily ignored.

Billy Collins on background sounds . . . 

The Music of the Spheres

by: Billy Collins

The woman on the radio
who was lodging the old complaint
that her husband never listens to her

reminded me of the music of the spheres,
that chord of seven notes,
one for each of the visible planets,

which has been sounding
since the beginning of the universe,
and which we can never hear,

according to Pythagoras
because we hear it all the time
so it sounds the same as silence.

But let’s say the needle were lifted
from the spinning grooves
of those celestial orbs--

then people would stop
on the streets and look up,
and others would stop in the fields

and hikers would stop in the woods
and look this way and that
as if they were hearing something

for the first time,
and that husband would lower
the newspaper from his face

look at his wife
who has been standing in the doorway
and ask Did you just say something, dear?

When I woke this morning, I knew today was going to be rough.  Tears were just behind my eyes like a headache, and they remained there all day.  A couple of times, I couldn't hold them back.  A friend stopped by my office to give me a card and a hug, and I cried.  A Doris Day Christmas song started playing on the radio, and I cried.  (Doris Day was my mom's favorite singer.)  I read a poem by Mary Oliver, and I cried.

When my mind is busy with work, my blueness fades a little.  I don't give myself time to feel.  That might not be the healthiest method of coping with depression, but it works for me.  However, when I experience some downtime (like right now, when everyone is in bed, the TV is dark, and silence hums in my ears like a furnace), I feel myself spiraling.

It's like how Collins describes the music of the spheres--so constant it becomes invisible to the naked ear.  (Yes, I'm conflating two senses in that previous statement.  So sue me.)  When the planets stop singing, that's when everyone notices the silence.

If I stay busy, I can hold the darkness at bay.  Not notice its music.  When I sit down and allow myself to "rest" (if you can call it that), the sadness roosts like a flock of crows in the trees outside my window, cawing and coughing.

So, I try to keep myself moving and thinking, all the time.  It's kind of exhausting, but it beats the alternative, which would be balling myself into a fetal position and weeping.  That's also why I write these posts so late--a busy mind is a happy mind.  Or at least a not-so-sad mind.

Saint Marty will take the music of the spheres (or ACDC or Metallica) over peace and quiet right now.

Another poem from Collins--about being self aware . . . 

Orient

by: Billy Collins

You are turning me
like someone turning a globe in her hand,
and yes, I have another side
like a China no one,
not even me, has ever seen.

So describe to me what’s there,
say what you are looking at
and I will close my eyes
so I can see it too,
the oxcarts and all the lively flags.

I love the sound of your voice
like a little saxophone
telling me what I could never know
unless I dug a hole all the way down
through the core of myself.

December 9, 2024: "Keats: or How I Got My Negative Capability Back," Mystery, Bright or Dark

The poet John Keats coined the term "Negative Capatility" to argue against reason in favor of beauty, wonder, and mystery.

Billy Collins wrestles with mystery . . . 

Keats:  or How I Got My Negative Capability Back

by: Billy Collins

I remember the first time I realized 

how lacking I was in Negative Capability, 

It was on a long slope of lawn 

next to a turreted stone building 

that housed the shenanigans 

of the department of English. 

Some brown birds were pecking in the grass, 

and yet here I was, a nineteen year old 

too concerned with my clothes 

and the nervous mystery of girls 

to identify with this group of common sparrows 

another student was pointing to, 

let alone the nightingale we had read about,

invisible in the woods of England. 

I was so short on empathy in those days 

the only Negative Capability I could have possessed 

would be negative Negative Capability, 

which I could have turned into a positive 

had Keats not so firmly determined 

that regular Negative capability was already a positive thing. 

All those birds are surely dead by now, 

no more hopping around 

in the grass of Massachusetts for them, 

but I’m still here this afternoon 

looking at a dog asleep half under the porch, 

an old brown mongrel with a hoary muzzle, 

his paws twitching so frantically 

I can even see what he is dreaming 

as the sun helps itself down the sky. 

Yes, I am watching him jump a stone wall 

in pursuit of a darting rabbit— 

I am way up on a high branch 

of a tree that is swaying in the wind of his dream.

I have always preferred wonder over logic.  I don't need to understand how Christmas tree lights work in order to appreciate their glow on a winter's night.  Nor do I have to master calculus or physics to embrace the beauty of a meteor shower or lunar eclipse.  Negative Capability is free for the taking, as long as you can resist the urge to dissect and explain.

Now, I've spent a great deal of time recently trying to figure out why I'm experiencing such deep sadness during this season of light and hope.  Perhaps it's leftover grief from the recent deaths of my mother and sister.  Or maybe it's due to the lack of sunlight in the Upper Peninsula heavens.  How about an imbalance of chemicals in my brain or a genetic predisposition?

Finding the cause of sorrow doesn't necessarily lead to happiness or joy.  And, in a weird way, sadness itself can be beautiful.  When I'm in one of my blue funks, as I am now, I've noticed that the tiniest of kindnesses (a small word of encouragement, a hug, a smile) can be profoundly moving, like seeing the thick brush strokes of a van Gogh painting up close.  Grief and love are inextricably attached.

So, unlike Billy Collins, I possess a great deal of Negative Capability in my person.  I don't need to understand WHY I'm sad.  I just AM sad.  Tomorrow morning, I may wake and feel the weight of the last few weeks lifted from my shoulders.  Or I may not.  

Whatever happens, Saint Marty embraces the mystery and wonder, whether bright or dark.

December 8, 2024: "American Airlines #371," Crazy Day, Advent Service

It has been a crazy day.  Let me give you a brief rundown:

• Played two church services this morning--one at 9 a.m., the second at 10:45 a.m.
• Livestreamed a TubaChristmas concert at the local regional history center.  (Yes, that is EXACTLY what it sounds like--31 tubas and euphoniums playing Christmas carols for an hour.)
• Went grocery shopping.
• Took my puppy for a long walk.
• Read Christmas essays and poems for an Advent celebration at one of the Lutheran churches for which I play keyboard.

The good thing about staying so busy is that I had no time to feel overwhelmed or sad.  I simply moved from event to event, taking it one step at a time.  Of course, I'm kind of exhausted now.

Billy Collins finds things for which to be thankful . . .

American Airlines #371

by: Billy Collins

Pardon my benevolence,
but given the illusion that my fellow passengers and I
are now on our way to glory,
rising over this kingdom of clouds
(airy citadels! unnamable goings-on within!)
and at well over 500 miles per hour,
which would get you to work in under one second,

I wish to forgive the man next to me
who so annoyed me before the wine started arriving
by turning each page of his newspaper
with a kind of crisp, military snap,
and the same goes for that howling infant,
and for the child in the row begin me
who persisted in hitting that F above high C
that all of her kind know perfectly how to hit
while rhythmically kicking the back of my seat.

Yes, I have softened and been rendered
even grateful by the ministrations of Eva,
uniformed wine bearer in the sky,
and if we are not exactly being conveyed to Paradise,
at least we are vectoring across the continent
to Los Angeles–orange tree in the backyard,
girl on a motorcycle roaring down Venice Boulevard.

And eventually we will begin our final descent
(final descent! I want to shout to Eva)
into the city of a million angels,
where the world might terminate or begin afresh again,
which is how I tend to feel almost every day–

life’s end just around another corner or two,
yet out of the morning window
the thrust of a new blossom from that bush

whose colorful name I can never remember.

Now that the flight of this day has landed for me, and I have a few moments to reflect before I go to sleep, I want to focus on gratitude for a moment.  

You see, despite my current state of sadness, I know that I'm an incredibly blessed person.  Blessed with family and friends.  It's easy, when I'm struggling with darkness, to lose sight of how much I am loved.  These last few weeks, I've had so many people reach out with words and embraces and kindnesses.  I have been saturated with compassion, empathy, and goodness.

Tonight, after the Advent program, we celebrated with Christmas cookies and treats.  I sat at a table with some of my closest friends and companions from the church.  As I was about to dig into my plate of goodies, I was handed a gift bag.

Inside was a card inscribed with personal messages from so many of the people I care about and who care about me.  I almost started crying.  Then I removed the colorful tissue paper from the bag, and I pulled about some Bigfoot swag--a keychain/multi-purpose tool and a towel.  It was another amazing reminder that, even though I feel as hugely unlovable as Bigfoot at the moment, my life if full of graces.  

If you are part of my family at Faith Lutheran, I thank you for accepting me with so much generosity of heart and spirit.  

You've made this broken saint a little more whole.

December 7, 2024: "Lines Written in a Garden by a Cottage in Herefordshire," Final Reading, Sabe

Here are some lines written on my couch in my living room.  The Christmas tree is glowing in the corner, and my wife and son are in bed, asleep.  I can hear my puppy snoring in her cage, and there's a wind rattling tree branches outside the window.  

Billy Collins writes some lines about an impatient bee . . .

Lines Written in a Garden by a 

Cottage in Herefordshire

by: Billy Collins

No, this time I'm not kidding around.
There's some half-shattered outdoor furniture,
then crowds of dianthus and pink hydrangeas,
honeysuckle going wild over the bright blue door,
and zinc buckets and coal carriers overflowing
with pansies, lavender, and some kind of soft fern—
just the right combination of growth and neglect.

And you don't have to wish for a brick wall,
a gravel path or a leaning disused shed
to complete the picture because they're all right here
as well as a concrete statue of a maiden
holding a jug, one breast exposed, overgrown with ivy.
The only thing you might not think of,
being in another place so far away,

is this one bee who just refused to wait
for all the morning glories to unfurl in the early sun,
and instead, pushed her way into the white flute
of a blossom, disappearing for a moment
before she flew off in her distinctive gold
and black uniform like a player on a team,
heading over the hedge toward a core of honey.

This evening was the final reading for the book tour I'm doing with a poet friend this December.  It was at a local kombucha bar, and quite a few of our close friends showed up to support us.  I wasn't expecting such a large crowd on a Saturday night in December.

I've been humbled over and over since my new book was released.  So many people have told me how much they love it.  (I'm not writing this to brag.  Bragging simply isn't in my nature.  Bitching sarcastically, yes.  Bragging, no.)  I was not brought up to accept praise easily.  Rather, my parents taught me to work hard and not expect pats on the back or words of encouragement.  That's what was expected.

Thus, I believe Bigfoot or my poet friend were the ones who attracted the big crowd, not me.  Nevertheless, I had a good time, reading and visiting and eating.  One person at the open mic was another friend who played the wood flute and told a story about Sabe, the Indigenous version of Bigfoot.  Sabe is a symbol of honesty in the Seven Grandfather teachings.  

My version of Bigfoot aligns, I think, with Sabe.  Bigfoot is emotionally smarter than me and doesn't put up with bullshit.  He has no patience for niceties and small talk.  Neither do I.  For Bigfoot/Sabe, life is all about being authentic and true.  I wish I could be more like him, not caring about others' opinions or ideas.  Just being me is enough.

Those are Saint Marty's lines for tonight

 

December 6, 2024: "Lines Written at Flying Point Beach," the Soo, Ace

A good portion of today, I was traveling for Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan, to do a poetry workshop and reading at Bayliss Library.  I didn't have to drive at all.  One of my best poet friends drove the entire way there and back.  He co-led the workshop and co-read with me.

I'm not particularly fond of long car rides, especially during the winter in the Upper Peninsula.  In the past couple weeks, the "Soo," as Yoopers affectionally call Sault Ste. Marie, got over three feet of snow.  That might seem like a lot to non-Yoopers, but a lot of snow doesn't slow us down for very long.

Billy Collins writes about a favorite place . . . 

Lines Written at Flying Point Beach

by: Martin Achatz

or at least in the general vicinity
of Flying Point Beach,
certainly closer than I normally am

to that beach where the ocean
crests the dunes at high tide
spilling tons of new salt water into Mecox Bay,

and probably closer to Flying Point Beach
than you are right now
or I happen to be as you are reading this.

but how close do I really need to be
to Flying Point Beach
or to any beach in order to write these lines?

Oh, Flying Point Beach,
I love all three words in your name,
not to mention the deep, white sand

and the shorebirds on their thin legs
facing into the wind
along that low stretch between the ocean and the bay.

How satisfying it is to be
even within bicycling distance of you,
though it's dangerous to ride at the edge of these roads.

Thoreau had a cabin near his pond.
Virginia Woolf stood on the shore of the River Ouse,
and here I am writing all this down

not very far at all--maybe 20 minutes by taxi
if the driver ever manages to find this place--
from the many natural wonders of Flying Point Beach.

The Soo is a beautiful town, even when it's buried under 36+ inches of white stuff.  When I visited close to ten years ago, I remember watching ships pass through the locks on the St. Mary's River.  I can't say it's one of my favorite places, but Yoopers are a hardy lot, but, to be honest, I wasn't sure if poetry was enough to lure people to brave the elements.  My gut told me that we were going to have a very small audience.  But you know that old saying from the Bible, where two or three are gathered, there shall be poetry.  (Okay, I made that last bit up.)

For our reading, I was convinced nobody was going to show up.  (Ronnie and I led a poetry workshop earlier, and only one person attended--and he worked for the library.)  Two people came to the reading:  a young woman and her third-grade son whose name was Ace.  Neither were very interested in poetry.  They came to get a selfie with Bigfoot.

Ace was an amazing little guy.  Full of energy and kindness, he got his picture with Bigfoot, but he also sat and listened to me read poems and Ronnie sing songs.  After I read one particular poem, Ace said to me, "That was the best poem I've ever heard.  And I'm not just saying that."  You don't often encounter that kind of emotional intelligence in a young person.

Speaking with Ace's mother, I learned of his struggles in a schoolroom with inattentive teachers and bullies.  He hasn't had an easy time of things, and his story reminded me so much of my own son's issues in elementary and middle school.  At the end of the reading, I told Ace how awesome he was, and I encouraged him to continue to be kind and curious.

On the drive home from the Soo, Ronnie said to me, "Ace made this whole trip worth it."

Ace gave Saint Marty hope for the future today.

December 5, 2024: "Villanelle," Daughter's Birthday, Card from a Friend

It was my daughter's 24th birthday today.  

Even after typing that sentence, I still can't believe it's true.  It seems like just yesterday that I was handed this screaming little pink thing, wrapped in a blanket.  Now, that squirming bundle will be heading off to medical school in August.

Billy Collins writes a villanelle that makes me smile . . . 

Villanelle

by: Billy Collins

This first line will not go away,
though the middle ones will disappear,
and the third, like the first, is bound to get more play.

Examples of the type are written every day,
and whether uplifting or drear,
that first line just won’t go away.

It seems some lines have the right of way.
It’s their job to reappear,
for example, the third, designed to get more play.

Whether you squawk like an African Grey
or sing sweetly to the inner ear,
the line you wrote first will just not go away.

You may compose all night and day
under a bare lightbulb or a crystal chandelier,
but line number three must get more play.

How can a poet hope to go wildly astray
or sing out like a romantic gondolier
when the first line will not go away,
and the third always has the final say?

Right now, I cherish things that lighten my mood.  This poems did that.  So did having a birthday dinner with my daughter tonight, seeing the caring young woman she's become.  (She also loves her filet mignon.)  I'd like to take credit for how smart and compassionate she is, but I can't.  My daughter has always had a strong sense of herself from a very young age.

The other things that made me smile tonight was a gift from a close, close friend.  She stopped by my office today and left it on my table.  It was a beautiful card with a medicine man on the front, a handwritten message inside, and a beautiful heart-shaped ornament.  My friend knows of my recent struggles, and she was simply reaching out to check on me.  

I'm am such a blessed person.  I'm surrounded by people I care about and who care about me.  That is something I hold onto tonight.  My daughter reminds me that I did something very, very right in my life, and the card/gift from my friend reminds me that I am very, very loved.

Saint Marty can't ask for much more than that.

December 4, 2024: "Here and There," Best Poet Friends, Imagination

I spent some time this morning writing with one of my best poet friends.  Now, I didn't write anything of any worth, but it felt good simply to sit in the same room with her and be myself, without having to put on any masks.

Or I didn't do that.

Billy Collins goes sailing--or he doesn't . . . 

Here and There

by: Billy Collins

I feel nothing this morning 

except the low hum of the ego, 

a constant, shameless sound behind the rib cage. 

I even keep forgetting my friend in surgery 

at this very hour. 

In other words, a perfect time to write 

about clouds rolling in after a week of sun 

and a woman beating laundry on a rock 

in front of her house overlooking the sea— 

all of which I am making up— 

the clouds, the house, the woman, even the laundry. 

Or take the lights strung in a harbor 

that I once saw from the bow of a sailboat, 

which seemed unreal at the time and more unreal now. 

Even if I were there again at the ship’s railing 

as I am sitting here in a lawn chair, who would believe it? 

Vast maple tree above me, are you really there? 

and you, open cellar door, 

and you, vast sky with sun and a fading contrail— 

no more real than the pretend city 

where she lies now under the investigating lights, 

an imaginary surgeon busy 

breaking into the vault of her phantom skull.

This whole poem by Collins speaks to the power of the imagination.  Is that maple tree outside my window real, or have I invented it, imbued it with enough detail to make it alive?  Is Collins' friend really having brain surgery, or is Collins just embellishing once more?  And does it really matter?  It's still the truth.

A couple weeks ago, I fell asleep on my living room couch, and I woke up in the middle of night, swearing that I heard someone pounding on the front door of my house.  My puppy even growled at the sound.  I never checked to see if anyone was standing on my front step.  All I did was make sure the inside door to the house was locked.

Imagination is a powerful force.  In the Book of Genesis, God literally speaks everything into being.  He says the word, and suddenly there's light.  Earth.  Heavens.  Land.  Water,  Stars.  Birds.  Fish.  Beasts.  Adam.  Eve.  God writes a poem, coughs breath into it, and the poem becomes as real as the freckle on my left wrist.

So tonight, as a snowstorm rages outside--or doesn't--I'm grateful for my poet friend.  For the bad poems I wrote this morning with her.  They're still sitting in my journal, without any breath in their lungs.

Now, if only Saint Marty could simply say "Let there be happiness in my heart" and feel it fluttering against his ribs like a trapped bird.

December 3, 2024: "Osprey," Splintered the Clouds, Wonder and Astonishment

I saw something beautiful this morning.  After several days of gray skies and heavy snow, the clouds opened up, and the sun splintered the clouds with light.  

Billy Collins goes birdwatching . . . 

Osprey

by: Billy Collins

Oh, large brown, thickly feathered creature
with a distinctive white head,
you, perched on the top branch
of a tree near the lake shore,

as soon as I guide this boat back to the dock
and walk up the grassy path to the house,
before I unzip my windbreaker
and lift the binoculars from around my neck,

before I wash the gasoline from my hands,
before I tell anyone I'm back,
and before I hang the ignition key on its nail,
or pour myself a drink—

I'm thinking a vodka soda with lemon—
I will look you up in my
illustrated guide to North American birds
and I promise I will learn what you are called.

Poets are always on the lookout for wonder and astonishment, be it an osprey or snail or marshmallow or sunrise.  If wonder and astonishment are in short supply, then it's the poet's job to hunt them down, wherever they can be found.

As the faithful disciples of this blog (and there are at least two) know, I've been more than a little preoccupied with darkness since Thanksgiving night.  Not by choice, mind you.  Nobody would volunteer to be sad all day and night.  To wake up at 2 a.m. and cry for an hour or so.  

So, this morning, I watched the sun rise over Lake Superior after I dropped my son off at school and my wife at work.  I do this frequently at the library, since I have access to the roof of the building.  In the spring and autumn, it's a glorious way to start a day.  It allows light into the deepest corners of the heart.  In the winter, it's a different experience.  Still beautiful, but coupled with an aching cold.  

I guess what I'm trying to say is that I was able to embrace beauty today, despite freezing my ass off.  Unlike Collins, I didn't need to look up the name of anything.  No osprey to identify.  It was just me.  The cold.  The lake.  And the sun.  

For those few, brief, shining moments, Saint Marty was flooded with wonder.