October 30, 2025: “What Is the Earth?”, Wife’s Birthday, “Maple Leaf Love Poem”

It is the birthday of my beautiful partner of 30-plus years.  

Most of my faithful disciples know that my wife and I have had our fair share of struggles during our time together.  As with most marriages, ours has had its ups and downs.  The ups have been tsunami-sized, and the downs have been Grand Canyon-sized.  Yet, we’re still standing, as the Elton John song goes.  We have found homes in each other.

Sharon Olds writes about homelessness and homes . . . 

What Is the Earth?

by: Sharon Olds

The earth is a homeless person. Or
the earth’s home is the atmosphere.
Or the atmosphere is the earth’s clothing,
layers of it, the earth wears all of it,
the earth is a homeless person.
Or the atmosphere is the earth’s cocoon,
which it spun itself, the earth is a larvum.
Or the atmosphere is the earth’s skin—
earth, and atmosphere, one
homeless one. Or its orbit is the earth’s
home, or the path of the orbit just
a path, the earth a homeless person.
Or the gutter of the earth’s orbit is a circle
of hell, the circle of the homeless. But the earth
has a place, around the fire, the hearth
of our star, the earth is at home, the earth
is home to the homeless. For food, and warmth,
and shelter, and health, they have earth and fire
and air and water, for home they have
the elements they are made of, as if
each homeless one were an earth, made
of milk and grain, like Ceres, and one
could eat oneself--as if the home
were a god, who could eat the earth, a god
of homelessness.

We haven’t treated our earth home very well, despite the MAGA climate-change deniers’ screaming and whining.  In fact, I would say that we’ve fucked up our home pretty good.  If we’re not careful, we’re all going to end up homeless (or our children and grandchildren are).  

Olds constantly defines and redefines home and homelessness in this poem.  My definition of home:  any place/person that/who accepts you unconditionally and lovingly.

I’ve lived in the same house for almost 30 years now.  It’s home.  I’ve lived in the same city for most of my life (except for a brief sojourn downstate for graduate school).  Home, too.  I’ve taught at the same college, attended the same church, broke bread with the same friends.  Home, home, and home.  And, of course, I’ve been married to the same woman for 30 years.  Home, with a capital “H.”

As I said at the beginning of this post, my wife celebrated her birthday today.  It’s the 35th time since we first met that I’ve seen her blow out her birthday candles.  She truly is the person who knows me best—understands my sometimes mercurial disposition.  I don’t have to be anybody but myself when I’m around her.  That is one of the greatest blessings a person can ask for.

I took my wife out to her favorite restaurant tonight, where she ordered her favorite meal:  seafood risotto.  I’m still on a liquid diet because I had a tooth removed yesterday, so I ended up drinking most of my dinner:  two tall gin and tonics.  Good gin.  Top-shelf all the way.  

When we got back home, we sang to her and had pieces of Dairy Queen ice cream cake.  Then, I pretty much passed out on the couch.  Chalk it up to the booze and all the papers I graded this week.  I woke just a few minutes ago.  It’s almost midnight, and I decided to finish writing this post.

I am Home with a capital “H” right now.  My wife just gave me a kiss goodnight, and I wished her happy birthday one last time.  She is in bed, and I’m on my way to dreamland soon.

Saint Marty wrote a poem about home and love for tonight, based on the following prompt from October 28 of The Daily Poet:

Go outside and find a leaf on the ground.  Or find a few of them.  Imagine writing a love letter, goodbye letter, or note to a friend on that leaf.  What would you write?  If you could only write one word on that leaf to hand to them, what would it be?  Write a poem about what you imagined.

Maple Leaf Love Poem

by: Martin Achatz

for Beth, October 30, 2025

I

watch

you kick

up          piles of golden          light

as we walk on this late October eve

when the moon is already tap, tap,

tapping our shoulders, begging

to                    be admired like a contestant                    in

a                    celestial beauty pageant.                   Your

breath                    fogs the air as the                    maple

leaves rise, applaud, their veined palms tender as

a grandmother’s.  I want to reach out, hold you the way

these leaves have held the sky since spring, as if they are cupping

the          last drops of water on a parched, parched          earth,

maybe in the entire parched Milky Way,

and I

(oh yes!)

I

I

I

am drowning with thirst.