December 9: "The World I Live In," STEM Education, Christmas Lights

Mary Oliver refuses to live in an orderly house . . .

The World I Live In

by:  Mary Oliver

I have refused to live

locked in the orderly house of

     reasons and proofs.

The world I live in and believe in

is wider than that.  And anyway,

     what's wrong with Maybe?

You wouldn't believe what once or 

twice I have seen.  I'll just

     tell you this:

only if there are angels in your head will you

     ever, possibly, see one.

The majority of poets I know never live in the orderly house of reasons and proofs.  To be a poet, you must live in a house of Maybe, as Oliver says.  Wonder is necessary for poets; certainty is not.  In fact, I would venture to say that certainty is the antithesis of poetry.

Of course, modern life doesn't leave a lot of room for wonder.  STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) education has become a buzz word in schools and universities.  Disciplines like mythology or literature or poetry or painting are now viewed by academia as frivolous, only for daydreamers and fools.  (Thank you, Bill Gates.)  The focus of education now is critical thinking and problem solving.  Black-and-white answers.  Equations and logic.

Where does wonder fit into this new world order?  

The one word answer:  nowhere.

Don't misunderstand me.  I think STEM subjects are necessary.  Important.  For example, we need to understand how to stop climate change.  (Yes, poets believe in climate change.)  That requires science and technology and engineering and math.  (If you don't believe in climate change, let me offer you some advice/wisdom:  MAGA hats make you look stupid, and Donald Trump and his family are criminals and grifters.)  

However, wonder and beauty are just as necessary as the "hard" disciplines.  Some of history's greatest scientists/mathematicians were also accomplished artists.  Albert Einstein studied and played violin.  Isaac Newton wrote poetry.  Galileo was a painter.  If these men didn't have the wonder of a poet or artist or musician, perhaps we wouldn't have quantum physics.  Or an understanding of gravity.  Or a heliocentric model of the universe.

My point is that everyone needs wonder in their lives, from nuclear physicists to sanitation engineers.  This evening, after dropping our son off for a school dance, my wife and I visited a beautiful local Christmas light display.  We wandered through each glowing tableau filled with child-like wonder.  It was a perfect melding, for me, of science and technology and art, and I was surrounded by dumbstruck kids, smiling adults, and one or two dogs.  All there for the wonder.

Saint Marty does have angels in his head, and tonight he saw some.

November 13: "The Truro Bear," Cape Cod, Happiness

Mary Oliver on the mystery of happiness . . . 

The Truro Bear

by:  Mary Oliver

There's a bear in the Truro woods.

People have seen it--three or four,

or two, or one.  I think

of the thickness of the serious woods

around the dark bowls of the Truro ponds;

I think of the blueberry fields, the blackberry tangles,

the cranberry bogs.  And the sky

with its new moon, its familiar star-trails,

burns down like a brand-new heaven,

while everywhere I look on the scratchy hillsides

shadows seem to grow shoulders.  Surely

a beast might be clever, be lucky, move quickly

through the woods for years, learning to stay away

from roads and houses.  Common sense mutters:

it can't be true, it must be somebody's

runaway dog.  But the seed

has been planted, and when has happiness ever

required much evidence to begin

its leaf-green breathing?

I'm not sure where Truro is.  There is a Truro in Cornwall.  There is also a Truro in Massachusetts.  To make things even more complicated:  there's a Truro in Madison County in Iowa.  Then there's Truro Vineyards on Cape Cod.  Which Truro is being haunted by a bear in Mary Oliver's poem?  I don't know.

Oliver lived most of her life in Provincetown on northern tip of . . . (drumroll) . . . Cape Cod.  Perhaps that answers the question.  I'm still not convinced, though.  I suppose the most important thing to take away from "The Truro Bear" is that the bear seems to be an impossibility.  Something that defies common sense.  

Yet, as Oliver points out, happiness doesn't require common sense or evidence.  The seed of the idea of the Truro bear has been planted, and, once planted, it sprouts and grows.  The Truro bear begins taking leaf-green breaths.  Anything with a molecule of mystery in its DNA will assume a life of its own.  Including happiness.

Defining happiness is like defining the Truro bear.  Happiness doesn't require common sense or evidence.  Writing this blog post makes me happy.  Reading a beautiful poem does the same.  Chocolate.  My 15-year-old son coming downstairs to kiss me goodnight.  My daughter sending me a text that says she loves me.  Christmas lights on a neighbor's house.  All these things make me happy.

But what is happiness?

For the Truro bear, it's blueberry fields, blackberry tangles, and cranberry bogs.  New moons and star-trails.  The shoulder hunch of shadows in the hillsides.  All these things are Truro bear happiness, according to Oliver.  

The universe is full of Truro bears lumbering through starry woods.  Full of mystery.  Happiness.  From the time we are kids, we chase these Truro bears.  Because we all want to taste the sweetness of blueberry, feel the sun on our hairy backs.

Ever since Saint Marty drew his first leaf-green breath, he's been a bear hunter.

February 7: Unstuck in Time, Snowstorm, Hallucinating

Billy Pilgrim had stopped in the forest,  He was leaning against a tree with his eyes closed.  His head was tilted back and his nostrils were flaring.  He was like a poet in the Parthenon.

This was when Billy first came unstuck in time.  His attention began to swing grandly through the full arc of his life, passing into death, which was violet light.  There wasn't anybody else there, or any thing.  There was just violet light--and a hum.

And then Billy swung into life again, going backwards until he was in pre-birth, which was red light and bubbling sounds.  And then he swung into life again and stopped.  He was a little boy taking a shower with his hairy father at Ilium Y.M.C.A.  He smelled chlorine from the swimming pool next door, heard the springboard boom.

Little Billy was terrified, because his father had said Billy was going to learn to swim by the method of sink-or-swim.  His father was going to throw Billy into the deep end, and Billy was going to damn well swim.

It was like an execution.  Billy was numb as his father carried him from the shower room to the pool.  His eyes were closed.  When he opened his eyes, he was on the bottom of the pool, and there was beautiful music everywhere.  He lost consciousness, but the music went on.  He dimly sensed that somebody was rescuing him.  Billy resented that.

Billy is walking through a forest behind enemy lines when he first comes unstuck in time.  I just spent a couple hours digging out from a snowstorm.  By about the hour-and-a-half mark, I think I became unstuck in time.  At the very least I was hallucinating.

I was suddenly back at the first apartment my wife and I shared after we got married.  I had an empty ice cream gallon bucket, and I was scooping snow off my front porch, because I didn't have a shovel.  And the snow just kept on coming.

I closed my eyes and opened them again.  It was four o'clock in the morning, and I was pushing snow when the city plows blew by, burying my car once again.  I stood there, swearing and shaking my head.  And the snow just kept on coming.

I closed my eyes and opened them again.  It was the night my daughter was born, and I was sweeping off my car.  The snow slammed into my face.  I was going home to check on our cocker spaniel.  My wife was in labor, but my daughter was in no hurry to appear.  And the snow just kept on coming.

I closed my eyes and opened them again.  Christmas lights blinked up and down the block.  The snowdrifts glowed green and red and blue.  It was December 24.  My sister was babysitting our newborn son.  It was six years from the time she would get sick.  Seven years from the time she would die.  And the snow just kept on coming.

I closed my eyes and opened them again.  It's the present.  I can hear the plow guy outside my parents' house, pushing the snow into the field.  It sounds like a roaring lion.  And the snow just keeps on coming.

My life seems like a series of snowstorms, interrupted by short reprieves of spring, summer, and fall.

Saint Marty is thankful for snow shovels tonight.

January 29: Darkness and Freezing Rain

This morning, freezing rain closed all the schools in my area of the Upper Peninsula.  For the third time in less than two weeks, my kids got to stay home from school for the day.  Tomorrow, the National Weather Service has issued a winter storm watch.  From Wednesday morning to Wednesday night, heavy snow is predicted.  I know my daughter already has her heart set on another snow day.

I'm staring at the dark parking lot in front of my office window at the university.  It looks calm outside.  The kind of calm that makes it hard to believe a snowstorm is on the way.  I'm sure the puddles are starting to turn to ice by now, and I'm not looking forward to the drive home.  Yet, there's a light in the window glass.  On top of the hill, I can see a house that still has it's Christmas lights up.  Green and red and gold against the black night.

Where there's darkness, there's also light.  Saint Marty needs to be reminded of that every once in a while.

Keeping my eyes on the light