January 19, 2026: “Prologue,” Marie Howe, MLK Day, “Broken Snow Shovel”

I have a confession:  I’m having difficulty writing.  

No, it’s not writer’s block.  I’m still scribbling in my journal, and every once in a while a poem appears.  Yet, on a day-to-day basis, I’m overwhelmed by the state of the world, or, more specifically, my country.  I find very little that’s uplifting and beautiful right now.  There are ruthless thugs brutalizing, kidnapping, and disappearing people across the United States.  Our unhinged pathological narcissist “leader” is invading sovereign nations; un-aliving innocents; and covering up child sex trafficking.  People are starving, losing jobs, and getting sick because our elected officials are more concerned with playing political games than actually doing what they’re paid to do:  taking care of their constituents.  It feels as if the great experiment of the United States of America is collapsing before my eyes.

That’s my struggle.

I’ve chosen Marie Howe as 2026’s poet of the year for this blog.  I’ve loved her writing for a very long time because she’s fearless.  She embraces joy and grief.  Hopefulness and hopelessness.  Light and dark.  

Prologue

by: Marie Howe

In the middle of my life—just past the middle—

walking along the street with our little dog Jack on a leash

—OK—just past the late-middle—

in what some might call early old age,

on a street crowded with children and tourists

my father dead, my mother dead,

my young husband gone from me and grown older (a father

a husband now to someone else),

Jason dead, John dead, Jane and Stanley and Lucy and Lucie

and Billy and Tony and now Richard dead,

I came to the edge

and I did not know that way.

Like Howe, I don’t know the way, either.  Should I just go about writing my pretty poems and turn a blind eye to all the violence and hatred around me?  Or take to the streets, march, raise my voice, stand in the line of fire?  I don’t know what my role is here, except to bear witness, speak the truth.  And I’m not sure that’s enough.

Today was Martin Luther King Day in the United States (regardless of any of #47’s Executive Orders).  We honor the memory of this brave man who did march, raise his voice, stand in the line of fire.  Martin dreamed of a better world, and he did everything in his power to make that dream a reality.  I’m sure, at times, Dr. King lost hope, got pissed.  How could he not, living in a country where racism is as much a part of our history as the Boston Tea Party?  Yet, he never gave up.

One person can make a difference.  Ask Martin.  Or Gandhi.  Or Malcom.  Or Nelson.  Or Mother Teresa.  Or Malala.  Or Dorothy Day.  

That’s my prologue for 2026.  We all need to stand up.  March.  Speak out.  Not lose hope.  If we do all that, we shall overcome.

Saint Marty wrote a poem for today about shoveling snow , , , 

Broken Snow Shovel

by: Martin Achatz

Ten winters, it battled

snow, ice, boulders of earth

hard as iron, storm after flurry

after blizzard after squall.

This morning, a wooden snap,

like a moose crashing through 

deadfall and brush, and its yellow

scoop head lodged in a ridge

of heavy slush, stayed there,

the way mammoths laid down

to nap eons ago, stayed buried

until some farmer plowed up 

their ribs and curled tusks.

January has just begun, several

shoveling months ahead.  I consider

gluing the handle back into

the scoop, taking the chance

it will last until the final flakes

of March or April or sometimes May.

Instead, I leave the scoop stuck,

push more snow over it, erase it

from the white landscape.  When

the waters of spring come, it will

emerge from its grave, remind me 

of this frozen day when I swear 

I see something immense and wooly 

lumbering down my street toward summer.