November 17: "Report from the Subtropics," Up North, Humility

Days and nights are definitely getting cooler in my neck of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.  Most mornings, there's a rime of frost on the grass and rooftops.  At dusk, when the sun disappears, breath fogs the air.  And retirees fly to the subtropics for the winter.

Billy Collins has a close encounter with birds with long, white necks . . .

Report from the Subtropics

by: Billy Collins

For one thing, there’s no more snow
to watch from an evening window,
and no armfuls of logs to carry into the house
so cumbersome you have to touch the latch with an elbow,

and once inside, no iron stove like an old woman
waiting to devour her early dinner of wood.

No hexagrams of frost to study
on the cold glass pages of the bathroom.

No black sweater to pull over my head
while I wait for the coffee to brew.

Instead, I walk around in children’s clothes—
shorts and a tee shirt with the name of a band
lettered on the front, announcing me to nobody.

The sun never fails to arrive early
and refuses to leave the party
even after I go from room to room,
turning out all the lights, and making a face.

And the birds with those long white necks?
All they do is swivel their heads
keeping an eye on me as I walk along,
as if they all knew my password
and the name of the little town where I was born.

I've only traveled to the subtropics a handful of times for the winter, and only for a couple weeks at most.  Yes, I walked around in shorts and tee shirt in January, like a little kid on a summer day, and, indeed, there were birds with long, white necks watching me like grandparents, knowing every one of my moves before I made them

But I'm not in the subtropics now, nor do I have any plans to travel to the subtropics any time soon.  So this blog post is my report from Up North.  (And when I use the term "Up North," I'm not talking about anywhere below the Mackinac Bridge.  If you don't know what over 300 inches of snow looks like, you are not Up North.)

I took my puppy for several long walks today, and I went grocery shopping.  This evening, I facilitated a Zoom poetry workshop.  It was one of those nights where nothing seemed to click with me.  Writing was a struggle.  Before I read aloud what I managed to scribble in my journal, I invoked the spirit of my good friend, Helen.  I said, "I give myself permission to write absolute shit."

After I finished reading my efforts, one of the other poets at the workshop said, "That wasn't shit."

Perhaps I was being too hard on myself.  I do that frequently.  However, I come from a family of nine kids, and my parents taught me the value of hard work.  I was never allowed to be on a pedestal for very long.  Somebody always came along and kicked it out from underneath me.  Translation:  you're no better than anyone else.

Humility is an important virtue.  In fact, I would venture to say that it's one of the most important qualities a person can acquire.  I don't like people who have high opinions of themselves.  (Working in the arts, I've met a few megalomaniacs.)  Instead, I prefer kind people.  Generous people.  People who go out of their ways to make the world a better place.

Tonight, I was surrounded, virtually, by kind and generous people.  We laughed, told stories, wrote poems, and held each other up in love.  And it was really good.

That's Saint Marty's report from Up North today.