December 30, 2024: "The Names," George Baileys, Poinsettia

I know that my blog posts recently have been a little . . . dark.  I apologize for that.  You see, at the holiday season, most people want It's a Wonderful Life, not Terms of Endearment.  I get it.  

All of the faithful disciples of this blog know that I write my truth, whether it's joyful or sorrowful.  If I have a good day, you will read about it here.  If my day is shitty, you will also read about it here.  That's how it works.  For most of this past month, since Thanksgiving, I haven't been George Bailey singing "Auld Lang Syne" in a house crowded with family and friends.  Rather, I've been George Baily standing on a wintry bridge, gazing down at the roiling black river.

The human condition is complex, full of paradoxes.  I can be both George Baileys at the same time.  I have a feeling that, in the next four years, I'm going to be on that bridge a lot.  And I would hazard a guess that I won't be alone on that bridge.  It's going to be pretty damn crowded.

Billy Collins writes about collective grief . . . 

The Names

by: Billy Collins

     (for the victims of September 11th 

     and their survivors)

Yesterday, I lay awake in the palm of the night.
A fine rain stole in, unhelped by any breeze,
And when I saw the silver glaze on the windows,
I started with A, with Ackerman, as it happened,
Then Baxter and Calabro,
Davis and Eberling, names falling into place
As droplets fell through the dark.
Names printed on the ceiling of the night.
Names slipping around a watery bend.
Twenty-six willows on the banks of a stream.

In the morning, I walked out barefoot
Among thousands of flowers
Heavy with dew like the eyes of tears,
And each had a name —
Fiori inscribed on a yellow petal
Then Gonzalez and Han, Ishikawa and Jenkins.

Names written in the air
And stitched into the cloth of the day.
A name under a photograph taped to a mailbox.
Monogram on a torn shirt,
I see you spelled out on storefront windows
And on the bright unfurled awnings of this city.
I say the syllables as I turn a corner —
Kelly and Lee,
Medina, Nardella, and O'Connor.

When I peer into the woods,
I see a thick tangle where letters are hidden
As in a puzzle concocted for children.
Parker and Quigley in the twigs of an ash,
Rizzo, Schubert, Torres, and Upton,
Secrets in the boughs of an ancient maple.

Names written in the pale sky.
Names rising in the updraft amid buildings.
Names silent in stone
Or cried out behind a door.
Names blown over the earth and out to sea.

In the evening — weakening light, the last swallows.
A boy on a lake lifts his oars.
A woman by a window puts a match to a candle,
And the names are outlined on the rose clouds —
Vanacore and Wallace,
(let X stand, if it can, for the ones unfound)
Then Young and Ziminsky, the final jolt of Z.

Names etched on the head of a pin.
One name spanning a bridge, another undergoing a tunnel.
A blue name needled into the skin.
Names of citizens, workers, mothers and fathers,
The bright-eyed daughter, the quick son.
Alphabet of names in green rows in a field.
Names in the small tracks of birds.
Names lifted from a hat
Or balanced on the tip of the tongue.
Names wheeled into the dim warehouse of memory.
So many names, there is barely room on the walls of the heart.

Collins wrote and read this poem for a joint session of Congress held in New York City one year after September 11, 2001.  It's a powerful testament to communal love and loss.  And it ends the year of Billy Collins on this blog.  Fitting, I think, as it is, in my opinion, one of his finest works, capturing the heartache of that time.

You see, if there's one thing I've learned from Collins over these past 365 days, it's this:  laughter and tears are not mutually exclusive.  They coexist in everyone.  Collins writes about the ridiculous and sublime.  Sometimes, his poems are ridiculously sublime, and sometimes they are sublimely ridiculous.  They are like holding an ice cube in your fist.  First, it burns.  Then, it numbs.  Finally, it becomes cool water baptizing your fingers.

I'm holding a burning ice cube in my fist at the moment.  In these last melting days of 2024, I face a new year that will see some drastic personal changes in my life.  My daughter will be moving away to attend medical school.  My son will be starting college.  Sooner than I care to admit, my wife and I will be facing an empty nest.  These are things that I both celebrate and mourn.  

On Christmas Eve at my wife's church, I took a picture of a blooming poinsettia sitting on the altar railing in front of me.  It was donated by a family in honor of a lost loved one.  Beauty and grief nestled together in those crimson petals on one of the most sacred nights for Christians.

In the the nativity story in the Gospel of Luke, there is this passage:  "And all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds said to them.  But Mary treasured these things and pondered them in her heart."  

Saint Marty treasures all the joys and sadnesses of his life.  They are written on the walls of his heart.