May 18, 2026: “Without Devotion,” Last Week of High School, “Midnight Thunderstorm”

This Monday begins the last week of high school for my son.  Friday is his official final day of secondary education.  

Now, my son acts all tough; he doesn’t really reveal his emotions all that much.  But I can tell he’s sensing a huge shift coming in his life.  I remember that shift from “I’m in high school” to “Holy shit!  I’m an adult!”  It was not an easy transition for me.  Even today, I still don’t know what I want to be when (if?) I grow up.

When you devote so much of your life to something, you feel the loss of that something acutely, whether it’s a school or person or career.  I enjoyed my high school days.  Enjoyed my classmates and classes.  Sure, there were challenges, but those challenges were incidental compared to some of the shit I’ve gone through since getting my diploma.  Devotion is easier when you’re younger.  There’s not so much clutter in your noggin.  The path seems clearer.

Marie Howe reflects on devotion . . . 

Without Devotion

by: Marie Howe

Cut loose, without devotion, a man becomes a comic.

His antics are passed

around the family table and mimicked so well, years

later the family still laughs.

Without devotion, any life becomes a stranger’s story

told and told again to help another sleep

or live.  And it is possible

in the murmuring din of that collective loyalty

for the body to forget what it once loved.

A mouth on the mouth becomes a story mouth.

It’s what they think they knew—what the body knew

alone, better than it ever knew anything.

Without devotion, his every gesture—

how he slouched in the family pantry, his fingers

curled into a fist, the small things he said

while waiting for water to boil—

becomes potentially hilarious.  Lucky for him

the body, sometimes, refuses translation,

that often it will speak, secretly,

in its own voice, and insist, haplessly,

on its acquired tastes.  Without devotion, it might

stand among them and listen, laughing,

but look, how the body clenches,

as the much discussed smoke intermittently clears.

It has remembered the man standing, wearing

his winter coat.

Watch how it tears from the table, yapping, ferocious

in its stupid inarticulate joy.

Howe is right.  Without devotion, most things become trivial or ridiculous.  I’m a church organist/accompanist.  If I don’t devote myself to several hours of practice each week, I know the results will be hilarious.  Or horrendous.  Either way, it will have people telling stories for quite a while.

I don’t think my son will have as difficult a transition to college next fall as I had when I was 17.  My son’s been taking college classes since his junior year of high school.  This past semester, he took an asynchronous online cyber security course.  That means that the entire class was virtual, with no in-class meetings.  My son pretty much had to teach himself everything, with email guidance from his instructor.  He had most of the semester’s work completed within the first month.  After that, he just had a research paper to write.  And he never came to me for help or advice.

Here’s how I know my son is going to do alright transitioning to college in September:  he got an A in the asynchronous class, and the instructor reached out to my son’s advisor to say my son was one of the best students he’s had in years.  My son devoted himself to doing well in the class, and that devotion payed off.

As most of my faithful disciples know, my son really struggled in elementary and middle school. Lots of bullying.  Lots of fights and visits to the principal’s office.  Five years ago, I wasn’t even sure my son was going to graduate—he hated school that much.  He just doesn’t learn the way most kids do.  And he struggled with suicidal depression and ADHD, as well.  By the time he hit eighth grade, he’d already been labeled a “bad kid.”  My wife and I had to make a change for our son, or he would have suffered for four years (if he didn’t drop out completely).  

So, we enrolled him in a local alternative high school.  He got a 4.0 GPA the first semester of his freshman year.  He went from almost failing every course in middle school to being an honor roll student his whole high school career.  That sad, isolated, and angry adolescent has became a happy, social, and accomplished young adult.  

Devotion pays off.  My wife and I were devoted to helping our son succeed.  My son was devoted to doing well in school (once he was in an educational environment where he felt safe and supported).  Without devotion, I don’t think I’d be sending out graduation announcements this week.  My son is one of the resilient people I know, even during his traumatic middle school years.  He could have simply given up on education, but he didn’t.  He stuck it out and found a place where he was accepted and respected.

CUE:  “Pomp and Circumstance”

And now, in a little over a week, he’s going to be walking into an auditorium in cap and gown, and he’s going to walk out with a diploma in his hand.

Saint Marty wrote a poem about resilience for tonight . . . 

Midnight Thunderstorm

by: Martin Achatz

1.

Nobody thought the radiated soil

of Hiroshima would green again,

predicted years of charcoal and hunger.

Yet, mere months after the bomb, oleander

blushed in the ruins, pink as first breath,

reclaiming ashes from armageddon, showing

us all how the world could begin again.

2.

Last night, I listened to a storm

roll through the dark like a panzer,

all wind and rumble, accompanied

by artillery fire rain on the roof.

Flashes of lightning strobed the bedroom

walls and ceiling, and I understood

why ancient people divined famines

and droughts and wars and plagues

from the heavens.  This morning, 

I smelled mud, saw worms fat and drowned

on the sidewalk.  Everything was bejeweled

with water:  pines, grasses, mailboxes.

The world was a bright, new diamond.

May 16, 2026: “Keeping Still,” Writing Conference, “What a Wonderful World”

It has been a very busy day.

I was invited to lead a youth poetry workshop and participate in a panel discussion today.  It was the annual meeting of UPPAA (Upper Peninsula Publishers & Authors Association) at the library where I work.  Maybe four years ago, I delivered the keynote address for UPPAA, so I am familiar with the organization and its people.  

Doing these kinds of events always makes me a little anxious.  Some of the questions running through my head:  Will these kids like me?  What do I know about recording audiobooks?  Did I leave the iron on?  (Okay, that last question was an allusion to the movie Airplane, but you get the idea.)  My inner Catholic schoolboy was fully present for most of the day.  Lots of noise in my head.

Marie Howe writes about finding a quiet place . . . 

Keeping Still

by: Marie Howe

If late at night, when watching the moon, you still

sometimes get vertigo, it’s understandable

that you wish suddenly and hard for fences, for someone

to marry you.  Desiring a working knowledge,

needing to know some context by heart, you might

accept anything:  the room without windows,

the far and frozen North, or the prairie, the prairie 

even, if it means that.

The long wide space and cold dirt that will not

be seduced into hills, and the dust, that even after

you have kicked and swept and fallen on it pounding,

will not produce a tree.  It will allow you

to rise with certainty and move with the relief

of necessary things to the wash on the line,

to the small maple you brought here that must be tied

for the winter or die.

Even the prairie night, blind with snow,

when no one comes, and you no longer look

to the mirror but force your fingers to the stitching

and produce a child to help with the lambing

and the carrying of water.  Although it might be years

before you turn and stop, startled

by the sweet and sudden smell of sheets snapping

in the sun, and the drunken lilac, prairie purple,

blooming by the doorway, because you planted it.

Keeping still is difficult because there’s so much noise in the world these days.  There are wars and inflation and soaring gas prices and an idiot tearing down/destroying national monuments.  (Said idiot is responsible for everything else in that previous sentence, as well.)

I don’t keep still very often.  Even when I fall asleep at night, I have to have some kind of noise.  Lately, it’s been old movies like Steel Magnolias and Crocodile Dundee.  My ADD mind doesn’t rest easily.  It requires distraction and, sometimes, medication.  (Not afraid to admit that I have a customer loyalty account at my local cannabis dispensary.)

Today, keeping still was impossible for me.  Too many things happening.  However, after my youth poetry workshop, I was able to sit in my office and write for a while, and it was glorious.  I rarely get more than 30 or 40 minutes of writing time in a 24-hour period.  Plus, I went to the laundromat after supper tonight, and I was able to write there, too.  So I found a few still moments during the parade of this day.  

I wish I was more like my puppy.  She can fall asleep practically anywhere, and very little disturbs her when she’s dozing.  (Every once in a while, in the middle of the night, I’ll hear her quietly bark in her crate, undoubtedly chasing a bunny or chipmunk in her dreams.  But that’s it.)  Dogs aren’t gifted with consciences or concepts of sin.  They just eat and sleep and (if they’re not neutered or spayed) fuck.  That’s it.  Maybe everyone should aspire to a dog’s life.  The world would be a much happier place, I think.

Saint Marty wrote the following poem at the laundromat tonight . . . 

What a Wonderful World

by: Martin Achatz

No offense, Louis, but it’s pretty hard

to notice rainbows in the sky or friends

shaking hands, saying “How do you do?”

or even imagining those three words 

(I and love and you) uttered in polite

company these days, when poets

are murdered in their cars and bombs

fall on school buildings filled with girls

too young to even know how to hate

anything but peas or an 8 p.m. curfew.

I want the world to be wonderful.

I really do.  But even bees are having

trouble finding the wonder of pollen,

and polar bears drown because the wonder

of ice can only be found in poems like this

by people like me who remember their parents

swaying in the kitchen, holding each other

close as you, Louis, growled your way

through that wonder-filled song, their hard

bodies shining like new pennies, the kind

no longer being minted these days.  Oh, yeah.

May 15, 2026: “Gretel, from a sudden clearing,” Rose, “On Your 61st Birthday”

Greetings, faithful disciples.  

Yes, I’ve been out of commission for the last couple weeks when it comes to blogging.  I had a little mishap with my iPad.  Basically, I was grading some final exams, and my iPad fell off the corner of a table.  The screen shattered.  So, for the past 14 or so days, I’ve been waiting for my replacement iPad, screen protector, and bluetooth keyboard.

Well, as evidenced by this post, I am back in business, and just in time for my sister Rose’s birthday.  She passed in 2022, and, since that time, I don’t think a day has gone by that I haven’t thought of her.  I miss her terribly.  She would have been 61 years old today.

Marie Howe writes about a sister missing her brother . . . 

Gretel, from a sudden clearing

by: Marie Howe

No way back then, you remember, we decided,

but forward, deep into a wood

so darkly green, so deafening with birdsong

I stopped my ears.

And that high chime at night,

was it really the stars, or some music

running inside our heads like a dream?

I think we must have been very tired.

I think it must have been a bad broken-off

piece at the start that left us so hungry

we turned back to a path that was gone,

and lost each other, looking.

I called your name over and over again,

and still you did not come.

At night, I was afraid of the black dogs

and often I dreamed you.next to me,

but even then, you were always turning

down the thick corridor of trees.

In daylight, every tree became you.

And pretending, I kissed my way through

the forest, until I stopped pretending

and stumbled, finally, here.

Here too, there are step-parents, and bread

rising, and so many other people

you may not find me at first.  They speak

your name, when I speak it.

But I remember you before you became

a story.  Sometimes, I feel a thorn in my foot

when there is no thorn.  They tell me,

not unkindly, that I should imagine nothing here.

But I believe you are still alive.

I want to tell you about the size of the witch

and how beautiful she is.  I want to tell you

the kitchen knives only look friendly,

they have a life of their own,

and that you shouldn’t be sorry,

not for the bread we ate and thought

we wasted, not for the turning back alone,

and that I remember how our shadows walked

always before us, and how that was a clue,

and how there are other clues

that seem like a dream but are not,

and that every day, I am less

and less afraid.

Howe’s poem is kind of heartbreaking.  I can almost taste the grief in Gretel’s words, that longing to find her lost brother—every tree in the forest reminding her of Hansel.

My sister Rose was unforgettable, too.  She wrote letters to friends and family, even though the doctor told my mom when my sister was born that she would never be able to walk or speak.  She did latch hook rugs, even though she barely followed the designs, instead creating her own, Picasso-esque images.  She watched movies on repeat—Mama Mia! and Sleeping Beauty and Steel Magnolias, even though she frequently wore out the VHS tapes and DVDs.  And Rose had Down syndrome.  I put that fact last because, if I put it first, people tend to define her by it.  She was much more than her extra chromosome.

The last few years of Rose’s life were a struggle.  She suffered from terrible asthma and frequently ended up in the hospital with bouts of pneumonia.  During her final hospital stay, she struggled and fought for breath for days.  Then, one morning, one of her lungs collapsed.  Her body was tired, and she was ready to be with all the people she missed—Mom, Dady, sister Sally, and brother Kevin.  The nurses removed her oxygen, and, in the silence that followed, her breathing got quieter and quieter until it ceased altogether.

That winter morning, the sky was pink and orange with the rising sun, as if it knew Rose would soon be coming and wanted to throw her a huge “Welcome Home” party.  It was one of the most beautiful and difficult moments of my life.  She passed so peacefully that, at first, I didn’t even realize she was gone.

Like Gretel in Howe’s poem, I see Rose everywhere—in the shapes of trees and clouds, taste of Diet Coke on my tongue, melodies of ABBA songs on my playlist.  She’s gone, but she’s never been gone.

Saint Marty wrote this poem for Rose tonight . . . 

On Your 61st Birthday

by: Martin Achatz

I think of you before gulls

picked your brain clean of words,

when you could still spoon Dairy Queen

ice cream cake to your mouth, or strip

your KFC breast so clean the bones

looked like they belonged in a Georgia 

O’Keeffe desert scape.  In a photo, 

my daughter kneels beside you, my son 

hovers behind your chair, and you smile

as if you’ve just discovered how

to smile and can’t wait to share

your discovery with the rest of the world.

I wish there was a museum of your

smiles I could visit today.  I’d sit

on a bench in the wing dedicated 

to all the smiles you gave me, each

lip and tooth thick and alive

as brushstrokes on a van Gogh canvas,

you know the one with all the screaming

stars and black finger of a tree pointing

heavenward, as if directing me to the cloud

where hosts of seraphs are singing 

hosannas to your bright birthday comet.

May 9, 2026: "What Belongs to Us," Tootsie Pop, "Driving Home from Downstate"

It is the second weekend of May.  All of my grades for the winter semester at the university have been submitted.  The poetry festival is done for another year.  I'm not ashamed to say I've been sort of taking it easy since Wednesday, not giving myself any major projects to work on or complete.  Just been chillin'.

Of course, that doesn't mean there aren't big things happening in May.  My son will be graduating from high school on May 27.  That's right.  So, I have graduation preparations (pictures, announcements) and party planning (decorations, food, invitations).  The end of this month is going to be much more hectic than the beginning.  The last hurrah of adolescence before my son is staring adulthood in the eyes.

I remember how sad I got when my daughter graduated high school six years ago.  It felt like she was slipping through my fingers like rainwater.  For 17 years, my wife and I were the center of her universe until she got that diploma in her hand and realized that the planet was round and outer space infinite.  From that moment, every day was her becoming more and more independent.  Getting jobs.  Moving out and away.  

When you think about it, we don't really own anything in this life.  Nothing belongs to us.  We're just caretaking.  Our houses, cars, lawns, communities, country, and kids.  When you're gone, someone else will live in your home, drive your car, mow and weed your lawn.  Your kids (if you have them) will build their own lives without you.  Your community and country will continue to exist (unless some maniac with nuclear codes has a bad night or needs to distract the public from a child sex abuse scandal).   

Maybe, if you're a really good person (or a really evil one), you'll live on in memories.  You'll still be making people smile or shake their heads ten or 20 years from now.

Marie Howe writes about ownership versus stewardship . . . 

What Belongs to Us

by: Marie Howe

Not the memorized phone numbers.

The carefully rehearsed short cuts home.

Not the summer, shimmering like pavement, when Lucia

pushed Billy off the rabbit house and broke his arm,

or our tiny footprints in the back files.

Not the list of kings from Charlemagne to Henry

not the boxes under our beds

or Tommy's wedding day when it was so hot and Mark played the flute

and we waved at him waving from the small round window in the loft,

the great gangs of people stepping one by one into the cold water.

I have, of course, a photograph:

you and I getting up from a couch.

Full height, I stand almost two inches taller than you

but the photograph doesn't show that,

just the two of us in motion

not looking at each other, smiling.

Not even the way we said things, leaning against the kitchen counter.

Not the cabin where I burned my arm and you said, oh, you're the type

that if it hurt, you wouldn't say.

Not even the blisters.  Look.

Howe says that even the blisters and scars on our bodies from past injuries and hurts don't belong to us.  They're temporary reminders.  That's all.  When our last breaths leave our lungs, nobody will remember we burned our arms cooking on the potbelly at camp.  That experience will be buried or burned with us once we walk through that long, lonesome valley.

My hope is for smiles and happiness.  When my son or daughter think of me 40 or 50 years from now (assuming I will not be around), I want them to remember me as a person who was kind and generous and compassionate.  And, if I've done my job as a father correctly, my kids will be kind and generous and compassionate, as well.  Because kindness and generosity and compassion aren't qualities to hoard--they're meant to be shared and given away.

I typed most of this post at a laundromat.  It was a busy day--almost all the washers and dryers spinning and cycling.  I was sitting at a community table, earbuds in, typing away on my laptop.  There was an older gentleman sitting in a nearby chair with something in his lap that he was running his fingers over.  The woman, whom I assume was his wife, was sitting at the table with me, scrolling on her phone.

At one point, the older gentleman put the item in his lap into a bag by the side of his chair, and I realized it was a book in braille.  His wife got up and emptied a load of laundry from a washer into a dryer.  When she was done, she walked over to her husband, lifted his hand, and signed a message against his palm.  That was when I realized that he was both deaf and blind.  I saw him reach into his shirt pocket and remove a grape Tootsie Pop from it.  He handed it to the woman.

 Not wanting to be rude, I retrained my attention to my laptop and continued to type.  The wife finished their laundry, brought it out to their car, and then came back in and signed into her husband's hand that it was time to go.  He stood, unfolded his cane, and followed his wife out the door.

When my laundry was done drying 36 minutes later, I carried my clothes baskets out to my Subaru, and then I went back to the community table to pack up my computer and books.  

Sitting behind my laptop was the grape Tootsie Pop.

I smiled, picked it up, and put it in my pocket.  I carried that small act of generosity and kindness home with me.

This couple reminded me that there is goodness in the world.  At a time in the United States when hatred and anger and injustice and cruelty are headlines every day, this man and woman gifted me joy and sweetness.  I can't hoard their gift.  It's not meant to be hoarded.  It's meant to be passed on in some way.  Because joy and sweetness don't belong to me, or anybody else, for that matter.

Goodness only remains good when shared.  It's the fertilizer for love and peace.  Ask Jesus.  Or Buddha.  Or Muhammad.  

Saint Marty's message for today is pretty simple:  be a Tootsie Pop giver, not an asshole. 

And a new poem . . . 

Driving Home from Downstate

by: Martin Achatz

It's a long, listless journey, little

to see except sedans, SUVs speeding

toward some town near Topinabee, 

maybe to visit a mother or maiden aunt

who now needs help to knead

dough with digits stiffened and curled

with age, with sweeping and window

cleaning, perhaps collecting dog crap

after a hard winter of endless white.

After the day is done, the drive home

waiting like a headache, perhaps the driver

will hug Mom or Aunt Hester, hold

on a little too long because life

is short and you never know

when winter will return.

May 2, 2026: "The Split," Son's Award, "Teenager Hacks into Heaven"

So, National Poetry Month is over.  I survived all the readings and workshops, a quick trip downstate to Ann Arbor and Detroit, plus the entire week of the Great Lakes Poetry Festival at the library.  Now, sitting in the laundromat on a Saturday morning, watching my clothes agitate and spin, I am both sad and relieved.  I’m sure, in a couple months, I’ll be looking back on the past four weeks with nostalgia.  Yes, I’m glad it’s over, but I’ll miss being in the thick of poetry and poetic events every day.  Sort of like the day after Christmas as a kid—you’re haunted by all the anticipation and excitement of Santa Claus.

Marie Howe writes about ghosts . . . 

The Split

by: Marie Howe

I.

She'd start the fires under the bed.
I'd put them out.

She'd take the broom stick and rape all the little girls.
I'd pull them aside, stroke their cheeks, and comfort them.
—How they would cry.

Brit would fight the German soldiers.
She'd crouch by the banister waiting for them
when I was too scared.

And sometimes, she would push me farther into the back woods 

than I wanted to go
But I was glad she did.

She was mean and she liked it.

She'd take off her clothes and dance in front of the mirror 

and she'd say things and she'd swear.

She'd laugh at the crucifix, turn him upside down and watch him hang.
And she'd unhinge that piece of metal cloth between his legs
and run when she heard somebody coming
leaving me.

Mean as she was, I miss her.

Only twice have I heard her laugh since then.
Once, lying on my back in a yellow field,
I heard something that sounded like me in the back of my head
but it was Brit,

and just now, making love with you, it's hard to tell you
but I heard her laugh.

II.

It began as a fear.
There was something, not me, in the room.

And translated into a dumbfounding
forgetfulness

that stopped me on the street
puzzling

over what year it was, what month.

I began to watch my feet carefully.
Nevertheless, I suffered
accidents.

The bread knife sliced my thumb
repeatedly

the water glass shattered on the kitchen floor
and in its breaking there was a low laugh.

Looking up, I saw no one

but felt the old cat stretch inside me
feigning indifference.

Marie, I'd hear in a crowd, Marie
the air so thick with ghosts it was hard
breathing.

One afternoon, the trucks were humming like vacuum cleaners
in the rain.

It was impossibly lonely,
No one but me there:

I called out Brit, the city is burning,
Brit, the soldiers are coming

and she laughed so sudden and loud I turned
and saw her for one second

all insolent grace, pretending
she wasn't loving me.

I’ve had many experiences similar to the Howe is describing.  You’re out and about, not really thinking about the past or future, just being present in the moment.  Suddenly, because of the smell of an orange  or a voice heard in the distance, you’re pulled back into the past (maybe even to childhood).  Last Saturday, walking into church to play the pipe organ for Mass, I saw an old man shambling into the sanctuary, and I swear it was my father.  Same gait.  Same stooped shoulders and back.  It made me stop dead for a few moments, until the present took over again.

The final event of the Great Lakes Poetry Festival is always the awards ceremony for the GLPF Teen Poetry Contest.  Teens are invited to submit one poem to be blindly judged by a panel of poets.  The winners receive gift cards to Snowbound Books, one of the local independent booksellers.  

My son, who will be graduating from high school at the end of the month, entered the contest this year, at my urging.  (He’s entered the contest one other time, and he was awarded second place, if memory serves.). He didn’t want to enter, rolled his eyes every time I reminded him of the deadline.  He’s a really good poet; I might even apply the term gifted to him, but only when he’s not within earshot.  

This year’s judges all agreed that the teen poems this year were the strongest batch we’ve ever received in the history of the contest.  I sat in the Zoom meeting, listening them debate the merits of each entry.  Usually, it takes a little bit of time to come to a consensus on first, second, and third.  Not this year.  Every judge picked the same poem as their number one choice.  

Long story short (too late, I know), my son won first place this year with his poem “Falling Leaves.”  He was so geeked about it that he dropped his indifferent, cool teenager persona for a little while and allowed himself to be excited and proud.  It was really good to see.

My son struggled so much in elementary and middle school.  Bullies and ADHD and suicidal depression, among other things.  His younger self still haunts me on a daily basis.  I made so many mistakes in those years.  I should have pulled him from the school he was attending.  Should have insisted on an IEP and additional help.  There were some people at the school who really did their best to assist him, but, by the time he reached eighth grade, he was labeled a “bad kid.”  My last interactions with the school district’s superintendent in the weeks prior to the end of that final middle school year proved to me that my son was doomed if he stayed in that educational system.

Thus, my son started attending an alternative high school as a freshman.  He was an unknown quantity.  Clean slate, as the saying goes. And he has thrived.  He went from receiving C’s and D’s on his report card to being one of the people at the top of his class.  The teachers at the high school quickly discovered he had many talents, especially for math and English and writing.

I’m not saying there haven’t been some setbacks, but I am completely convinced that the decision to switch schools saved my son’s life, literally.  The ghost of that struggling little boy was in the room last Saturday when he won the Teen Poetry Contest, and that tiny spirit jumped up and down, hollered and clapped.  It was an amazing moment of triumph that, five years ago, I never would have predicted.

Poetry saves lives.

Saint Marty wrote the following poem as a challenge . . .

Teenager Hacks into Heaven

by: Martin Achatz

Maybe he’s like Matthew Broderick
playing Global Thermonuclear War
with Joshua, something as innocent
as tic-tac-toe triggering Armageddon.

Or maybe he’s prompted to change
his password by a link sent
from his dead grandmother’s
email, and he clicks on it because
he misses her chocolate chip banana
bread still warm form the oven.

Or maybe, just maybe, he craves
everlasting life, like Elizabeth Báthory
simmering in a hot tub of virgin blood,
Keats spying on a nesting nightingale,
Donald Trump carving his face on Rushmore.

He doesn’t want to be a lost soul
knocking at strangers’ houses, hoping
to find the back door to paradise
where Amazon packages are delivered,
garbage bags hunch, and feral cats prowl
for leftover Communion table scraps.

Now that he’s a poem, perhaps
someone in a hundred years
will read him, encounter him
like a forgotten classmate
at a 50th reunion, you know, that kid
who always sat by himself at lunch,
waiting for the cafeteria ladies to give
away the leftover pizza and tater tots.
If you get close enough, you might
be able to read his name tag.

April 24, 2026: “The Meadow,” Poetry and Poetry and Poetry, “Some Thoughts from the Ghost of Mary Oliver”

Some things can change your life forever.  Certainly, falling in love qualifies.  Experiencing a death, as well.  Getting a new job.  Going back to school.  Moving to a new town or state or country.  Watching Star Wars: A New Hope for the first time.  (Hey, it changed my life.)

These experiences are powerfully instructive.  They teach you about yourself.  The first poem by Sharon Olds I ever read (“The Pope’s Penis”) made me want to be a poet.  Because of Olds’ bravery and boldness., I realized no subject was off limits.  I could write about anything.  Language was the key to the world.

Marie Howe writes about the power of language . . . 

The Meadow

by: Marie Howe

As we walk into words that have waited for us to enter them, so
the meadow, muddy with dreams, is gathering itself together

and trying, with difficulty, to remember how to make wildflowers.
Imperceptibly heaving with the old impatience, it knows

for certain that two horses walk upon it, weary of hay.
The horses, sway-backed and self important, cannot divine

how the small white pony mysteriously escapes the fence every day.
This is the miracle just beyond their heavy-headed grasp,

and they turn from his nuzzling with irritation. Everything
is crying out. Two crows, rising from the hill, fight

and caw-cry in mid-flight, then fall and light on the meadow grass
bewildered by their weight. A dozen wasps drone, tiny prop planes,

sputtering into a field the farmer has not yet plowed,
and what I thought was a phone, turned down and ringing,

is the knock of a woodpecker for food or warning, I can’t say.
I want to add my cry to those who would speak for the sound alone.

But in this world, where something is always listening, even
murmuring has meaning, as in the next room you moan

in your sleep, turning into late morning. My love, this might be
all we know of forgiveness, this small time when you can forget

what you are. There will come a day when the meadow will think
suddenly, water, root, blossom, through no fault of its own,

and the horses will lie down in daisies and clover. Bedeviled,
human, your plight, in waking, is to choose from the words

that even now sleep on your tongue, and to know that tangled
among them and terribly new is the sentence that could change your life.

I love that last phrase—“the sentence that could change your life.”  It’s a powerful thought.  We all carry in our mouths words that can cause earthquakes, heal broken hearts, end hunger, stop wars.  Think about it.  If a war can be started by one lunatic who can’t string together a coherent thought, then peace can be achieved by a sane person who’s not afraid to say, “Give peace a chance.”  (Thank you, John Lennon.)

Sorry that it has taken me so long to give an update after my last post about my wife’s health issues.  I’ve been eyeballs deep in poetry for over a week.  Last weekend, I visited a high school in Ann Arbor to talk poetry with the students.  Then I participated in a reading at a bookstore in Dexter, Michigan.  The next day, we drove to Detroit, had pizza with some family members I don’t get to see very often, including my grandniece Abby (one of my son’s favorite people).  Then I read poems at Next Chapter Books in Detroit.  (My first appearance in the Motor City—and my family came to support me.)

I didn’t have much of a chance to recover from this trip.  Monday, I dove right into the Great Lakes Poetry Festival at the library where I work.  Readings and writing workshops and movies and presentations.  Poetry and poetry and poetry.  I was surrounded by people who seize every day by the throat and refuse to let go.  Poets.

I’m pretty exhausted tonight, but it’s a good exhaustion.  Birthday exhaustion.  Christmas exhaustion.  You get the idea.  It’s as if I’ve been laughing for a week straight, and now my sides are hurting and eyes are watering.  I could happily sleep for a week, drunk on poetry.

As John Keating says in Dead Poets Society, “No matter what people tell you, words and ideas can change the world.”

Saint Marty wrote a new ghost poem this week . . . 

Some Thoughts from the Ghost of Mary Oliver

by: Martin Achatz

You think you know me because you’ve read

my poems about Blackwater Pond and geese,

bears digging honey from rotten tree trunks.

But I never wrote about stepping onto my front 

porch just as sun unzipped the horizon at dawn

and song sparrows shivered the pines with their

hungry music.  I never scribbled how good it was

to stand in that cold air before the woods 

stretched and yawned, how much I enjoyed 

my first wild and precious cigarette of the day.

April 19, 2026: “ What the Angels Left,” Hospital, “Ode to Cheese and Crackers”

The last four or five days have been a rollercoaster.

On Tuesday, my wife texted me, telling me that it felt like an elephant was sitting on her chest and her jaw was aching.  Having worked in a cardiology office for about eight years, I knew she needed to go to the ER.  (You wouldn’t believe the number of times I spoke to patients on the phone experiencing symptoms of a heart attack and asking me what they should do.  The answer was always the same:  CALL AN AMBULANCE! or GET TO THE EMERGENCY ROOM!)

Two days later, my wife was still in the hospital, and we still didn’t have any answers.  First and foremost—we do know she did NOT have a heart attack.  All the testing (bloodwork, EKGs, stress test, echocardiogram) proved that.  What the doctors couldn’t figure out is why her heart rate kept falling into the 40s.  The first morning, she couldn’t complete her stress test because her heart rate fell to 39 bpm (that’s “beats per minute” for my non-medical disciples).  

Of course there have been moments of grace over through this whole ordeal—simple kindnesses like text messages and an occasional piece of chocolate—and I know that there were tons of people praying for my wife.

Marie Howe writes about unexpected grace . . . 

What the Angels Left

by: Marie Howe

At first, the kitchen scissors seemed perfectly harmless.

They lay on the kitchen table in the blue light.

Then I began to notice them all over the house,

at night in the pantry, or filling up bowls in the cellar

where there should have been apples.  They appeared under rugs,

lumpy places where one would usually settle before the fire,

or suddenly shining in the sink at the bottom of soupy water.

Once, I found a pair in the garden, stuck in turned dirt

among the new bulbs, and one night, under my pillow,

I felt something like a cool long tooth and pulled them out

to lie next to me in the dark.  Soon after that I began 

to collect them, filling boxes, old shopping bags,

every suitcase I owned.  I grew slightly uncomfortable

when company came.  What if someone noticed them

when looking for forks or replacing dried dishes?  I longed

to throw them out, but how could I get rid of something

that felt oddly like grace?  It occurred to me finally

that I was to use them, and I resisted a growing cumpulsion

to cut my hair, although, in moments of great distraction,

I thought it was my eyes they wanted, or my soft-belly

—exhausted, in winter, I laid them out on the lawn.

The snow fell quiet as usual, without any apparent hesitation

or discomfort.  In spring, as I expected, they were gone.

In their place, a slight metallic smell, and the clear muddy earth.

I think what Howe is getting at in this poem are graces that don’t seem like graces at first:  missing a bus and finding out later that the missed bus got hit by a train; getting sick on Christmas thereby avoiding a family get-together that ended in tears and screaming; or not eating dinner and hearing that everyone who DID eat ended up with food poisoning.  You get the idea.  The scissors seem like a plague, but, in actuality, they are gifts from angels.

My wife did her second stress test on Thursday morning without any problems.  By noon, she was discharged from the hospital sporting a 30-day Holter monitor.  By 3:30 p.m., our car was packed, and we were on the road for a whirlwind weekend of poetry readings in Ann Arbor, Dexter, and Detroit.  (More on that in an upcoming post.)

So, you may be asking, where is the grace in all of that?

Answer:  all of our family and friends.

Being in the hospital can be a pretty isolating experience, but we never felt that.  My sister-in-law and brother-in-law waited in the ER with us.  One of my best friends (who happens to be the head of the cardiology clinic) made sure my wife’s tests were completed as quickly as possible.  Another friend who’s a cardiology nurse stopped by to see how we were holding up.  It was simply grace upon grace upon grace from everyone (and that includes my friends and family from downstate).

Here’s a poem about grace that Saint Marty wrote . . .

Ode to Cheese and Crackers

by: Martin Achatz

Nothing special.  Saltines.  Kraft American

cheese slices.  I sit on the couch at 11 p.m.,

home from the hospital where I left

my wife in a bed, her heart singing

lullabies on a screen at the nurses’ station.

I place the cheese and crackers on my tongue

like communion wafers, blessed by the salt

crunch, creamy orange blandness, the way

I used to feel blessed when my mother gave

me Campbell’s Chicken Noodle when I was home

sick as a kid and I believed she could cure

leprosy, raise the dead with a can opener

and microwave oven while Bob Barker

dispensed miracles to the sick and lame

on the TV as long as they promised

to spay and neuter their pets.

April 13, 2026: “Death, the Last Visit,” Emily Dickinson, “Writing a Poem”

It’s Monday night.  Just got home from the library after showing a movie about the life of Emily Dickinson.  A Quiet Passion.  I’d seen it before.  Thought it was a perfect choice for National Poetry Month.

I’m not going to write a whole lot tonight.  I’m tired.  I think it has something to do with the dreary weather.  Driving to and from work today, the fog was so thick I worried I was going to run into a deer that got lost in the woods and wandered onto the mist-choked highway.

Marie Howe gets a little Emily Dickinson-esque . . . 

Death, the Last Visit

by: Marie Howe

Hearing the low growl in your throat, you’ll know that it’s started.

It has nothing to ask you.  It only has something to say, and

it will speak in your own tongue.

Locking its arm around you, it will hold you as long as you ever wanted.

Only this time it will be long enough.  It will not let go.

Burying your face in its dark shoulder you’ll smell mud and hair and water.

You’ll taste your mother’s sour nipple, your favorite salty cock

and swallow a word you thought you’d spit out once and be done with.

Through half-closed eyes you’ll see that its shadow looks like yours,

a perfect fit.  You could weep with gratefulness.  It will take you

as you like it best, hard and fast as a slap across the face,

or so sweet and slow you’ll scream give it to me until it does.

Nothing will ever reach this deep.  Nothing will ever clench this hard.

At last (the little girls are clapping, shouting) someone has pulled

the drawstring of your gym bag closed enough and tight.  At last

someone has knotted the lace of your shoe so it won’t ever come undone.

Even as you turn into it, even as you begin to feel yourself stop,

you’ll whistle with amazement between your residual teeth oh jesus

oh sweetheart, oh holy mother, nothing nothing nothing ever felt this good.

It’s funny.  I wrote a poem this evening about death, as well.  Most poets are pretty obsessed with mortality.  It’s one of the pitfalls of being a poet.  Death kindly stops for you all the time.

Here is Saint Marty’s new poem . . . 

Writing a Poem

by: Martin Achatz

Doesn’t it always start with a question,

like why is that snowman standing alone

in a field or how did Mom make perfect

pancakes every time or did my sister

feel my hand holding hers in those last

breath moments before her lungs went

to sleep and heart became a drumbeat

on a distant battlefield, when hearing

was all she had left, my voice entering

her ear canal, slowly drifting toward

the shores of her mind—a kid’s

inner tube blown across the lake by

a summer squall until it washes

ashore, finds a home in cattails where

it waits to be remembered, claimed

like a lost soul?

April 12, 2026: “Part of Eve’s Discussion,” Wild Week, “A Whole Civilization”

It has been a wild week.  

Tuesday morning, President #47 threatened to wipe out “a whole civilization.”  You read that right—he said he was going to genocide the country of Iran if it didn’t open up the Strait of Hormuz.  After his post on Truth Social, the whole world seemed to be holding its breath, not sure if the orange lunatic was going to actually start World War III.

If you’ve ever lived through the threat of some kind of apocalyptic weather/environmental event—hurricane, blizzard, tsunami, volcanic eruption—that’s what it felt like.  The planet was teetering on the brink of something cataclysmic, and only one person could prevent it.  And that one person was/is a mentally unstable Putin wannabe.  

Don’t worry.  This post isn’t going to be a political rant.  Y’all know I stand on the side of compassion, kindness, empathy, and freedom.  You know, all that shit you heard in church last Easter Sunday.  No, I won’t go all Sam Kinison on you (The man’s a fuckin’ baby with nuclear codes!!!!  Ahhhh, ahhhhhh, ahhhhhhhh!!!!!).   I’m more interested in that collective held breath—everyone waiting to see what was going to happen.  Like Christmas morning, except Santa Claus has missiles packed in his sleigh.

Marie Howe writes about just-before moments . . . 

Part of Eve’s Discussion

by: Marie Howe

It was like the moment when a bird decides not to eat from your hand,

and flies, just before it flies, the moment when rivers seem to still

and stop because a storm is coming, but there is no storm, as when

a hundred starlings lift and bank together before they wheel and drop,

very much like the moment, driving on bad ice, when it occurs to you

your car could spin, just before it slowly begins to spin, like

the moment just before you forgot what it was you were about to say,

it was like that, and after that, it was still like that, only

all the time.

Howe is talking about an anticipated experience that never materializes—a bird right before eating from your palm, a river right before a squall, a car right before it starts spinning on lake ice.  If you’re anything like me, you’ve already imagined the experience in your mind.  The bird has already gorged itself on the seed.  The storm has already whipped the river into froth.  The car has already spun and spun and spun like an amusement park ride.  

I think the world has become so focused on speed.  We want the fastest cell phones.  Fastest cars.  Fastest WiFi connections.  Call it the Era of Instant Gratification.  Anticipation is practically non-existent.  Movies don’t even stay in theaters all that long anymore.  They’re released, and, four weeks later, they’re streaming on Netflix or HBO Max.  You don’t have to wait six months or a year for the DVD or Blu-ray.  

President #47 did NOT go through with his threat.  Supposedly, there’s a two-week moratorium on bombing between Iran, Israel, and the United States.  (Somebody needs to let Netanyahu know about this ceasefire, by the way.)  The bird flew off without eating the seed.  The storm blew itself out like a birthday candle.  And the car’s tires found traction.  For two weeks.  Then, all bets are off.

As Howe says at the end of her poem, “. . . it was still like that, only / all the time.”  It’s exhausting living in a state of constant anticipation.  Even if Tuesday’s  threat has been postponed, it’s still present.  And the people of the United States have been living on this edge like this for close to ten years now.  Almost an entire generation of young people only remember #47 and Joe Biden as Presidents of the United States.  (You can argue with me if you want, but at least President Biden never brought us to the brink of armageddon, and he isn’t a convicted felon.)

We are a divided country.  That’s a fact.  Also a fact:  the inmates are in charge of the asylum right now.  When my kids and grandkids read this post dozens of years from now, I want them to know I stood on the side of love and kindness during this held-breath moment.  And I will continue to do so.  

I have friends who are incredibly pessimistic about the future.  That’s not me.  I believe that democracy is still alive in the United States.  The fact that Hungarian dictator Viktor Orbán lost the election in his country by a landslide today gives me hope.  In the end, good people win, and despots end up on the trash heap.  We will recover from the past ten years of MAGA-induced insanity, but it will take a while.  No instant gratification available.  Sorry millennials.

In the meantime, we gather, protest, speak up, speak out, listen to and recite poetry at readings (like I did today), and sing songs.  

Here’s a poem Saint Marty wrote last Tuesday . . . 

A Whole Civilization

by: Martin Achatz

“A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again.”
                    --- Donald Trump

We sit on this side of the world,
complain about egg prices, milk
prices, pill prices. We pump gas
into our SUVs, complain about that, too.
We have to get to Florida for our spring breaks.
Because we’re civilized.

They sit on the other side of the world,
wait for the whistle of missiles,
watch skies on fire, and dig
their daughters’ bodies from school
rubble. They weep, wail, tear their clothes,
wonder how frightened their children
were when heaven collapsed on top of them.
Because they’re civilized.

April 7, 2026: “The Singularity,” War, “Up from the Grave”

I spent most of today worrying about war.

This morning, #47 said that “a whole civilization will die tonight.”  Yes, you read that correctly.  The President of the United States threatened to bomb Iran—infrastructure, power plants, schools, men, women, children.  In case you don’t know, that’s genocide.  And a war crime.  World leaders have been put in prison and executed for shit like this.  If you don’t believe me, read up on the Nuremberg trials.

Marie Howe writes about the beginning (and end) of the universe . . . 

The Singularity

(after Stephen Hawking)

by: Marie Howe

Do you sometimes want to wake up to the singularity

we once were

so compact nobody 

needed a bed, or good or money

nobody hiding in the school bathroom

or home alone

pulling open the drawer

where the pills are kept.

For every atom belonging to me as good

belongs to you.  Remember?

There was no Nature.     No

them.    No tests

to determine if the elephant

grieves her calf.   of if

the coral reef feels pain.    Trashed

oceans don’t speak English or Farsi or French;

would that we could wake up to what we were

when we were ocean,    and before that

to when sky was earth, and animal was energy, and rock was

liquid, and stars were space, and space was not

at all—nothing,

before we came to believe humans were so important

before this awful loneliness.

Can molecules recall it?

What once was?    Before anything happened?

No  I, no we, no was

no verb.       no noun

only a tiny tiny dot brimming with

is  is  is  is  is

All  everything  home.

No I or we or was, Howe writes.  Human beings are really good at killing each other.  We’ve been practicing it for a few millennia.  Cain killed Abel, and that got the ball rolling.  Now, we have a demented sociopath who said he was going to kill an entire country.  He backed off tonight and set another deadline (two weeks from now).  So Armageddon is on hold for another 14 days.

The question is:  are we at the beginning or the end?  

I’m not sure.  Any other President of the United States (Democrat or Republican) would have already been impeached and removed.  Yet, #47 is still in the Oval Office.  For now.  We have two weeks to do something before we’re back in the same boat.

If you still support this deranged Hitler wannabe, please stop reading this post now.  Ya ain’t gonna like it.  When Alex Jones and Marjorie Taylor Green say that it’s time to invoke the 25th Amendment, you know there’s something seriously wrong.  

I’m not sure about the endgame.  Optimistically, in the next two weeks, Congress does its job:  impeachment and removal.  Or the 25th Amendment is invoked.  Or another stroke occurs.  Let’s not kid ourselves, though:  the current Vice President isn’t fit to serve in the Oval Office, either.  (Currently, he’s schmoozing with Viktor Orban, the Prime Minister/dictator of Hungary.). Where does that leave us?

It leaves us living in a country run by war criminals.

Saint Marty wrote this poem on Easter Sunday . . . 

Up from the Grave

by: Martin Achatz

Ham.  Mustard.  Bread.  Dad’s Easter salvation.

April 4, 2026: “Hymn,” Easter Vigil, “Holy Saturday”

In past years, I would be in church right now, sitting on an organ bench.  If you’ve never attended a Mass before, and you want to get the full Catholic experience, the Easter Vigil is for you.  It’s more Catholic than the Crusades and Spanish Inquisition.  (Yes, I’m probably going to hell for that little joke.)

However, I did not play any church service tonight.  Instead, I did laundry, wrote some poetry, practiced music for Easter morning, and put together some baskets from my son and wife.  (No egg hunt this year, per my 17-year-old son.)  After I’m done typing this post, I’m going to read a little Hemingway.  Maybe watch a movie (The Passion of the Christ perhaps).  There will be plenty of liturgy and singing in my life tomorrow morning.

Marie Howe sings . . . 

Hymn

by: Marie Howe

It began as an almost inaudible hum,

                    low and long for the solar winds

                                        and far dim galaxies,

a hymn growing louder, for the moon and the sun,

                    a song without words for the snow falling,

                                        for snow conceiving snow

conceiving rain, the rivers rushing without shame,

                    the hum turning again higher—into a riff of ridges

                                        peaks hard as consonants,

summits and praise for the rocky faults and crust and crevices

                    then down down to the roots and rocks and burrows

                                        the lakes’ skitters surfaces, wells, oceans, breaking

waves, the salt-deep; the warm bodies moving within it;

                    the cold deep; the deep underneath gleaming, some of us rising

                                        as the planet turned into dawn, some lying down

as it turned into dark; as each of us rested—another woke, standing

                    among the cast-off cartons and automobiles;

                                        we left the factories and stood in the parking lots,

left the subways and stood on sidewalks, in the bright offices,

                    in the cluttered yards, in the farmed fields,

                                        in the mud of the shanty towns, breaking into

harmonies we’d not known possible, finding the chords as we

                    found our true place singing in a million

                                        million keys the human hymn of praise for every

something else there is and ever was and will be

                    the song growing louder and rising.

                                        (Listen, I too believed it was a dream.)

In yesterday’s post, I discussed my dislike for Lenten and Easter hymns, in general.  My opinion was formed through years of being a church musician and choir director.  That doesn’t mean that I hate Eastertide.  Quite the contrary.  I have wonderful childhood memories of receiving immense, chocolate-filled baskets.  And there was always a note attached; I was one of those kids who wrote to Santa and the Easter Bunny.  Didn’t want to take any chances.  The notes from Mr. Bunny were always signed with a big, black paw print.

Even though it’s only 9:34 p.m., our Easter baskets have already been delivered.  I can smell the chocolate from where I’m sitting on the couch.  Of course, I’m tempted to grab something, but I will hold strong until tomorrow morning.  Then I will allow myself to eat one Cadbury Creme Egg before heading off to church.  It’s a little tradition I’ve established over the years. 

This afternoon, I practiced the musical pieces I have to play for church tomorrow morning.  I was pleasantly surprised that I knew every single hymn.  I also went to do laundry at the laundromat, thinking it would not be too busy.  (I was wrong.). Every single washer and dryer were in use when I arrived.  I had to wait a couple minutes to get my loads going.

Overall, it has been a blessedly quiet Easter Eve.  And for that, I say, “Amen.”

Saint Marty wrote a poem at the laundromat this afternoon . . . 

Holy Saturday

by: Martin Achatz

I know

I will make mashed potatoes

with a pound of butter

a full carton of heavy whipping cream

plenty of salt

I know

I will also make Stove Top

a lot of it, because it’s my son’s favorite

I know

my son expects a basket

in the morning, full of Cadbury and Reeses

sweet resurrection

I know

people will gather in church tonight

candles and incense and dark

so dark mothers could lose kids in it

I know 

it is spring in Austria

my Austrian friend told me

mountains and fields shouting

Hallelujah!

I know

my Christmas tree is still

blazing in my living room

like Easter morning

April 3, 2026: “The Willows,” Triduum, “Good Friday”

I only get to write this once a year—happy Good Friday!

Yes, Lent is over., and were are in the middle of the Triduum of the Christian calendar.  Yesterday was Maundy Thursday.  (Pretty much all services—aside from the Catholic ones—were canceled yesterday due to a snow and ice storm.)  I did not go to church yesterday.  Today, however, I played two Good Friday commemorations, one Catholic and one Lutheran.

I have to be honest.  Lenten and Easter music just don’t excite me.  I’ve been a church musician for close to 40 years now (started playing pipe organ when I was 17 years old), and I still dread Ash Wednesday with all its minor keys and dirges.  I know Lent is supposed to be a time of preparation and sacrifice, headed toward the loudness and light of Easter morning, but I won’t cry if I never have to play “O Sacred Head Surrounded” or “Jesus Christ is Risen Today” again.  (Let me stress:  I’m against the crappy hymns and music of Lent and Easter, NOT the seasons themselves.)  You would think that, after 21 centuries, churches might have come up with a few good pieces of liturgical Eastertide music.

Now, before I start getting comments from angry churchgoers listing favorite Lent and Easter tunes, I will say that, given the choice between the funereal ditties of Lent and the overwrought anthems of Easter, I will choose the overwrought.  I can get into a rousing chorus of “Up From the Grave He Arose” as much as the next Christian, but it’s just so . . . ostentatious is the word I’m looking for, I guess.  I prefer subtlety.  What can I say?  I’m a poet.

Marie Howe gives us a subtle poem today . . . 

The Willows

by: Marie Howe

As we are made by what moves us,

willows pull the water up into their farthest reach

which curves again down

divining where their life begins.

So, under travels up, and down and up again,

and the wind makes music of what water was.

A beautiful little poem that packs a lot of joy.  It’s a celebration of “what moves us.”  Water—the one thing we (trees, plants, birds, insects, human beings) all depend upon.  We can go for days without food.  Water, on the other hand, is necessary for survival.  

Howe’s words more to me about Lent and Easter than “When I Survey the Wondrous Cross” ever has.  Because it’s about the force that sustains and uplifts us.  Even the wind sings a water hymn in the last line.  That’s what this season is about—walking across a desert and finding a cool, fresh running river at the end.  Whether you’re a Christian or not, we can all understand the relief of a glass of icy water on a hot summer day.  

You see what I’m getting at, I hope.  For me, Lent and Easter aren’t about the ashes and bells and incense and chants.  This season is about being offered a hose to slurp from after sweating in the fields all day long (metaphorically speaking).  

There’s another ice storm blowing in tonight.  I’m sure the grocery stores in the area were jammed with people trying to get their last-minute Easter shopping done prior to the freezing rain.  Think Black Friday, but everyone is fighting over hams and baskets and Cadbury Creme Eggs.  My wife and I did our final shopping last weekend.  We’re not planning on going out a whole lot tomorrow.  (I may hit the laundromat, but that’s about it.)

Saint Marty wrote a poem during one of his Good Friday services today . . . 

Good Friday

by: Martin Achatz

I sit,

listen

to this

familiar

story of betrayal, love, forgiveness, redemption,

think how my mom, with knees calcified by

arthritis,

knelt in

church every

Good Friday,

knobbed 

knuckles

folded, 

accepted 

her pain

like a kiss 

from her 

dead mother.

April 1, 2026: “Seventy,” April Fool, “Contemplating Old Age”

Nobody tried to make me an April Fool today.  No pranks.  No tall tales.  When I got home from work, my son came down the stairs from his bedroom and said to me, “Celeste says she’s pregnant.”  I didn’t fall for it; I’ve survived too many first days of April.  Perhaps I’ve become jaded in my old age.

Marie Howe writes about getting old . . . 

Seventy

by: Marie Howe

So, I’ve grown less apparent apparently:

The young men walk their dogs, and when our dogs meet

we look at the dogs without raising our eyes to each other.

The fathers stand outside the elementary school laughing

with the mothers—Exactly, one of them says to the other—

my passing presence faded like a well-washed once-blue cotton shirt.

Finally, I can slip through the world without being so adamantly in it.

And look, here comes the blind photographer

walking as he does, his hand resting on the shoulder of his companion.

And now the riot of children pouring through the open school doors.

Late winter, an unseasonably warm afternoon

and the summer ice cream truck at the corner—

cold early March and there it is—playing its familiar kooky tune.

There’s some good things about getting old, according to Howe.  The most important perk:  growing less apparent.  She’s able to walk down the street, pick up her kid from elementary school, and not be viewed as a sexual object, or be noticed at all.  Old age brings anonymity.

I spent most of today working on library stuff for May.  Literally, I sat at my desk for eight hours, typing and pointing and clicking.  The good news is that I actually got a lot of shit done, including all of the programming for May.  Now, sitting and typing this post at 10 p.m., I am exhausted.  

I find I tire more easily now.  I’m not sure if this is a symptom of old age, or if I simply overwork myself on a daily basis.  Plus, I spent a few hours this afternoon and tonight trying to figure out a credit card issue.  (I wasn’t successful.  I’m going to have to call my credit union tomorrow morning.)  I used to be able to get by on about three or four hours of sleep a night.  Not any more.  Now, my goal when I get home is to get in my pajamas as quickly as possible.  Naps have become my favorite pastime.

That’s my wisdom for tonight.  I feel old and tired.  It doesn’t help that it’s Holy Week.  For church musicians, these next seven days are like a fraternity hazing.  If I make it to Sunday afternoon, I will be ready for a long Easter slumber.

Saint Marty even wrote a poem about feeling old . . . 

Contemplating Old Age

by: Martin Achatz

All day I nurse a sour belly, knee ache, back

twinge.  I catalogue yesterday’s events, pray

I haven’t slipped a disc, torn some cartilage.  My

spry days, when I could run five miles, traverse

mountain paths, sleep only two hours  a

night, are long gone, replaced by naps, flour

allergies, piss trips at midnight, a potbelly.

How did I get so old?  It snuck up on me,

the way Christmas sneaks up, with fruitcake,

cards, dead friends and family, all the wrack

time inflicts before your final curtain call.

March 22, 2026: “Before,” Sundays, “Lost on an Island”

Most faithful disciples of this blog know that I dislike Sundays intensely.  

This animosity has nothing to do with God or religion or faith.  I’m a cradle Catholic; play keyboard/pipe organ at several different denominational churches every weekend; and say prayers every morning and night (and at various times during the day).  The reason I dislike Sundays:  they come before Mondays and the start of another work week.  

Monday through Friday, I feel like Sisyphus—pushing that boulder uphill until I reach the summit on Friday.  On Sunday, that fucker rolls back to the bottom of the hill, and I start trudging down to start the whole process all over again.  

Marie Howe writes about a boulder . . . 

Before

by: Marie Howe

The boulder once dust, will be dust again,

but today, so filled with its own heaviness,

it can’t hear the grunts of the men who push and roll it

                                                                        to the mouth of the tomb,

and it can’t yet conceive how else it might be moved.

Howe is talking about mortality here, echoing the blessing that’s repeated every Ash Wednesday:  Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.  Howe’s boulder has consciousness.  It knows its own weight, but it doesn’t know all the back-breaking effort it took to get it to that tomb entrance.

I’m feeling the weight of that boulder tonight as I prepare to head into another week of teaching and library work, and I’m not excited.  It always feels as though I’m just starting to relax as the weekend comes to an end.  I even took a little nap this afternoon, which is a luxury I rarely allow myself.  Now it’s almost 10 p.m., and the boulder is starting its downward descent.

Don’t get me wrong.  I love working at the library, and there are aspects of teaching that really energize me.  However, the heaviness of the next five days is overwhelming.  Plus (and most church musicians can back me up on this fact), the Lenten/Easter season adds extra stress and weight to life. Palm Sunday is in seven days, and then Holy Week, with all the bells, whistles, smoke, and chants.  In two weeks, I will look like a refugee from a George Romero flick.

I guess the takeaway from tonight’s post is that I’m tired.  Tired of the daily grind.  And politics.  And President 47.  And Republicans.  And war.  And divisiveness.  47 has ruined basically the last ten years of life in the United States (and the world).  If I could just stay home, write poems, and take my puppy for walks, I would.  (With the price of oil and gas rising every day, that’s pretty much all I’ll be able to afford to do.)

This weekend, I watched a movie starring Michael Caine as a dying Thomas Pynchon-esque writer.  It was titled Best Sellers.  One of Michael Caine’s catchphrases in the film is “bullshite.”  (I don’t think I need to translate that for you.)

Allow me to say this:  I’m tired of all the bullshite going on in my country and around the globe.

The only bright spot this Sunday was the Zoom poetry workshop I led this evening, with some of my best friends participating.

Saint Marty wrote the following poem in workshop tonight.  It’s about being lost and found  . . . 

Lost on an Island

by: Martin Achatz

Some people think it’s impossible

to get lost on an island, with all

its coast to guide you home to

where you began.  I’m here to tell you

you it’s easy to get lost on a piece

of land surrounded on all sides

by water, fresh or salt, that water

isn’t a street sign or highway

marker telling you how far to

the next McDonald’s or gas station

or rest area.  Water encourages

lostness with its waves and currents

and horizons.  If anything, water

wants to turn us all into Odysseus

sailing 20 years before he crawls

onto Ithaca’s shores, driven

by a yearn for the arms of Penelope

or wet nose, rough tongue of Argos

waiting by the palace door those two

decades.  Even on an island, yes, 

it’s easy to get lost, be lost, stay lost.

See that beach there?  I bet it’s named

after somebody who got lost and built

a shack on the sands and called it

home.