It has been snowing all day. As I sit on my couch, typing this post, I can hear the city plows rumbling down the street, and the guy who clears my driveway is hard at work. I totally didn't expect this little storm. (Then again, I haven't really looked at the weather forecast for almost a week, so any type of precipitation would have caught me off guard.)
Expectations are tricky things. They can fill you with hope and joy, but they can also dish up some serious disappointment. I learned that lesson over and over as a parent. Dirty dishes in the sink--disappointment. Straight A's on a report card--hope and joy. Skipping school--disappointment. A handmade card for my birthday--hope and joy (and maybe a tear or two).
Sharon Olds is disappointed with her grandmother . . .
The Eye
by: Sharon Olds
My bad grandfather wouldn't feed us.
He turned the lights out when we tried to read.
He sat alone in the invisible room
in front of the hearth, and drank. He died
when I was seven, and Grandma had never once
taken anyone's side against him,
the firelight on his red cold face
reflecting extra on his glass eye.
Today I thought about that glass eye,
and how at night in the big double bed
he slept facing his wife, and how the limp
hole, where his eye had been, was open
towards her on the pillow, and how I am
one-fourth him, a brutal man with a
hole for an eye, and one-fourth her,
a woman who protected no one. I am their
sex, too, their son, their bed, and
under their bed the trap-door to the
cellar, with its barrels of fresh apples, and
somewhere in me too is the path
down to the creek gleaming in the dark, a
way out of there.
Sharon Olds had an expectation of her grandmother--the she would protect the young Olds from the grandfather's drunken cruelties. Of course, that expectation leads to disappointment. Her grandmother turns a blind eye to her husband's actions.
Not all expectations are unrealistic. For instance, tomorrow morning, I expect it to be cold. Tomorrow afternoon, I will teach my first class of the winter semester, and tomorrow night, I will probably be second guessing everything I did during the day. All these things I expect, and I would bet money I won't be disappointed.
On the other hand, tonight, I led a Zoom writing workshop on self love and worth. For two hours, we basically wrote love poems to and about ourselves. In all honesty, I didn't think it was going to be a great night. Don't misunderstand. I love the people who attended, and we read poems by some of my favorites, including Maya Angelou and Lucille Clifton. I just had so much on my mind--teaching and work and appointments and lesson plans.
However, it turned out to be a great night of writing and sharing. Everyone seemed to have a good time, and the poems people produced were funny, profound, silly, and serious. I even got a few things that I'll be able to use. In short, I expected the workshop to be shitty, and it turned out to be therapeutically and artistically wonderful.
You just never know.
Saint Marty wrote a poem for one of his muses who never disappoints him. It's based on the following prompt from The Daily Poet:
Write a poem addressed to any artist, living or dead. It can be an artist you admire or one whose work you do not particularly like. Do not feel you need to limit yourself to painters, as you are welcome to write a letter to any type of artist, including dancer Twyla Tharp, cellist Yo-Yo Ma, or cartoonist and creator of The Simpsons, Matt Groening. The poem can be to an artist in any field, including (but not limited to) literary, visual arts, dance, music, or performing arts.
Undressing with Walt Whitman
by: Martin Achatz
You probably walked naked through rooms
in your home, sat at your writing desk
with the silver curls on your chest,
under your arms, between your legs
breathing the fine, cool air. At night,
I imagine you stood bare in your yard,
drenched in moon, looking like a grounded
comet, your bright shadow sparking
in the grass between your toes. Will you
meet me on the shores of Lake Superior
tonight, after several inches of fresh
January snow? I'll bring towels,
a thermos of hot, black coffee. You'll pull
off your wool socks, pants. Set aside
your wide-brimmed hat. Unbutton your
long johns, shed them the way a snake
sheds its skin. When we're both naked,
we'll wade into the water together,
feel it grab our feet, urge us deeper,
deeper until we're unsexed by the cold,
become merely muscle, tendon, bone,
blood in the frozen surf, even our
breaths--the words, lines--stripped
to just sound, music. We'll sail out
and out and out toward that place
where water and stars tumble together
and our bodies' electrons collide,
dance, surge with naked longing.
❤️
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