August 2: Poem from "Kyrie," What If, My Neighbor

Poem from Kyrie

by:  Ellen Bryant Voigt

If doubts have wintered over in your house,
they won't go out.  The residue in the cupboard
means they've built a nest of your neglect
and fattened in it, and multiply, like mice.
Soft gray velvet scurry on the floor?
The rational cat licks a foot and looks away.
All dread passes--any harm they do
is mostly out of sight, and it's not just
your failure anyway:
                                    a plausible God
is a God of rapture, if not the falcon
at least the small decorous ribbon snake
that slept in the hay against the northern wall.
But look:  what drips like a limp Chinese moustache
at the lips of the cat coming up the cellarstairs?

___________________________________________

We all live with doubts, all our lives.  Because, as Benjamin Franklin noted, the only things that are certain are death and taxes.  Tomorrow is not a guarantee.  Certainly, next year is about as certain as a pandemic.  Last year at this time, I was contemplating choices and alternate realities.  Playing the "what if" game.  What if I had finished my doctorate?  What if I had stuck with computer programming as a career?  What if I had chosen not to live in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan?  What if I wasn't a poet?  A person could "what if" her/himself to death.

Tonight, a wonderful thing happened on my street.  Something that defies all the "what ifs" in the world.  My neighbor from across the street turned 95-years-old.  She's a wonderful woman, still living by herself, but undergoing some health issues.  Yet, she's still smiling, curious, and obviously in love with life.

My neighbor's daughter and son-in-law arranged a drive by birthday parade for her.  People from my neighbor's church drove by her home at 6 p.m., honking horns, blowing kisses, dropping off birthday cards.  My family and I stood out in the mist and drizzle, shouting "Happy birthday!" to her from our sidewalk.  People came from all over the place.  Some drove over an hour to be a part of the event.

It was a wonderful celebration of a miraculous lady who has defied doubt and lived almost a full century.

And for that, Saint Marty gives thanks.

August 1: Poem from "Kyrie," Friends, Chicken Quesadilla

Poem from Kyrie

by:  Ellen Bryant Voigt

I always thought she ought to have an angel.
There's one I saw a picture of, smooth white,
the wings like bolts of silk, breasts like a girl's--
like hers--eyebrows, all of it.  For years
I put away a little every year,
but her family was shamed by the bare grave,
and hadn't they blamed me for everything,
so now she has a cross.  Crude, rigid, nothing
human in it, flat dead tree on the hill,
it's what you see for miles, it's all I see.
Symbol of hope, the priest said, clearing his throat,
and the rain came down and washed the formal flowers.
I guess he thinks that dusk is just like dawn.
I guess he had forgot about the nails.

____________________________________________

This poem is all about what brings comfort.  How people define or picture hope.  For some, it's a beautiful angel with wings like bolts of silk and breasts like a girl's.  For others, it's a cross on a hill, washed with rain.  However, hope is often accompanied by pain and nails.

This afternoon, I got together with friends I haven't seen for a long while.  I used to work with them, and they are some of the best people I know.  Best friends who have seen me through a lot of difficult times.  We sat outside of a restaurant and had a socially distanced lunch.  They're all OR nurses, so wearing masks is second nature to them. 

We caught up on family and gossip.  Talked about vacations and kids.  Wondered about the uncertainty of the future.  The last time we were together like this, in the fall, the word "pandemic" belonged in the history books, and George Floyd was still alive. 

Each of the people at the table knew my sister, Sally, to greater and lesser extents.  Three of them were at her funeral.  One of them was standing next to her bed when she took her last breath.  They're a part of who I am.

I took great comfort in being with these individuals today.  They reminded me of better times and bitter times.  Angels and nails.  That there are people in my life who care about me deeply. 

Plus, the chicken quesadilla I had was pretty damn good, too.

For all those miracles of friendship, Saint Marty gives thanks.

July 30: Poem from "Kyrie," My Friend's Nephew, Love and Joy

Poem from Kyrie

by:  Ellen Bryant Voigt

I had other children, and they've all
had children too, I know I am
the luckiest of men--my wife, my sons--
but the tongue goes to where the tooth had been.

He was our first.  The War, he said,
was the one important story of his time,
a crucible.
                   Right after he got sick
they quarantined the post, we were on our way
to nurse him through--
                                        our brightest boy
who used to ride his horse the length of the trestle,
across the steep ravine of Cherrystone,
he had such faith in the horse, in himself--

we stayed at a little inn, they gave us Tea,
served the English way, with clotted cream.

_______________________________________

Some days leave me without words.  This is one of them.

A family I know is grieving the unexpected loss of a beloved someone.  The nephew of one of my best friends.  He was, literally, the brightest boy, and he imparted that brightness to everyone lucky enough to be in his orbit.  Born with cerebral palsy, he was sustained his whole life by love, and, in turn, love and joy were his primary methods of communication.

And what happens when a bright star collapses?  Its gravity pulls all the surrounding light into the black hole of its absence.  The universe keeps pressing its tongue to the place where the star was and finds a vacuum.  Then, the heavens must realign, planets shift, celestial bodies reorganize.  It takes millennia before patterns reemerge and equilibrium returns.

I just returned from a long walk with my puppy.  We went down streets, up hills, by a lake.  The sky was vibrant blue.  The new moon was clear and bright in the heavens, and it followed us everywhere, as if it was trying to say something.  I finally stopped and looked at it for a very long time.

The sun was setting.  Darkness leeching into the horizon.  And the moon was standing there, in defiance of the coming night.  Bold and unafraid.  And I got it.  I understood what it was trying to whisper in my ear.  All that love and joy that my friend's nephew imparted to this existence will never be dimmed.  It will go on and on, forever.

In mythology, great heroes and heroines, at the end of their lives, don't fade away.  They are raised up, set among the stars.  They become constellations, watching over us.  Guardian angels of light.

That's where my friend's nephew is tonight, skating across the clotted cream of the galaxies.  Smiling, as always.  Reminding us all of the language of love.

And for that miracle, Saint Marty gives thanks tonight.

July 27: Poem from "Kyrie," Clarence the Angel, Miracle Stroll,

Poem from Kyrie

by:  Ellen Bryant Voigt

Around the house uneasy stillness falls.

The dog stiffens the ruff at her ears,

stands, looks to the backdoor, looks to the stairwell,

licks her master's shoe.  What she hears

must be a pitch high on the Orphic scale,

a light disturbance in the air,

like flicks of an insect's wings or a reed's whistle

distant and brief:  he barely stirs.

Out in the kitchen something seems to settle--

cloth on a dish, dust on a chair?

The animal whimpers now but doesn't growl:

this absence has a smell.

                                              Poor master,

it's touched him too, that shift in molecules,

but all he feels is more of what's not there.

________________________________________

This poem really is all about absence, felt by a dog and house and person.  As Clarence the angel in It's A Wonderful Life observes, "Strange, isn't it?  Each man's life touches so many other lives.  When he isn't around he leaves an awful hole, doesn't he?"

Today, I went for a walk.  Not my normal walk around the town where I grew up.  I walked around the city where I work and teach.  I explored streets and avenues, took pictures of old buildings, and watched a caterpillar crawl along a wall.  I did this because my wife was working late, and I had a telephone therapy session.  So I was walking, talking, avoiding crowds, and sharing some very difficult subjects about my life.

By the end of the session, I'd walked about four miles, and was emotionally exhausted.  Among other things, I was thinking about Clarence's comment.  I think everyone has probably contemplated what the world would be like without them in it.  Questioned what they've really contributed to the universe.  It's only natural to contemplate this question occasionally.  I thought a lot about it this evening.  What kind of hole I would leave.

I didn't really come up with an answer to that question on my walk.  But I was gob-smacked by a lot of gorgeous architecture (mostly churches) and wonders of nature.  When confronted by so much beauty, it makes you feel connected when you've been feeling disconnected.  Like somehow you are a part of something really huge and important, instead of being small and insignificant.  That saved me tonight.  It was a miracle stroll.

And for that, Saint Marty gives thanks.

July 26: Poem from "Kyrie," History Repeating Itself, 150000 Dead and Counting

Poem from Kyrie

by:  Ellen Bryant Voigt

Maybe the soul is breath.  The door shut,
the doctor, needed elsewhere, on his rounds,
the bereaved withdrawn, preoccupied with grief,
I pack each orifice with hemp, or gauze,
arrange the limbs, wash the flesh--at least
a last brief human attention,
                                              not like
those weeks the train brought in big wicker
baskets we had to empty and return,
bodies often so blue we couldn't tell
who was Colored, who was White, which
holy or civil ground to send them to,
plots laid out by dates instead of names. . . .

Have you ever heard a dead man sigh?
A privilege, that conversation.

_______________________________

A bleak poem about a bleak moment in human history.  The dead piling up, mass graves, human beings reduced to dates on a calendar.  The Spanish flu epidemic of 1918.

It seems so distant, and not so distant. 

Tonight's post will not be a rant about the crowded beaches this weekend in the Upper Peninsula.  Or all the people I saw in Walmart with their masks around their chins like feedbags.  Or a government more concerned about money than health.  Or healthcare professionals--doctors, nurses, medical assistants--politicizing something as basic to infection control as masks and hand washing. 

Nope.  I'm not going to write about any of those things.  That is simply history repeating itself.  If you don't believe me, check it out.  In 1918, President Woodrow Wilson encouraged people not to wear masks, to gather in large crowds to celebrate the ending of World War I.  And people in the United States went around ranting about their Constitutional rights being violated because they were forced to wear masks.  And there were Spanish flu deniers.  And politicians claiming that the flu was simply going to vanish miraculously.

We have been here before, a century ago.  And we didn't learn one goddamn thing.

So, this post is about the dead.  150,000 and counting.  Mothers, fathers, grandmothers, grandfathers, sons, daughters, grandsons, granddaughters.  I don't want to hear about the inaccuracy of the CDC reports.  I won't listen to arguments about the efficacy of mask-wearing.  Don't tell me that shutting things down again would destroy the economy.

150,000 and counting.

Put your politics aside.  Stop thinking about red states and blue states.  Start thinking about that number.

150,000 and counting.

Are you willing to hear all those dead men and women sighing?  Do you want that privilege?  That conversation?

Saint Marty doesn't.

July 25: Poem from "Kyrie," Hopes for 2020, Prayer Time

Poem from Kyrie

by:  Ellen Bryant Voigt

To claim the War alone changed everything
can't be entirely right, too few of us
went over there.
                          My mother used to phone--
the telephone was new, electric lights,
cars among the horses on the street--
my mother every morning when we woke
rang around to see who else had died.
She and Uncle Henry had a faith
deaf as well as blind, but most of us,
the orphans and the watchers and the stung--

at recess there was a favorite game:  the chosen
died, in fits and twitches, while the other
stood by to cross the arms on the chest--that angels
might get a better grip--and to weep.
____________________________________

I have been wondering what my kids will remember about this pandemic time.  What will they tell their children 20 or 30 years from now?  I imagine them dragging out boxes filled with the masks we wore--showing sons and daughters their favorite designs.  The mask they wore for the first day of school.  And the one they wore for Christmas day.  They'll show their kids pictures of people in cars lined up for Covid-19 tests.  Empty highways and parking lots during the shutdown.  And they'll tell their kids stories about the Covidiots who crowded beaches, refused to wear masks or socially distance, and got mad at people collecting unemployment benefits.  (A question:  why aren't these Covidiots mad at the millionaire politicians who refuse to provide hazard pay to essential workers?  That seems like a more legitimate anger, instead of blaming people who've lost their jobs.)

I had high hopes for 2020.  At the stroke of midnight on January 1st, at my New Year's Eve party, I truly thought that things couldn't get any worse than 2019, which was a pretty shitty year.  I was wrong.  Things got way worse.  Now, I know my son is going to struggle when school starts back up (in whatever form) in the fall.  My daughter is simply hoping that her professors have learned how to teach online better.  Me?  My goal is to make it to December 31, 2020, without catching Covid-19.  Being an insulin-dependent diabetic, with asthma, I am pretty sure contracting the coronavirus wouldn't end well for me.  I want to live long enough to tell my grandkids stories about this pandemic.

Of course, I have other hopes for the rest of this year.  Hopes that I don't want to name here.  Private hopes.  At every church service I've ever attended, there comes a moment when, during the prayer time, the pastor or priest will say something like, "And now we lift up silently those concerns that we hold in our hearts," followed by some seconds of quiet.  Usually, I find myself scrambling to name all the things packed onto the shelves of my heart.  Pains.  Hurts. Mistakes.  And hopes.  I open myself up, and let all those things flood through me.  It hurts a lot of the time.  And this year has magnified that hurt.

Tonight, at the end of this post, right now, take a moment with me.  Think about all that troubles you.  All that you give thanks for.  Hold these things close for a few moments.  Feel their heft.  Allow yourself to hurt.  To celebrate.  To hope.

Now, say this with Saint Marty:  "Lord, hear my prayer."  Have faith.  Expect miracles.

July 21: Poem from "Kyrie," Price We Pay, Grief

Poem from Kyrie

by:  Ellen Bryant Voigt

Once the world had had its fill of war,
in a secret wood, as the countryside lay stunned,
at the hour of the wolf and the vole, in a railroad car,
the generals met and put their weapons down.
Like spring it was, as word passed over all
the pocked and riven ground, and underground;
now the nations sat in a gilded hall,
dividing what they'd keep of what they'd won.

And so the armies could be done with war,
and soldiers trickled home to study peace.
But the old gardens grew a tough new weed,
and the old lives didn't fit as they had before,
and where there'd been the dream, a stranger's face,
and where there'd been the war, the empty sleeve.

-------------------------------------------

It's difficult trying to fit old lives into new experiences.  You can't go off to war and then return home without being irrevocably changed.  You can't live through a pandemic and accept a hug without flinching just a little after being deprived of human contact for so long.  You can't suffer the death of anything--a loved one, a marriage, a pet, a friendship--without becoming a little unwilling to open your heart up again.  Nine days after the terrorist attacks of September 11, in Saint Thomas Cathedral in Manhattan, a telegram from Queen Elizabeth II was read.  In it, she said, "Grief is the price we pay for love."

I find myself tonight at one of those junctures between love and grief.  Sometimes, no matter how hard you try to avoid it, love can be snuffed out like a candle, and the resulting darkness settles on you like rain.  In that darkness, you start to build a wall around your heart.  Brick by brick.  Because you simply don't want to experience the pain of loss again.  It's the safe thing to do.  The human thing to do. 

It's raining tonight.  I can hear it tapping against my windows.  A deep, soaking rain.  Tomorrow morning, I'll wake to puddles, worms on the sidewalk, leaves studded with water.  And green everywhere. 

Because, no matter how high the wall, rain will come in the dark.  Something will grow.  To remind you of sunlight, and that you are loved.

And for that miracle, Marty, patron saint of bricks and mortar, gives thanks.

July 11: Human Connection, Mask-Wearing, Poem from "Kyrie"

Each night, I take my puppy for a walk.  It's one of those habits I started in March, when the full effects of the pandemic were just being felt.  Now, almost four months into Covid-19, I am still walking.

This evening, as I was striding down a street, I noticed a small, white dog on a leash start running across the street toward us.  I could tell she was not going to stop when she reached the curb, even though there was an SUV coming down the street.  The dog's owner was yelling at her to stop.  She didn't stop.

She charged across the blacktop toward my puppy and me.  I stopped walking, waited for the little white dog to approach us.  The SUV slowed to a crawl, waited.  The little white dog approached my puppy, and they began doing the butt-sniffing dance of canine greeting.  I put my foot on the little white dog's red leash, so that she could not run away as her owner approached.

I wasn't wearing a mask.  Usually on my walks, I am very good at avoiding people.  The owner of the dog, however, I could not escape.  She needed to retrieve her pet.  As she came nearer, she slowed and kept saying, "I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry."  She stopped six feet from me, and we both stood staring at each other, wondering how we were going to handle the situation.

I smiled at her.  "It's okay," I said.  I reached down and picked up her dog's leash.  "Your puppy's just excited."  I held the end of the leash out to her.  She leaned forward, took the leash, and then stepped back.  She smiled.

"Thank you," she said.

I nodded.  Then, I began walking again.

It is probably the first time I have spoken to a complete stranger since March.  It was almost as if I didn't remember the rules of polite interaction, and I could tell that she was dealing with similar feelings.  There was awkwardness, tinged with a little fear.  Yet, the human connection--even for just a few seconds--was wonderful.  A miracle.

Michigan's governor, Gretchen Whitmer, just made mask-wearing the law.  If you don't mask up, you get fined.  A coworker of mine, who walks around all day with her mask hanging around her chin like a feedbag, said something on Friday like, "Governor Witless has done it again.  I'm so sick of her."  I didn't respond to my coworker's comment.  I can't engage in political debate in the work setting, even though mask-wearing shouldn't be a political issue, especially with a healthcare worker who should know better.

And I should have been wearing a mask tonight.  I wasn't.  The owner of the white dog should have been wearing a mask.  She wasn't.  Our interaction lasted all of ten seconds.  It was a human moment, without any political overtones.  She was relieved her puppy hadn't gotten hit by the SUV.  I was happy to have played a tiny part in making sure that her puppy didn't get injured.

Tomorrow, when I take my puppy for a walk, I will be wearing a mask.  It's the law, and I don't mind enduring this slight inconvenience to insure that everyone stays healthy and safe.

Tonight, Saint Marty gives thanks for a brief moment of normal human connection in the midst of a pandemic.

Poem from Kyrie

by:  Ellen Bryant Voigt

No longer just a stream, not yet a pond,
the water slowed and deepened, banks eroded,
redwing blackbird roosting on a stalk,
sometimes that rippled vee plowing the surface.
Each clear day, she walked to the willow oak,
raked the anemic grass, tidied the mounds,
walked back down to the house by way of the creek.
If the beaver had put in a stick, she took it out.
If a storm had dropped a branch, she hauled it off.
When milder weather came, she tucked her skirts
at the waist and waded in, dislodging trash
the beaver would recover.  Months of this.
Twice she sent for the neighbors to trap it or shoot it.,
but each time Fan said Emmett don't you dare.

July 6-7: Poem from "Kyrie," Good and Bad Dreams, Weird Writers

Poem from Kyrie

by:  Ellen Bryant Voigt

Nothing fluttered, or sighed against her spine,
or coiled, recoiled in a fitful sleep,
fist in a sack, but her breasts knew
what her body made, and in her mind
she saw two legs, two arms, two plates of bone
where the damp tulle wings had been.  Whatever it was,
she bled it out.

More snow fell,
into the deep ravine, the lesser gullies.
The doctor patted her arm:  she was young, strong,
soon there would be another.  But there wasn't:
just the one dream, the one scar.

_____________________

Some dreams are wonderful, things you never want to wake from.  Other dreams, things you want to leave crumpled in the sheets at the bottom of the bed, to be shook out in morning light.

Since the pandemic began, most people have been dreaming about the time when everything will return to "normal," however that might be defined.  For most, it's about going to a restaurant or movie with friends.  For kids, it may be returning to school, being able to see their friends on something other than computer screens.  For healthcare workers, reporting for work without having to pass through checkpoints that resemble border crossings from West to East Berlin during the Cold War.

I have learned that dreams aren't inherently good or bad.  A bad dream for me might entail waking up in a house completely devoid of people--no wife or kids or dog.  Finding myself completely and utterly alone.  For other people, that particular scenario might be a dream come true.  Space to relax and enjoy some "me" time.  Read a good book without interruption.  Watch a movie on Netflix that nobody else wants to watch.

It really depends on how you define not the dream, but the terms "good" and "bad."  Now, most people would define this pandemic as "bad."  Certainly, there is a whole lot of shitty going 'round.  Unemployment.  Illness.  Broken lives and relationships.  Political turmoil.  Racial unrest.  Of course, all these things existed before Covid-19 was even a glimmer in a meat market.  It's just that the magnifying glass of this time has intensified everything--like sunlight on an ant's back.  A bad dream.

Yet, there have been some strange blessings delivered by the pandemic, as well.  Time has sort of ground to a halt.  Days and nights lengthen out.  Right now, I'm sitting on the couch next to my daughter, watching a movie on Hulu.  A biopic on the writer Shirley Jackson starring Elizabeth Moss.  Shirley.  If it weren't for the virus, my daughter would probably be getting ready for work tomorrow morning, doing her nightly ablutions before bed.

Instead, I'm able to have moments like this.  Shared moments.  With people I love.  And these last few months have been full of them.  Full of good dreams.

That is what this pandemic has done.  Redefined the dreams of the world.  Given us the ability to find the good in all the bad.  Given me this night with my daughter, who actually enjoys spending time with her weird poet father, watching weird movies about weird writers.

And for that, Saint Marty gives thanks.

July 5: Out of the Woods, Infection Records, Poem from "Kyrie"

I do think Ellen Bryant Voigt's poetry collection Kyrie has a lot to teach in this time of pandemic.  The poems, a series of sonnets about the 1918 Spanish flu that killed millions of people, speak both to the desperation and humanity of that epidemic.  Bryant puts names and faces with the history, and, in doing so, creates a tapestry that really speaks to our current times.

As I've said in a few recent posts, we aren't out of the woods yet with Covid-19, despite all of the citizens of this country who flocked to beaches and fireworks displays yesterday in celebration of Independence Day.  A few months ago, you couldn't buy a bag of Cheetos without encountering neighbors and friends wearing masks and gloves, keeping a six-foot bubble around themselves.  Now, masks are scarce in public places, and mask-wearing has become a political issue, rather than a health issue.

In short, people have lost their minds.

Other countries across the planet have closed their borders to people of the United States, including Mexico and the European Union.  Instead of freedom and democracy, our nation is now famous for setting daily coronavirus infection records.  Over 50,000 yesterday.  Yes, the death rates are trending down, but we are only in the first or second week of this summer surge.

I'm simply stumped.  I don't get how a country as advanced as the United States in medicine and technology can be so far behind the curve in fighting one of the greatest threats the modern world has ever faced.  It doesn't give me a whole lot of hope for the rest of this year.

Of course, I may be wrong.  I hope I'm wrong.  I don't want to be right, and I will be the first to apologize publicly to all you non-maskers out there if Covid-19 miraculously disappears.  (Let me repeat:  over 50,000 new infections for the THIRD STRAIGHT DAY IN A ROW in the United States.)

Until that time of miraculous healing, if you see me on the street, I will be wearing a mask.  If you run into me at a store, I will greet you from a six-foot distance.  And I will pray for all of you, laugh with all of you, and hope with all of you.

And for that miracle of hope for togetherness, Saint Marty gives thanks.

poem from Kyrie

by:  Ellen Bryant Voigt

Who said the worst was past, who knew
such a thing?  Someone writing history,
someone looking down on us
from the clouds.  Down here, snow and wind:
cold blew through the clapboards,
our spring was frozen in the frozen ground.
Like the beasts in their holes,
no one stirred--if not sick
exhausted or afraid.  In the village,
the doctor's own wife died in the night
of the nineteenth, 1919.
But it was true:  at the window,
every afternoon, toward the horizon,
a little more light before the darkness fell.

June 29-30: Watching "Star Wars," Bantha in Heat, Poem from "Kyrie"

Sometimes, in the darkest of times, you simply have to let go.  Relax.  Do something completely frivolous, even if you have five million other things to do.

Last night, I watched Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone with my kids.  My daughter and I once spent a full week watching that entire series.  It was the first time for my son.  Tonight, it's the original Star Wars.  The one I saw 27 times during the summer of 1977.  I'm ashamed to say that I haven't inflicted my full Star Wars geekdom on either of my kids yet. 

My son quickly lost interest.  My daughter, on the other hand, is sort of fascinated by my Rain Man-like ability to recite all the lines of the movie by heart, but I think she's getting a little annoyed by my running commentary of behind-the-scenes facts.  I'm having more fun than a Bantha in heat.

All of the darkness I've been dealing with these last few weeks has faded into the background, and the Death Star hasn't even cleared the planet yet. 

For that George Lucas miracle, Saint Marty gives thanks.

And a poem about laughing in the face of tragedy . . .

Poem from Kyrie

by:  Ellen Bryant Voigt

After they closed the schools the churches closed,

stacks like pulpwood filling the morgue,

but my cousin's husband's father "knew someone"

etcetera.

               Nobody else was there

but our own Parson Weems--to pray for us

and play the organ.

                              Boy in a homemade box,

additional evergreens--rather grim

until the opening bars of "A Mighty Fortress"

flushed a bird from the pipes to agitate

around the nave.  It's hard to cry if your head

is swiveled up,

                         much less with bird manure

dropping "like the gentle rain"

on empty polished pews, plush carpet,

shut casket.  Besides, I'd cried enough.

June 27: The Kessel Run, Novel Coronavirus, Poem from "Kyrie"

It is past midnight as I type this post.  It is literally Sunday, and yet my mind is still in the busyness of Saturday, with its church cleaning, Zoom meeting, house straightening, toilet scrubbing, organ playing, Mass attending, and book club preparing.  I'm sure I've left some things out.

That is the way most of my weekends go.  On Friday night, it seems as though the weekend is some beautiful blank page rolled into a typewriter, waiting for words.  (For those of my disciples who are younger:  a typewriter was the 20th equivalent of a laptop or MacBook.  It's what we wrote our school papers on, but without Spell Check or Autocorrect.)  When I go to bed on Friday night, I feel like a person of leisure.  And now, a mere 24 hours later, I feel as though Saturday has galloped by and Sunday is breathing down my neck.  

At the beginning of the pandemic, time seemed to grind to a halt, and the world felt as if it was stuck in the longest traffic jam in the universe.  Days didn't go by in minute increments.  They tortoised.  Snailed.  Slothed.  Friday morphed into Monday into Thursday afternoon.  March became Marchaprilmay.

As the state of Michigan reopens now, I feel like I've just made the jump to hyperspace.  Suddenly time, which had been in a perpetual state of frozen, is now doing the Kessel Run in less than twelve parsecs.  (That will make sense to any Star Wars geek.)  And I'm not sure that's a good thing.  However, that's the reality at the moment.

The other reality is that for the fifth day in a row, the United States has surpassed the single-day record of new novel coronavirus cases:  44,782 new infections today.  At the moment, the death rate isn't climbing drastically.  That will probably start occurring in about two weeks, if the past is any indication  

Anthony Faucci, the top infectious disease doctor in the country, went on TV yesterday and pleaded with people to maintain social distancing, stay at home, avoid large gatherings, and wear masks.  He couldn't have been simpler and clearer.  And yet, in my neck of the woods, the Upper Peninsula, people seem to believe we aren't part of the United States.  That Florida and Texas are planets light years away.  Two months ago, masks were present everywhere in the U. P., wherever you went.  Last night, I watched people walking into a high school graduation ceremony, nary a mask in sight.

I'm not writing this post to generate controversy or argument.  Some people I work with in the medical field have somehow made this whole pandemic a battle about whether wearing masks is necessary and effective in slowing the spread of Covid-19.  I don't understand this argument.  You don't walk into an operating room without a mask on, because you don't want to cause infection.  So, why wouldn't you believe in the efficacy of mask-wearing to slow down the spread of this virus?

Anyway, the United States continues to be one of the few countries where Covid-19 numbers are increasing exponentially.  Other countries are now considering banning citizens of the United States from travelling.  That's right folks--remember when Donald Trump instituted a travel ban on China?  Well, the same thing's going to happen to us.  Cancel those vacation plans.  Covid-19 hasn't vanished like a miracle.  If anything, the beginning of summer has accelerated its spread.  

So, keep your distance.  Wear your mask.  Be the miracle.

And if you do that, Saint Marty will give thanks.

. . . and a poem, just in case you're thinking about not wearing your mask:

Poem from Kyrie

by:  Ellen Bryant Voigt

With no more coffins left, why not one wagon

plying all the shuttered neighborhoods,

calling for the dead, as they once did,

and let the living rest of us alone.

My father's pair of horses made the turn

at the big elm, onto the main road,

and we saw, strung out before us in the mud,

consecutive up the hill, links in a chain,

a caravan.  Ahead of us in line:

three wrapped loaves.  So I stared at the horse's head

between our mare's black ears, its brown ears framed

a gray, the gray a mule, until in the lead,

at the crest, was a child's toy, and a toy sled,

what lay in back shrunk to a cotterpin.

June 24: Poem from "Kyrie," Lamentations, Hope

Poem from Kyrie

by:  Ellen Bryant Voigt

I cried unto God with my voice . . . he gave ear unto me.
In the day of my trouble I sought the Lord;
     my sore ran in the night, and ceased not;
     my soul refused to be comforted.
I remembered God, and was troubled;
     I complained, and my spirit was overwhelmed.
I am so troubled I cannot speak.

Will the Lord cast off for ever?  Is his mercy
     clean gone for ever?  doe his promise fail
     for evermore?  Has God forgot to be gracious?
     has he in anger shut up his tender mercies?

Who is so great a God as our God?
     who has declared his strength among the people?

                    *********************

This poem.  Tonight.  It sort of captures my current state of mind and heart.  A lamentation, very much like ones in the Biblical psalms.  Starting out in utter despair and darkness, and moving toward something akin to hope and praise.

I'm not sure I'm quite at the stage of hope and praise yet, though.  Still in the muddy trenches, fighting my way out of a pretty bruising battle with the blues.  I'm searching for the sun, but it's nowhere in my skies at the moment.  However, I'm going to try to write my way to some kind of miracle tonight.

I know, on the vast scale of tragedy and turmoil in the world, my problems are microscopic.  I'm not starving.  Or homeless.  My health is pretty good.  I have two great kids.  Jobs that mostly pay the bills, albeit not always on time.  My daughter finished her first year of college with a 4.0 GPA.  Pretty good considering how Covid-19 ended the semester on such a surreal note.  My son is funny and strong-willed, two qualities that will help him greatly succeed in the future.  Like I said, I've hit the jackpot in a lot of ways.

Yet, I'm truly struggling in other parts of my life.  Seeing things fall apart, and I'm not able to put them back together.  Because of that, I'm feeling like a complete failure, even though I've done everything in my power to avoid this collapse.  Yet, now all I can do is stand back and watch the forest burn to the ground.

So, where in all that mess do I find my miracle tonight?  At the end of every lamentation comes a ray of light.  That's how lamentations work.  Usually, it goes something like this:  But in you, O God, I seek refuge.  You are my strength and courage.  You are my hope.  

Emily Dickinson says that "'Hope' is the thing with feathers--/That perches in the soul--".

Gerard Manley Hopkins writes "Of now done darkness I wretch lay wrestling with (my God!) my God."

Joy Harjo says that the world "begins at the kitchen table.  No matter what, we must eat to live."

So, searching for that feathered thing in my ribs, wrestling with my Higher Power, I sit at my kitchen table with my son, listen to him play video games with his friends, shouting at them, laughing, speaking a language of computer I can only appreciate like I appreciate someone speaking Portuguese.  Loving the sounds without the attachment of meanings.  I consume this moment like chocolate cake, dark and sweet.

And for that kitchen table miracle, Saint Marty give thanks.

June 22: Light and Darkness, Domino Effect, Poem from "Kyrie"

If you want beautiful light, you're going to have to deal with darkness, too.  That's the way the universe works.  You can't have one without the other.

This evening, as I walked into church to clean, I was in a particularly dark mood for some reason.  One of those funks that fall on me seemingly out of the blue.  I call it the domino effect--a bunch of little or medium-sized problems that turn into a cascade.  Suddenly, you're at the bottom of a very dark place.  That's where I was as I pulled on my rubber gloves, grabbed my bottle of bleach, and walked into the sanctuary to start sanitizing.

I had gotten to the church later than normal because of another obligation, so, by the time I was done with my work, the sun was giving one last yawn in the sky before retiring to the other side of the planet.  I walked back into the sanctuary to retrieve my cell phone and make sure I hadn't left any lights on.  The room was quite dark.

Yet, there was a wall of stained glass that was literally blazing with sunset.  I snapped a photo with my phone, but the resulting picture just doesn't capture the full cut-glass beauty of the moment.  And it pierced the darkness I'd been experiencing.  Gave me some kind of solace.  A moment of grace is what writer Flannery O'Connor would have called it.  Where, through the ugliness of the world, something wondrously frightening and frighteningly wondrous appears.

The window, the sun, the darkness (surrounding me and inside me) combined into a miraculous, grace-filled vision that filled me with something like hope.

And for that, Saint Marty gives thanks.

. . . and a poem that ends with a moment that could be grace, too:

poem from Kyrie

by:  Ellen Bryant Voigt

I told him not to move, they'd said don't move.

The weeks of fewer cases were a tease,

a winter thaw that froze back up worse

than before, backswing of a scythe, we filled

the gym, cots and pallets on the floor.

And many now in uniform--I could spot

who'd been gassed, their buttons were tarnished green--

and many of them were missing parts, like him.

Did I say the nurses were wearing masks?

My last day she put him next to me,

sweet little nurse but not enough of her

to go around she said don't let him move.

You tell me, was it prayer or luck kept

me from being that boy reaching for water?

June 12-13: Pressure Cooker, Putting Out Fires, Poem from "Kyrie"

Sometimes people are determined to do things that will harm them, and nothing will change the course of their actions or lives.  Mental illness does this.  So does addiction.  I can attest to that fact.

It seems as though this pandemic has become a pressure cooker for a lot of the things that are wrong in the world.  Everything seems to be boiling over.  Racism.  Xenophobia.  Homophobia.  On home fronts, unstable families become more unstable.  There's the impulse to look away until all the fires go out.  That doesn't really solve anything.  It's simply an act of willful ignorance, ignoring a problem until it goes back into hiding or is a pile of ashes.

But problems don't disappear.  (Warning:  I'm about to mix metaphors here.)  Problems fester, and every once in a while they break open and all the sickness pours out.  That's what's happened with George Floyd and all the unrest that has followed his murder.  On a personal level, I've been dealing with some difficulties this past year or so that seem unending.  Just when I think the fire is under control, it flares up again.  (Sort of like the pandemic.  Everyone seems to be acting like it's disappeared.  It hasn't.  Second wave, on it's way.  Keep your masks handy, folks.)

I've had two people this evening who've been helping me stamp out a particular conflagration.  One of these people is a devout Christian.  The other is an atheist.  The atheist said this to me:  "As an atheist, I gotta say that deeply knowing how alone one is in the universe is a strong motivation for change."  The Christian told me this:  " . . . you believe in a Creator that is bigger than anxiety and depression and addiction.  He is bigger than all of us.  He is merciful and mighty and loves you . . . I pray that you think on those words as you lay trying to quiet your mind.  And know that your God loves you."

I find both of those statements strangely comforting, coming at the universe from two completely opposite points of view.  I am alone.  God is with me.  I am in charge of my own destiny.  God has a plan for me.  Don't be afraid of change.  God has your back.  In the end, both of these people were telling me the same thing:  fear not.

I went for a long walk this evening.  It was typical mid-June weather for the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.  Warm.  Sunny.  Bugs eating me alive.  Yet, I still was able to appreciate the blue heavens.  Blue forget-me-nots growing along the path.  And blue-tailed damselflies buzzing in the lilac bushes. 

For those blue miracles, Saint Marty gives thanks tonight.

. . . and a poem about second waves:

poem from Kyrie

by:  Ellen Bryant Voigt

Home a week, he woke thinking
he was back in France, under fire;
then thought the house on fire, the noise and light,
but that was from the fireworks and the torches
and on the square, a bonfire--everyone,
in nightclothes, emptied from their houses,
drawn toward a false dawn as from a cave--

oh there was dancing in the streets all right,
and singing--"Over There," "Yankee Doodle,"
"Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory," I recall,
and "Camptown Races," who knows why--he plunged
into the crowd, tossed his crutch to the flames,
kissed delirious strangers on each side.

Say he lived through one war but not the other.

June 1: Cleaning at Church, YMCA, Poem from "Kyrie"

In the evenings, my wife and I clean at two churches.

The pandemic has made the process of cleaning a little more complicated.  After the church is locked for the night, my wife and I sanitize the pews and bathrooms.  The process involves a spray bottle of bleach and rags.  All the high-touch surfaces are wiped down--the back rests, doors to the sanctuary, kneelers, sinks, and toilets.

Doing this cleaning is sometimes a grim reminder of how Covid-19 has changed even the way we worship.  Face masks now sit at the back of church where hymnals used to reside.  The bishop's directive for how to safely celebrate Mass is displayed prominently at the entrances.  The smell of antiseptic sits in the air like candle smoke.

To make the task a little lighter, I play music on my iPhone.  Show tunes.  Classic rock.  Old fashioned Christmas.  Star Wars soundtracks.  Bruce Springsteen.  Billy Joel.  The songs remind me to celebrate, even in the middle of a worldwide pandemic, and when my country is burning nightly with riots.  My spirit lifts, and I sing.

And isn't that what God wants us to do?  To rejoice in the world?  To lift each other up in times of strife?  That's what faith is all about.  Looking into each other's eyes and seeing beyond our differences.  Skin color.  Sexual orientation.  Religion.  Politics.  Faith is about finding what connects us all.  Makes us brothers and sisters.

Tonight, I chose a disco channel to listen to as my wife and I cleaned.  As we started wiping down the pews, the Village People started singing "YMCA."  I threw down my rag.  My wife threw down hers.  We started dancing, lifting our arms, yelling out the letters.  It was raucous and joyful and miraculous.

And then I looked up at the statue of the risen Christ hanging above the altar at the front of the sanctuary.  He had his arms raised in a "Y," looking as if he was dancing to the Village People with us.  That is the Jesus Christ I like to think about.  The one who drank wine at weddings.  Who laughed and danced, even in times of trouble.  Who probably told jokes.

Yes, the world can be dark and distressing and downright cruel.  But there are also times to raise your hands, clap, shout, and laugh, to drive out the darkness.

And for that, Saint Marty gives thanks.

. . . and a poem about celebrating in difficult times . . .

poem from Kyrie

by:  Ellen Bryant Voigt

Dear Mat, For the red scarf I'm much obliged.
At first I couldn't wear it--bright colors
draw fire--but now I can.  We took a shell
where three of us were washing out our socks
in a crater near my post.  Good thing
the sock was off my foot since the foot's
all to pieces now--don't you fret,
it could have been my head.  I've seen that here,
and then what use would be your pretty scarf?
The nurse bundles me up like an old man,
or a boy, and wheels me off the ward,
so many sick.  But the Enemy suffers worse,
thanks to our gawdam guns as Pug would say.
Victory will come soon but without me.

May 31: Sabbath, Endless Possibilities, Poem from "Kyrie"

Sunday afternoon.  Right after mowing the lawn.  Right before I have a Zoom Book Club meeting with family and friends.  I'm feeling a little exhausted at the moment, even though it's only 65 degrees outside and I didn't even break a sweat while pushing the lawn mower.

Sundays seem to sap my energy and motivation.  I don't really want to do anything else today, now that my grass is shorn down to an acceptable length.  I'm hungry and a little thirsty.  Maybe, later, I will take my dog for a walk, but maybe I won't.  That's just the kind of mood I'm in.

Perhaps this lethargy is a holdover from the days when doing anything on the sabbath was a sin.  Even Christ was charged with working on the sabbath.  He healed people, cast out demons, let his disciples pick wheat to eat on the seventh day.   Me?  I usually reserve Sundays for things that I just can't do any other day of the week--like mowing the lawn or cleaning the house or writing a new poem.  And preparing my myself for the upcoming work week.

This evening, I will be lucky if I make it to 10 p.m.  In fact, a nap on the couch sounds pretty good right now.  Since the pandemic began, I have noticed that the pace of my days has slowed considerably, allowing for things like naps without experiencing guilt.

Or maybe I will take my dog for a walk, and then take a nap.  The possibilities are endless as evening stretches into the miracle of night.

And for that, Saint Marty gives thanks.

poem from Kyrie

by:  Ellen Bryant Voigt

After I'd seen my children truly ill,
I had no need to dream that they were ill
nor in any other way imperiled--
no more babies pitching down the well,
no more watching from shore as my boy rolls
like a kicked stone from the raft, meanwhile
Kate with a handful of bees--
                                             when I was a girl,
I practiced in the attic with my dolls,
but Del went out of right mind, his fingernails
turned blue, and Kate--no child should lie so still,
her small excitable body held enthralled. . . .
After that, in order to make it real
I dreamed them whole.

May 28: Graduation Parade, Possibility and Hope, Poem from "Kyrie"

This evening, I attended a graduation parade.  My daughter's boyfriend is part of the Class of 2020, and so I drove out to the high school, parked along the side of the road, and waited for all the seniors to come rolling by in the cars, streamers and balloons snapping, horns blazing away.

It was one of the first times since this pandemic really got serious a few months ago that I allowed myself to be part of a community event.  All the spectators stood by their cars, safely distant, and waited for their senior to drive by.  Even though I saw a few MAGA hats and a couple people simply not following the Covid-19 safety guidelines for the parade, this night wasn't about politics.  

It was about young people, smiling, laughing, waving, claiming this night as their own.  In the last three months, the Class of 2020 has faced challenges that haven't existed for close to four generations.  A global pandemic that brought school, work, scholarship applications, college visits and orientations, proms and graduation ceremonies to a complete halt.  For a while.

But tonight, the world moved forward a little.  Tonight was about young people, looking into their futures and seeing possibility and hope.  That was a miraculous thing to witness.

And Saint Marty gives thanks for that.

Poem from Kyrie

by:  Ellen Bryant Voigt

He planned his own service, the pine box,

the open lid, which hymns, chapter and verse,

who would pray, how long, who'd carry him out.

He wrote it all down in a fair hand,

stroking the shawl around him in his chair,

and gave away his watch, his dog, his house.

Emmett said, he'd have lain down in the grave

except he needed us to tuck him in.

He shaved each day, put on his good wool pants

chosen for the cloth and a little loose

as they lowered in another son-in-law.

Sat by the door, handrolling cigarettes

three at a time, licking down both ends,

and wheezed and coughed and spit in a rusted can.

May 26: First Day Back at Work, Rain, Poem from "Kyrie"

Exhausted after my first day back at work after having almost a full week off.

More than one person has remarked to me recently that, after so much time isolating and social distancing, human interaction (outside of immediate family) is incredibly draining.  For the past seven days, my social life has been limited to about four people, with occasional text messages from a few others.  I didn't have to put on airs or pretend to be something that I wasn't.

I think all of us wear many different masks in our regular lives.  We switch between them all day long.  Today, for the first time in a while, I had to put on my healthcare worker mask.  When wearing this mask, I am positive, helpful, funny, maybe a little irreverent, and hard-working.  And now, after playing that part for over eight hours, I find myself emptied out, like I don't have a whole lot more to give today.

When I left work this afternoon, the sky was gray as a whale's back.  Rain was coming.  I made a few stops on my way home, and, by the time I parked in front of my house, the downpour had begun.  It has been drizzling, sheeting, thundering, misting, gushing most of the night.

I just stepped outside to let my dog go to the bathroom.  The world smells new and loamy.  I can hear birds piping in the dusk.  Everything is sheened with water.  The heat of the last week has been tempered.  Coolness in the air. 

After a day of wearing a mask, literally and metaphorically, I welcome the miracle of rain and the freshness it brings.  I can almost feel my spirit sprouting like a lilac bush.

And for that, Saint Marty gives thanks.

poem from Kyrie

by:  Ellen Bryant Voigt

Sweet are the songs of bitterness and blame,
against the stranger spitting on the street,
the neighbor's shared contaminated meal,
the rusted nail, the doctor come too late. 

Sweet are the songs of envy and despair,
which count the healthy strangers that we meet
and mark the neighbors' illness mild and brief,
the birds that go on nesting, the brilliant air.

Sweet are the songs of wry exacted praise,
scraped from the grave, shaped in the torn throat
and sung at the helpful stranger on the train,
and at the neighbors misery brought near,
and at the waters parted at our feet,
and to the god who thought to keep us here.

May 24: Barbecue, Normal, Poem from "Kyrie"

This afternoon, I had a socially distanced Memorial Day weekend barbecue at my parents' house.  My wife, kids, and I sat on the back porch, six feet away from my sisters and mother, and ate hot dogs and bratwurst and watermelon. 

We hadn't been together like that since mid-March.  Yes, we were careful, even though my sister, Rose, who has Down syndrome, really didn't comprehend the six-foot distance rule and tried several times to approach and hug us.  It wasn't "normal" by any means.  But it was as close as we could get to the Sunday dinners we used to have pre-pandemic.

I've heard people bridling against the term "new normal" recently.  Sometimes that bridling borders on anger.  I understand the emotions behind this reaction.  It's a symptom of mourning.  People are grieving all that has been lost because of Covid-19:  making a quick trip to the grocery store to satisfy your craving for Cheetos; stopping to check on your elderly parents on your way home from work; sitting in a church pew beside your neighbors on a Sunday morning and catching up; going for a walk and not having to wear a face mask; attending community parades and events.  All these things have become part of history for now.  The world has shifted, and not gradually.  The change was seismic.  A rift in the fabric of society that appeared almost overnight.  And it has left all of humankind reeling from the loss.

Yet I don't think it's healthy to maintain a death-hold on the "normal" we used to know.  Doing that will simply prolong the pandemic.  By refusing to put on that face mask, insisting on gathering in bars or restaurants or churches, people are not re-establishing normal.  They are just refusing to deal with their grief (and also spreading the virus more, pushing us toward another complete shutdown).  It's like setting a place at the dinner table for a person who has died.  It may feel comforting to cling to the habit, but the deceased person's chair will still remain empty.

So let's not think of "old" normal or "new" normal.  Let's not think of normal at all.  If you know my family, normal is not a word that comes to mind anyway.  Instead, let's think about how to respect each other, support each other, love each other.  That's what will get us all through this.

Tonight, I celebrate time spent with family.  Safely.  Filled with laughter and teasing.  The miracle of togetherness.

And for that, Saint Marty gives thanks.

poem from Kyrie

by:  Ellen Bryant Voigt

What were they thinking--everyone we knew,
in school, in church, took me aside
to praise--to me--my sister, as if
I were another of her parents,
or else they were, that proud and fond:
aren't you lucky, isn't she gifted,
doesn't she look grand in her new blue suit?
I had a new suit cut from the same bolt,
quick mind, good heart--vivid blossoms
in other light--yes yes, she did, she was,
what were they thinking?  Terrible,
to be the one who should have died.