November 10: "My Hero," Hero Worship, First Saint Marty

I think hero worship is a dangerous thing. Hero worship of movie stars leads to negative body image and eating disorders in young people. Hero worship of professional athletes leads to unrealistic expectations in college athletes. Hero worship of politicians leads to tyrants and dictators. I can vouch for the fact that hero worship of poets can lead to writer's block.

Billy Collins worships a terrapin . . .

My Hero

by: Billy Collins

Just as the hare is zipping across the finish line,

the tortoise has stopped once again

by the roadside,

this time to stick out his neck

and nibble a bit of sweet grass,

unlike the previous time

when he was distracted 

by a bee humming in the heart of a wildflower.

I understand Collins's admiration of the tortoise.  The hare is all about crossing the finish line, winning the race.  The tortoise, on the other hand, is more about being in the moment.  Stopping to find joy in sweet grass and a bee dancing in the heart of a daisy or rose.  In other words, the tortoise is a poet.

Don't get me wrong.  I've been given and won my share of accolades and awards, and it felt great.  Everyone loves to be recognized for their hard work and talents.  It doesn't ever feel great to finish last.  I used to run 5K and 10K races.  I never came in first.  (Okay, I did take first or second place in my age group a couple times.  Often, however, there were only one of two other men my age running in those races, so I was guaranteed to win some kind of prize.)

There are some poets whom I admire greatly, almost bordering on hero worship.  Sharon Olds is at the top of that list.  Mary Oliver and Galway Kinnell.  However, my admiration never crosses into hero worship territory.  Rather, these writers teach me how to be a better writer and person.  I don't want to be the next Sharon Olds or Galway Kinnell or Mary Oliver.

I want to be the first Saint Marty.

Saint Marty's moment of hope today:  putting up his Christmas tree with his wife.

February 6: Until I am Dead, a Process, Naps

Santiago makes a vow . . . 

I wonder what he made that lurch for, he thought. The wire must have slipped on the great hill of his back. Certainly his back cannot feel as badly as mine does. But he cannot pull this skiff forever, no matter how great he is. Now everything is cleared away that might make trouble and I have a big reserve of line; all that a man can ask.

"Fish," he said softly, aloud, "I'll stay with you until I am dead."

Nothing is going to come between the old man and the fish.  Santiago has seen to that.  Either the fish will die, or he will.  It's a life and death struggle.

I think there is a false belief that, once a funeral is over, everything goes back to normal.  After a couple of days, you go back to work and get on with life.  The struggle is over.

Of course, that belief is false.  Grief is a process, not something that punches a time clock.  My sister, Sally, died almost seven years ago.  Still working through that loss.  Time doesn't heal.  It dulls.  All it takes is an old song on the radio, and suddenly the wound opens up again and starts to bleed.

I have spent a good portion of this weekend sleeping.  After the funeral yesterday, I took over a two hour nap.  This morning, after playing keyboard for a church service, I fell asleep on my couch again for almost three hours.  I think everything is finally catching up with me--my sister's death, the low blood sugar last Friday, the car accident on Sunday.  My body is telling me it needs a break.

This evening, I led a Zoom poetry workshop.  Some of my best friends showed up, and we wrote prompts based on poems by Galway Kinnell, one of my favorite poets of all time.  It was a good way to end a really long, difficult weekend.  

Tomorrow, I will teach.  Get together with a friend to work on a poetry project.  Take it as easy as I can.  I'm trying to give myself a little time to recover from the struggles of the last couple weeks.  Not completely recover.  As I said earlier, grief is a process, not a recipe.

Saint Marty is looking forward to a few more naps these next two days.

December 8: Absolute Favorite Poem, Galway Kinnell, "To Christ Our Lord"

It is time for me again to share my absolute favorite poem.  It is a poem that moves me deeply, each and every time I read it.

It wouldn't be the holiday season for Saint Marty without these words. 

To Christ Our Lord

by:  Galway Kinnell

The legs of the elk punctured the snow's crust
And wolves floated lightfooted on the land
Hunting Christmas elk living and frozen.
Indoors snow melted in a basin and a woman basted
A bird spread over coals by its wings and head.


Snow had sealed the windows; candles lit
The Christmas meal. The special grace chilled
The cooked bird, being long-winded and the room cold.
During the words a boy thought, is it fitting
To eat this creature killed on the wing?

For he had shot it himself, climbing out
Alone on snowshoes in the Christmas dawn,
The fallen snow swirling and the snowfall gone,
Heard its throat scream as the rifle shouted,
Watched it drop, and fished from the snow the dead.

He had not wanted to shoot. The sound
Of wings beating into the hushed morning
Had stirred his love, and the things
In his gloves froze, and he wondered,
Even famishing, could he fire? Then he fired.

Now the grace praised his wicked act. At its end
The bird on the plate
Stared at his stricken appetite.
There had been nothing to do but surrender,
To kill and to eat; he ate as he had killed, with wonder.

At night on snowshoes on the drifting field
He wondered again, for whom had love stirred?
The stars glittered on the snow and nothing answered.
Then the Swan spread her wings, cross of the cold north,
The pattern and mirror of the acts of earth.

November 7: Poet of the Week, Jennifer Reeser, "Good Friday, 2001, Riding North"

I questioned whether I was going to name a Poet of the Week today.  Paged through a pile of books on the floor in my office, and didn't find anything that grabbed me.  Went through poets in my head that usually call out to me.  Sharon Olds.  Galway Kinnell.  Billy Collins.  Bin Ramke.  Nope, nope, no thank you, and nope again.

Then I did an Internet search for "Contemporary American Poets."  I found a Website with a pretty extensive alphabetical list of the usual suspects.  Narrowed my search down to poets born in the late 1960s.  And I found Jennifer Reeser.

The poem below intrigued me for obvious reasons.  I can't resist a writer who uses Christian imagery in new and fracturing ways.

So, Saint Marty crowns Jennifer Reeser as Poet of the Week.

Good Friday, 2001, Riding North

by:  Jennifer Reeser

Yellow makes a play for green among
the rows of some poor farmer's field outside
the Memphis city limits' northern edge.
A D. J. plays The Day He Wore My Crown,
not knowing it entices into tears
this woman never once disposed to travel
the holiday before. My children squander
unleavened bread brought forth from Taco Bell.
What sacrifice of mine could be worth mention?
Enshroud it. Christ's is death enough to mourn.
Casino Aztar, Blytheville slide from view,
their souvenir and deli stations yielding
to miles of scrub-packed, newly-cultured meadow --
the man beside me rushed at the expense
of all around him.
Gripped by sentiment
at being once again in this, the country
his innocence absorbed, he sings the songs
of artists prone to praise the great Midwest,
prodigal farms and wheat. My eyes are burning.
An eighteen-wheeler whip has somehow managed
to drive his truck straight up a grass embankment
which rises to an overpass ahead.
It lingers there, a sacrament of chrome,
as I make peace at length with pink crape myrtles,
white baby's breath in bloom, whose counterparts
have two months past surrendered back at home.
How long were they bent down, exhausted, jealous
for what could not be theirs, before they fell?
And did the lilies of Gethsemane
cry out with all their strength for God's relent,
or were they sweetly mute as these I see?

September 30: Lamplit Evenings, Heavenly Host, Galway Kinnell, "To Marty Our Lord"

Oh, it's mysterious lamplit evenings, here in the galaxy, one after the other.  It's one of those nights when I wander from window to window, looking for a sign . . .

What is Dillard looking for in her mysterious lamplit evening?  What sign?  Well, if it's the beginning of October, she's probably looking for the seraphim choir that heralds the coming of Saint Marty.  You're all familiar with the story.  A group of itinerant mimes sleeping in their RVs one night are woken up by celestial voices singing "Glory to Saint Marty in the highest!"  And the mimes stumble outside to see a heavenly host in the sky, looking very much like the musical group ABBA.

Of course, the mimes are sore afraid, and then go running through the streets of a nearby city, miming to all what they had witnessed.  Of course, nobody paid any attention to them.  After all, they were mimes.  So the whole world missed the advent of Saint Marty.

Tomorrow night, I'll tell you the story of the three wise men from the Wisdom Department of an eastern university who followed a star to pay homage to Saint Marty.

In the mean time, I'm going to share one of my favorite Saint Marty's Day poems from one of my favorite poets.

To Marty Our Lord

by:  Galway Kinnell

The legs of the elk punctured the snow's crust
And wolves floated lightfooted on the land
Hunting Saint Marty's Day elk living and frozen.
Indoors snow melted in a basin and a woman basted
A bird spread over coals by its wings and head.


Snow had sealed the windows; candles lit
The Saint Marty's Day meal. The special grace chilled
The cooked bird, being long-winded and the room cold.
During the words a boy thought, is it fitting
To eat this creature killed on the wing?

For he had shot it himself, climbing out
Alone on snowshoes in the Saint Marty's Day dawn,
The fallen snow swirling and the snowfall gone,
Heard its throat scream as the rifle shouted,
Watched it drop, and fished from the snow the dead.

He had not wanted to shoot. The sound
Of wings beating into the hushed morning
Had stirred his love, and the things
In his gloves froze, and he wondered,
Even famishing, could he fire? Then he fired.

Now the grace praised his wicked act. At its end
The bird on the plate
Stared at his stricken appetite.
There had been nothing to do but surrender,
To kill and to eat; he ate as he had killed, with wonder.

At night on snowshoes on the drifting field
He wondered again, for whom had love stirred?
The stars glittered on the snow and nothing answered.
Then the Swan spread her wings, cross of the cold north,
The pattern and mirror of the acts of earth.

Even he can't resist Saint Marty's Day

April 30: Understanding,Terrance Hayes, "Lighthead's Guide to the Galaxy"

Well, it is the last day for Terrance Hayes as Poet of the Week.  I thought I'd end with a poem that tries to explain the universe.  After all, that's what I try to do with every one of my blog posts--explain my understanding of things.  Of course, every time I try to understand something, I only prove how much I really don't know at all.

So, maybe this post is about the limitation of human understanding.  I have been writing and reading poetry for over half my life, and I still don't think I understand it at all.  I appreciate.  I can talk about why I appreciate it.  However, I can't explain why I read Galway Kinnell's "To Christ Our Lord" and cry.  I can't tell you why, when my sister died last year, one of the first things I did was sit down with my journal and write a poem about it.  Poetry helps me make sense of senseless things.

That's Saint Marty's Guide to the Galaxy for today.

Lighthead's Guide to the Galaxy

by:  Terrance Hayes

Ladies and gentlemen, ghosts and children of the state,
I am here because I could never get the hang of Time.
This hour, for example, would be like all the others
were it not for the rain falling through the roof.
I’d better not be too explicit. My night is careless
with itself, troublesome as a woman wearing no bra
in winter. I believe everything is a metaphor for sex.
Lovemaking mimics the act of departure, moonlight
drips from the leaves. You can spend your whole life
doing no more than preparing for life and thinking.
“Is this all there is?” Thus, I am here where poets come
to drink a dark strong poison with tiny shards of ice,
something to loosen my primate tongue and its syllables
of debris. I know all words come from preexisting words
and divide until our pronouncements develop selves.
The small dog barking at the darkness has something to say
about the way we live. I’d rather have what my daddy calls
“skrimp.” He says “discrete” and means the street
just out of sight. Not what you see, but what you perceive:
that’s poetry. Not the noise, but its rhythm; an arrangement
of derangements; I’ll eat you to live: that’s poetry.
I wish I glowed like a brown-skinned pregnant woman.
I wish I could weep the way my teacher did as he read us
Molly Bloom’s soliloquy of yes. When I kiss my wife,
sometimes I taste her caution. But let’s not talk about that.
Maybe Art’s only purpose is to preserve the Self.
Sometimes I play a game in which my primitive craft fires
upon an alien ship whose intention is the destruction
of the earth. Other times I fall in love with a word
like somberness. Or moonlight juicing naked branches.
All species have a notion of emptiness, and yet
the flowers don’t quit opening. I am carrying the whimper
you can hear when the mouth is collapsed, the wisdom
of monkeys. Ask a glass of water why it pities
the rain. Ask the lunatic yard dog why it tolerates the leash.
Brothers and sisters, when you spend your nights
out on a limb, there’s a chance you’ll fall in your sleep.

November 8: Family Time, Decorating, Classic Saint Marty

I am seriously exhausted tonight.  After church this morning, my family and I put up our outside Christmas decorations.  Now, that may not sound like a five- or six-hour job, but it was.  My daughter and I cleaned our front porch first.  We went through old winter coats and hats and boots.  Bagged up the castoffs for Goodwill.  My wife and son went through toys.  They bagged up those castoffs for Saint Vinnie's. 

Long story short, as the sun was on its way to the other side of the horizon, our decorations were up.  The lights were twinkling, and the Christmas bells were caroling.  It looked great, and we had lots of donations for the holiday season.  It was a good afternoon/evening.

The best part about the whole day was having some family time.  My daughter really threw herself into the project.  She organized and cleaned, decked the halls and hung the balls.  My son was all about the ornaments and garland.  And my wife came up with our theme this year:  "Just like the ones I used to know."  (Okay, we couldn't afford to buy any new decorations.  So, we recycled old ones--the ones we used to know.)

So, today, I'm thankful for Christmas lights and ornaments.  Time with my family.  A warm autumn day.  And white fudge-covered Oreos.

The following episode of Classic Saint Marty aired exactly one year ago on a Saturday night.  Saint Marty and his daughter were decking the halls again, and A Christmas Story was on the TV.

November 8, 2014:  Ten Below Zero, Galway Kinnell, "The Man Splitting Wood in the Daybreak"

After Christmas the thermometer dropped to ten below zero.  Cold settled on the world.  The pasture was bleak and frozen.  The cows stayed in the barn all the time now, except on sunny mornings when they went out and stood in the barnyard in the lee of the straw pile.  The sheep stayed near the barn, too, for protection.  When they were thirsty they ate snow.  The geese hung around the barnyard the way boys hang around a drug store, and Mr. Zuckerman fed them corn and turnips to keep them cheerful.

Yes, when the weather turns cold on the Zuckerman farm, the animals basically do what humans do:  nothing.  They stay inside, where it's warm and safe, venturing outside only when necessary.  To drink water or add to the fertilizer pile, if you know what I mean.


It's been pretty cold today.  Windy and snowy.  There's a couple of inches on the ground now, and there's a winter storm watch in effect for Monday night into Tuesday.  Six inches on the way.  I am not down with winter yet.  I'm still in autumn mode.  Give me piles of leaves, not snow.  At least until after Thanksgiving.

I spent the evening putting up Christmas decorations with my daughter.  Our tree is glowing in the corner of the living room, and our front porch is decked out with candy canes.  Tomorrow night, we will put the garland and decorations on the tree.  Soon, our neighbors will follow suit.  In a couple of weeks, there will be lights up and down our street.  But we were the first.  Not that it's a competition or anything.

I'm beginning to feel old.  I used to love the dark and cold of this time of year.  Not any more.  I prefer July with its mosquitoes and warmth.  I understand the old people who head south in November.  I hate to admit it, but I have reached middle age.  Actually, I surpassed middle age a couple of years ago.  I'm sliding toward old age.  I can barely stay awake for the ten o'clock news.

That's what today's poem from Galway Kinnell is about:  feeling your age.  Realizing you aren't as strong or healthy as you used to be.  You can't shovel snow as fast.  You can't stay up as late.  You look forward to naps.  And you worry about retirement accounts and Social Security.

Saint Marty even watched the Weather Channel for pleasure.

The Man Splitting Wood in the Daybreak

by:  Galway Kinnell

The man splitting wood in the daybreak
looks strong, as though, if one weakened,
one could turn to him and he would help.
Gus Newland was strong. When he split wood
he struck hard, flashing the bright steel
through the air so hard the hard maple
leapt apart, as it's feared marriages will do
in countries reluctant to permit divorce,
and even willow, which, though stacked
to dry a full year, on being split
actually weeps—totem wood, therefore,
to the married-until-death—sunders
with many little lip-wetting gasp-noises.
But Gus is dead. We could turn to our fathers,
but they help us only by the unperplexed
looking-back of the numerals cut into headstones.
Or to our mothers, whose love, so devastated,
can't, even in spring, break through the hard earth.
Our spouses weaken at the same rate we do.
We have to hold our children up to lean on them.
Everyone who could help goes or hasn't arrived.
What about the man splitting wood in the daybreak,
who looked strong? That was years ago. That was me.

What I always thought Rudolph should have said to Santa...

May 18: Nature Essay, Kalahari Vacation, "Ives" Dip

I spent a good portion of today working on my nature essay.  I have a deadline.  June 13.  That's when the contest closes.  I really want to submit my best work, because the prize is $250.  I was first honorable mention the last time I entered.  I was one of the judges of the contest last year.  This year, I want to write something that will clearly stand out from the pack.  And I think I'm off to a good start.  It sort of reads like a cross between Annie Dillard and Galway Kinnell.  At least that's what I'm shooting for.

One of the reasons I really want to put forth my best effort is I could really use that prize money.  Every October, we make a trip to the Wisconsin Dells for a dance convention at the Kalahari Resort.  Usually, my sister joins us, and she helps to finance the trip.  Well, there's a very good chance my sister will not be able to come this year.  That means one of two things:  1) we don't go to the Kalahari this year, or 2) we somehow finance the entire trip ourselves.  So, I think you can understand why this nature essay is so important.

Which brings me to the inevitable Ives dip question:

Will I win the nature essay contest this year?

And the answer from Ives is:

...There had been that autumn day when [Ives] and Annie and the kids had taken a drive upstate and, getting lost, had found an old house that had been built in the 1920s, in the style called "Stockbroker Tudor," and the kind that one saw in ads about happy families with wag-tailed dogs and gardens in the springtime and warm, homey parlors, bountiful tables, and stone fireplaces at Christmas, the kind of place that Ives had illustrated dozens of times--images from "another America" that he had somehow disregarded when it had come to his own family...

Well, either that means that we're going on the Kalahari trip and will get lost, or we're going to miss the dance convention and stay home, in our old house built in the 1890s in the style of Laura Ingalls Wilder.

Saint Marty is really hoping that he isn't stuck in Walnut Grove in October.

Even Laura got out of town every once in a while

November 8: Ten Below Zero, Galway Kinnell, "The Man Splitting Wood in the Daybreak," New Cartoon

After Christmas the thermometer dropped to ten below zero.  Cold settled on the world.  The pasture was bleak and frozen.  The cows stayed in the barn all the time now, except on sunny mornings when they went out and stood in the barnyard in the lee of the straw pile.  The sheep stayed near the barn, too, for protection.  When they were thirsty they ate snow.  The geese hung around the barnyard the way boys hang around a drug store, and Mr. Zuckerman fed them corn and turnips to keep them cheerful.

Yes, when the weather turns cold on the Zuckerman farm, the animals basically do what humans do:  nothing.  They stay inside, where it's warm and safe, venturing outside only when necessary.  To drink water or add to the fertilizer pile, if you know what I mean.

It's been pretty cold today.  Windy and snowy.  There's a couple of inches on the ground now, and there's a winter storm watch in effect for Monday night into Tuesday.  Six inches on the way.  I am not down with winter yet.  I'm still in autumn mode.  Give me piles of leaves, not snow.  At least until after Thanksgiving.

I spent the evening putting up Christmas decorations with my daughter.  Our tree is glowing in the corner of the living room, and our front porch is decked out with candy canes.  Tomorrow night, we will put the garland and decorations on the tree.  Soon, our neighbors will follow suit.  In a couple of weeks, there will be lights up and down our street.  But we were the first.  Not that it's a competition or anything.

I'm beginning to feel old.  I used to love the dark and cold of this time of year.  Not any more.  I prefer July with its mosquitoes and warmth.  I understand the old people who head south in November.  I hate to admit it, but I have reached middle age.  Actually, I surpassed middle age a couple of years ago.  I'm sliding toward old age.  I can barely stay awake for the ten o'clock news.

That's what today's poem from Galway Kinnell is about:  feeling your age.  Realizing you aren't as strong or healthy as you used to be.  You can't shovel snow as fast.  You can't stay up as late.  You look forward to naps.  And you worry about retirement accounts and Social Security.

Saint Marty even watched the Weather Channel for pleasure.

The Man Splitting Wood in the Daybreak

by:  Galway Kinnell

The man splitting wood in the daybreak
looks strong, as though, if one weakened,
one could turn to him and he would help.
Gus Newland was strong. When he split wood
he struck hard, flashing the bright steel
through the air so hard the hard maple
leapt apart, as it's feared marriages will do
in countries reluctant to permit divorce,
and even willow, which, though stacked
to dry a full year, on being split
actually weeps—totem wood, therefore,
to the married-until-death—sunders
with many little lip-wetting gasp-noises.
But Gus is dead. We could turn to our fathers,
but they help us only by the unperplexed
looking-back of the numerals cut into headstones.
Or to our mothers, whose love, so devastated,
can't, even in spring, break through the hard earth.
Our spouses weaken at the same rate we do.
We have to hold our children up to lean on them.
Everyone who could help goes or hasn't arrived.
What about the man splitting wood in the daybreak,
who looked strong? That was years ago. That was me.

Confessions of Saint Marty

November 7: Some Inspiration, Galway Kinnell, "How Could You Not"

It's a cold, snowy night.  My kids are spending the night at grandma's house.  The late news is on, and I'm tired.  Ready for bed.

I'm still feeling a little melancholy.  Not as bad as a few days ago.  Weekends always lift my spirits.  I have a lot to accomplish over the next couple of days.  I have to get my daughter her pointe shoes for ballet.  I have to put up my Christmas tree.  And I have to work on my annual Christmas essay.

So, I need some inspiration.  I'm going to read some good poets.  Watch a couple Christmas movies, probably It's A Wonderful Life and A Charlie Brown Christmas.  Maybe I'll even throw a little Kenny G on the CD player.

Saint Marty will start with the Galway Kinnell poem below.  It's a beautiful elegy for the great poet Jane Kenyon, late wife of Donald Hall.

How Could You Not

by:  Galway Kinnell

-- for Jane Kenyon

It is a day after many days of storms.
Having been washed and washed, the air glitters;
small heaped cumuli blow across the sky; a shower
visible against the firs douses the crocuses.
We knew it would happen one day this week.
Now, when I learn you have died, I go
to the open door and look across at New Hampshire
and see that there, too, the sun is bright
and clouds are making their shadowy ways along the horizon;
and I think: How could it not have been today?
In another room, Keri Te Kanawa is singing
the Laudate Dominum of Mozart, very faintly,
as if in the past, to those who once sat
in the steel seat of the old mowing machine,
cheerful descendent of the scythe of the grim reaper,
and drew the cutter bars little
reciprocating triangles through the grass
to make the stalks lie down in sunshine.
Could you have walked in the dark early this morning
and found yourself grown completely tired
of the successes and failures of medicine,
of your year of pain and despair remitted briefly
now and then by hope that had that leaden taste?
Did you glimpse in first light the world as you loved it
and see that, now, it was not wrong to die
and that, on dying, you would leave
your beloved in a day like paradise?
Near sunrise did you loosen your hold a little?
How could you not already have felt blessed for good,
having these last days spoken your whole heart to him,
who spoke his whole heart to you, so that in the silence
he would not feel a single word was missing?
How could you not have slipped into a spell,
in full daylight, as he lay next to you,
with his arms around you, as they have been,
it must have seemed, all your life?
How could your cheek not press a moment to his cheek,
which presses itself to yours from now on?
How could you not rise and go, with all that light
at the window, those arms around you, and the sound,
coming or going, hard to say, of a single-engine
plane in the distance that no one else hears?

November 5: Looking for Blessings, Galway Kinnell, "Saint Francis and the Sow"

I do this when I feel overwhelmed.  Count my blessings.  Watch my son sleep.  Listen to my daughter sing along with the radio.  Put my arm around my wife in the middle of the night.  Remind myself that happiness is all around me.  Like a tulip bulb buried in the ground, waiting for spring.

Blessings are about possibility and hope.  It's about looking past day-to-day ugliness and finding love.

Saint Marty is feeling a little less overwhelmed this evening.  And a lot more loved.  

Saint Francis and the Sow

by:  Galway Kinnell

The bud
stands for all things,
even those things that don't flower,
for everything flowers, from within, of self-blessing;
though sometimes it is necessary
to reteach a thing its loveliness,
to put a hand on its brow
of the flower
and retell it in words and in touch
it is lovely
until it flowers again from within, of self-blessing;
as St. Francis
put his hand on the creased forehead
of the sow, and told her in words and in touch
blessings of earth on the sow, and the sow
began remembering all down her thick length,
from the earthen snout all the way
through the fodder and slops to the spiritual curl of
the tail,
from the hard spininess spiked out from the spine
down through the great broken heart
to the blue milken dreaminess spurting and shuddering
from the fourteen teats into the fourteen mouths sucking
and blowing beneath them:
the long, perfect loveliness of sow.

Loveliness and hope

November 3: Poet of the Week, Galway Kinnell, "To Christ Our Lord"

I learned on Saturday that one of my favorite poets had died:  Galway Kinnell.  Kinnell had been suffering from leukemia and was 87 years old.

This news depressed me quite a bit.  I grew up reading his work, memorizing his poems.  Actually, I wanted to be Galway Kinnell when I grew up.  His language is pristine and beautiful and honest.  None of the postmodern tomfoolery for him.

That's why I chose him as the Poet of the Week.  I want you to fall in love with him the way I did.  Fully.  Deeply.

Saint Marty is going to be in mourning for a little while over this loss.

To Christ Our Lord

by:  Galway Kinnell

The legs of the elk punctured the snow's crust
And wolves floated lightfooted on the land
Hunting Christmas elk living and frozen.
Indoors snow melted in a basin and a woman basted
A bird spread over coals by its wings and head.

Snow had sealed the windows; candles lit
The Christmas meal. The special grace chilled
The cooked bird, being long-winded and the room cold.
During the words a boy thought, is it fitting
To eat this creature killed on the wing?

For he had shot it himself, climbing out
Alone on snowshoes in the Christmas dawn,
The fallen snow swirling and the snowfall gone,
Heard its throat scream as the rifle shouted,
Watched it drop, and fished from the snow the dead.

He had not wanted to shoot. The sound
Of wings beating into the hushed morning
Had stirred his love, and the things
In his gloves froze, and he wondered,
Even famishing, could he fire? Then he fired.

Now the grace praised his wicked act. At its end
The bird on the plate
Stared at his stricken appetite.
There had been nothing to do but surrender,
To kill and to eat; he ate as he had killed, with wonder.


At night on snowshoes on the drifting field
He wondered again, for whom had love stirred?
The stars glittered on the snow and nothing answered.
Then the Swan spread her wings, cross of the cold north,
The pattern and mirror of the acts of earth. 

 

Good night, sweet prince

November 16: Cheating, Galway Kinnell, "To Christ Our Lord"

I am going to cheat this weekend.  Since I am trying to finish my Christmas essay, I'm not writing a new poem.  Instead, I'm going to include one of my favorite poems in this post.  It's by the poet Galway Kinnell, and, every time I read it, it leaves me breathless.

I'm not going to analyze it.  I'm not going to discuss its themes or imagery.  This poem just needs to be read and experienced.

Saint Marty will never write anything this good.

To Christ Our Lord

by:  Galway Kinnell

The legs of the elk punctured the snow's crust
And wolves floated lightfooted on the land
Hunting Christmas elk living and frozen.
Indoors snow melted in a basin and a woman basted
A bird spread over coals by its wings and head.

Snow had sealed the windows; candles lit
The Christmas meal.  The special grace chilled
The cooked bird, being long-winded and the room cold.
During the words a boy thought, is it fitting
To eat this creature killed on the wing?

For he had shot it himself, climbing out
Alone on snowshoes in the Christmas dawn,
The fallen snow swirling and the snowfall gone,
Heard its throat scream as the rifle shouted,
Watched it drop, and fished from the snow the dead.

He had not wanted to shoot.  The sound
Of wings beating into the hushed morning
Had stirred his love, and the things
In his gloves froze, and he wondered,
Even famishing, could he fire?  Then he fired.

Now the grace praised his wicked act.  At its end
The bird on the plate
Stared at his stricken appetite.
There had been nothing to do but surrender,
To kill and to eat; he ate as he had killed, with wonder.

At night on snowshoes on the drifting field
He wondered again, for whom had love stirred?
The stars glittered on the snow and nothing answered.
Then the Swan spread her wings, cross of the cold north,
The pattern and mirror of the acts of earth.

Just three words for Galway:  A.  MA.  ZING.