I woke this morning, the last day of my holiday vacation, confused and panicked, thinking I had Rip Van Winkled myself into Monday. For several moments, I lay in bed, full of dread, cataloguing a list of duties and responsibilities in my head.
Then, my wife reminded me it was only Sunday.
I've never dealt well with transitions, moving from one state of being to another. Ask anyone who knows me well, and that person will most likely tell you that I'm a creature of habit and routine. I eat the same breakfast every day. (Crackers, hardboiled eggs, grapes.) Watch the same movie over and over for days, sometimes weeks. (My current obsession--Ken Burns' documentary on the life of Mark Twain.) Write in my blog about the same poet for an entire year. (Mary Oliver two years ago. Billy Collins last year. This year, Sharon Olds.)
So, having to establish a new routine after these two weeks of downtime is going to be r-o-u-g-h. In a week, I start teaching two classes for the university, and, in two weeks, the Felon in Chief becomes President of the United States again. Can I have some Xanax with a chaser of Prozac, please?
Of course, I have poetry to calm my agitated heart and soul and mind. When I write, I gain some sense of control over my life. I don't feel quite so overwhelmed with my pen and journal in my hand. Usually.
More about the dead from Sharon Olds . . .
Nevsky Prospekt
(July, 1917)
by: Sharon Olds
It is an old photo, very black and
very white. One woman
lifts up her heavy skirt as she runs.
A man in a white jacket, his hands
tied behind his back, runs,
his chin stuck out. An old woman
in massive black turns and looks behind her.
A man throws himself onto the pavement.
A child in heavy boots is running
but looks back over his shoulder
at the black and white heap of bodies.
The wide gray stone square
is dotted with fallen inky shapes
and dropped white hats. Everything else is
heaving away like a sea from the noise we
feel in the silence of the photograph
the way the deaf see sound: the terrible
voice of the submachine guns saying
This is more important than your life.
The question Olds' poem poses is pretty simple: what is something you would die for? Olds is writing about the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution in Russia, when the government cracked down in a violent way against protestors. Between 1917 and 1923, seven to 12 million individuals died in the Russian Revolution. That's a lot of people laying down their lives for what they believed in.
Me? I would lay down my life for my kids. Any parent would say the same. And I would do practically anything to ensure that my daughter and son have brighter, more promising futures. The Iroquois have this concept called the Seventh Generation Principle, which basically means that decisions made now should result in a better world seven generations into the future. It's a pretty powerful concept.
I'm not sure my blog posts are going to make that kind of difference in the world. Or my poems. Seven generation from now, I can predict with about 99.99% certainty that nobody is going to be interested in reading my Bigfoot stuff. But I do recycle, conserve water, support Planned Parenthood, and vote in every election. I'm not sure all that counts, but it's the best I could come up with tonight.
Saint Marty has a new poem about the future, based on today's prompt from The Daily Poet:
Write a poem in the voice of someone other than yourself that offers a glimpse or hints at another possible outcome or future. Consider going back in history and writing about Abraham Lincoln deciding to stay home from yet another play, or write from the present about an event that has not yet happened or may never happen. For example, write from the point-of-view of snowboarders imagining all of the snow in the world has melted from global warming or someone preparing for an event (a wedding, an earthquake, a funeral, etc.) that may of may not actually happen. Allow history to rewrite itself or allow a new future for you or someone else to unfold.
Walt Whitman Reads
a Poem at the Inauguration
of Donald Trump
January 20, 2025
by: Martin Achatz
Mr. President, Mr. Vice President, Americans Everywhere,
At this bright winter moment, with the echo of cannon and gun
in my ears, smoke stinging my eyes and nose, I wish
to tell again of a vigil strange I kept one night beside a boy
(for he was just that, with unwhiskered cheeks)
who surrendered his youth, life, kisses unkissed, for me,
for you, for friend and enemy, for Jew, Gentile, dark-skinned,
light-skinned, for the crust of his mother's biscuits, brute
embrace of his father's arms, for all things we hold dear.
Yes, this dearest comrade, this brave child fell, never to rise
again. I remind you, gentlepeople, of this embracer now
embraced in rib, skull, femur, tibia, fibula by cold, cold
sod so that you might think hard of the hard cost
of pitting brother against brother, child against parent,
neighbor against neighbor, a war terrible fought to bring
us all together, one people, if such a thing possible after so bold
and bloody a conflict. I commend to you today the memory
of his cold knuckles against my palm, his startled gaze
blind to the rising of another day. Hold his chill fingers
in yours, stare into his sightless eyes, promise him this teeming
soil that now cradles his perfect, beautiful body is still
free for all--citizen, soldier, tired, poor, wretched, huddled--
whose lips are pressed, hungrily, like a newborn's, against
the fresh and stinging bosom of this morning's promise.
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