December 4, 2024: "Here and There," Best Poet Friends, Imagination

I spent some time this morning writing with one of my best poet friends.  Now, I didn't write anything of any worth, but it felt good simply to sit in the same room with her and be myself, without having to put on any masks.

Or I didn't do that.

Billy Collins goes sailing--or he doesn't . . . 

Here and There

by: Billy Collins

I feel nothing this morning 

except the low hum of the ego, 

a constant, shameless sound behind the rib cage. 

I even keep forgetting my friend in surgery 

at this very hour. 

In other words, a perfect time to write 

about clouds rolling in after a week of sun 

and a woman beating laundry on a rock 

in front of her house overlooking the sea— 

all of which I am making up— 

the clouds, the house, the woman, even the laundry. 

Or take the lights strung in a harbor 

that I once saw from the bow of a sailboat, 

which seemed unreal at the time and more unreal now. 

Even if I were there again at the ship’s railing 

as I am sitting here in a lawn chair, who would believe it? 

Vast maple tree above me, are you really there? 

and you, open cellar door, 

and you, vast sky with sun and a fading contrail— 

no more real than the pretend city 

where she lies now under the investigating lights, 

an imaginary surgeon busy 

breaking into the vault of her phantom skull.

This whole poem by Collins speaks to the power of the imagination.  Is that maple tree outside my window real, or have I invented it, imbued it with enough detail to make it alive?  Is Collins' friend really having brain surgery, or is Collins just embellishing once more?  And does it really matter?  It's still the truth.

A couple weeks ago, I fell asleep on my living room couch, and I woke up in the middle of night, swearing that I heard someone pounding on the front door of my house.  My puppy even growled at the sound.  I never checked to see if anyone was standing on my front step.  All I did was make sure the inside door to the house was locked.

Imagination is a powerful force.  In the Book of Genesis, God literally speaks everything into being.  He says the word, and suddenly there's light.  Earth.  Heavens.  Land.  Water,  Stars.  Birds.  Fish.  Beasts.  Adam.  Eve.  God writes a poem, coughs breath into it, and the poem becomes as real as the freckle on my left wrist.

So tonight, as a snowstorm rages outside--or doesn't--I'm grateful for my poet friend.  For the bad poems I wrote this morning with her.  They're still sitting in my journal, without any breath in their lungs.

Now, if only Saint Marty could simply say "Let there be happiness in my heart" and feel it fluttering against his ribs like a trapped bird.

August 29: "Water Snake," Book of Genesis, Bob Ross

Mary Oliver encounters a serpent . . .

Water Snake

by:  Mary Oliver

I saw him

in a dry place

on a hot day,

a traveler

making his way

from one pond

to another,

and he lifted up

his chary face

and looked at me

with his gravel eyes,

and the feather of his tongue

shot in and out

of his otherwise clamped mouth,

and I stopped on the path

to give him room,

and he went past me

with his head high,

loathing me, I think,

for my long legs,

my poor body, like a post,

my many fingers,

for he didn't linger

but, touching the other side of the path,

he headed, in long lunges and quick heaves,

straight to the nearest basin

of sweet black water and weeds,

and solitude--

like an old sword

that suddenly picked itself up and went off,

swinging, swinging

through the green leaves.

Oliver doesn't seem to be afraid of the snake.  She gives it wide berth, but there is also a certain admiration in the way she describes its gravel eyes and feather tongue.  There's beauty in its lunges and heaves as it searches for black water.  It makes me think of the serpent in the Biblical book of Genesis, cunning and charismatic enough to convince Eve and Adam to eat the fruit.

Think about it.  If the serpent in Genesis was frightening or repulsive in any way, Eve probably wouldn't have listened to it, and we would all be skinny dipping in the Garden of Eden right now.  Instead, Eve lets the forked feather of its tongue lead her astray, and the rest, as they say, is history, if you're literal-minded, or myth, if you're a poet.

Of course, I'm a poet.  I'm supposed to spend my days looking for moments of beauty and peace and grace.  However, it doesn't always work that way for me.  Most days, I'm too busy or tired to go hunting for wonder.  Today, for instance, I taught at the university and hosted a blues concert at the library in the evening.  The musicians were friends of mine, and their music, a wonderful gift.  

On my way home, I stopped at a grocery store to purchase some Diet Coke and snacks for my son.

As I was walking into the store with my wife, I looked up into the sky.  Most of the day had been dreary and cold, with lots of gray clouds and mist.  Tonight, the clouds were dusted pink, as if the ghost of Bob Ross had brushed them with a little Alizarin Crimson and Titanium White to make them happier.  More than likely, it was simply the setting sun causing the effect, but I like to imagine Bob Ross as God with an afro, making the whole universe and everything in it just a little happier.

That was my Mary moment today.  A sky gilded with color.

Anything can be beautiful, as long as you have the right paints and attitude.

Saint Marty gives thanks for snakes and Bob Ross tonight.

January 7: Mild Nervous Collapse, Normal Life, Sausage McMuffin

Billy was born in 1922 in Ilium, New York, the only child of a barber there.  He was a funny-looking child who became a funny-looking youth--tall and weak, and shaped like a bottle of Coca-Cola.  He graduated from Ilium High School in the upper third of his class, and attended night sessions at the Ilium School of Optometry for one semester before being drafted for military service in the Second World War.  His father died in a hunting accident during the war.  So it goes.

Billy saw service with the infantry in Europe, and was taken prisoner by the Germans.  After his honorable discharge from the Army in 1945, Billy again enrolled in the Ilium School of Optometry.  During his senior year there, he became engaged to the daughter of the founder and owner of the school, and then suffered a mild nervous collapse.

This is the beginning of Billy Pilgrim's story in Slaughterhouse.  Inauspicious.  He's nothing special.  Just one of those normal young guys who became a normal young soldier during World War II, went to Europe and saw normal human atrocities, and then came back home and tried to settle into a normal American life.  The only problem is that the normal human brain doesn't really settle after experiencing normal trauma.  Hence Billy's normal mild nervous collapse.

I'm not quite sure what normal is.  I used to think that I had a normal life--married, wife, two kids (a daughter and a son), two cars, mortgaged home, two jobs.  That sounds pretty normal, doesn't it?  Yet, normal is relative.  There are millions of men and women like Billy Pilgrim who went off to war, but is war ever normal?  My wife has bipolar disorder, like millions of other people, but is bipolar ever normal?  My life has been touched by addictions, like millions of other people's lives, but is addiction ever normal?

I think that, when things like war and mental illness and addiction become normal, there's something really wrong with the world.  I'm not getting on a soapbox, and I have no answers to this conundrum.  War has been around since Cain picked up that rock and bashed in Abel's skull.  I'm sure mental illness and addiction have been slithering along since the Book of Genesis, too.  Maybe Adam had a thing for certain mushrooms in the Garden of Eden.

Whether you believe Genesis is literal or metaphorical, one of the points of that book is that humankind's history is flawed.  Full of violence and weakness and illness and jealousy.  That was normal back at the beginning of the universe, and it's normal now.  Just ask Billy Pilgrim.

I am going to have my normal Saturday.  Maybe I'll play a game of Operation with my son.  I'll go to church.  Have pizza for dinner.  Clean my bathroom tonight.  Vacuum and sweep and mop.  In between all this, I'll say a few prayers for people in my life who are facing challenges.  Normal challenges:  illness, unemployment, depression, addiction. 

Saint Marty is grateful today for his normal Saturday breakfast:  a Sausage McMuffin.